Stainless turbo manifold from scratch

[code109]

Hi all, have been in the process of making a manifold as described in the title. It's nearly done now so thought I'd make a little thread for it in case people were interested

First step was to buy a tig welder and learn how to tig weld! Haha

Bought a load of butt weld pipes from eBay and used an old flange I had.
Cut and positioned them:


My first couple of goes at welding tig


Think I'll get my coded welder friend to get things started lol

[code109]

Whilst I waited for my friend to do that, I got on with things that had less pressure on them, namely the downpipe form the turbo...

V-band welded to the first stainless section:




And welded as much as I could without it being on the car for measurements:

[code109]

Friend dropped this off to me!!!!


Skimmed it flat in work that night:

[code109]

Just need to cut these parts out:


Et viola:


Cut and stick two bits of stainless angle together:


And weld a T3 housing flange to the result:


And stick that to the manifold:

[code109]

How it looked so far:




Just need this here now:

[code109]

Welded the wastegate pipe and flange on:




Just needs dump pipe welded to the downpipe now, and then I can put it on the car and finish the downpipe, and put a bung in for the O2 sensor:






That's as far as I've got atm, hopefully get more done tonight
Craig

[edwardbear]

Very impressive. What's it being fitted to?

[drake1994]

I'm hoping you and your mate purged the manifold when it was being welded for your sake,

[code109]

Yes was all back purged don't want any black curse word shattering my turbine!

[LAndy]

Sorry for the amateur question but what does the purging do?

[code109]

With tig welding, the argon gas coming out the nozzle shields the tungsten tip and filler rod and weld itself as it cools, flooding it with argon prevents air from contacting it all, stopping it from oxidizing

If you're welding pipe like this, the weld will penetrate and burn though the metal to the other side, which, if it isn't protected by argon, will oxidize, go all curse word and possibly crack later on! So filling the tubes with argon stops that

[code109]

Also if there's oxidization inside the manifold, it's possible little bits could chip of and go into the turbine of the turbo which wouldn't end well at all

[LAndy]

Thanks for that!

[drake1994]

It goes all black and scaley where you burn through a backing gas stops this

[code109]

Just trial fitted stuff tonight so I know where to weld the dump pipe to the downpipe... fits quite well I think

[hario]

Nice#!