hodge Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 Is there a downside or any potential issues of using stainless steel for my intercooler charge pipe from turbo. I run full 4" intercooler pipework which reduces into a small section of 3.5" to the turbo via a V-band flange. The reason I ask is, I already have a 3.5" stainless v-band flange sitting in my toolbox so all I need to buy is the bit of pipe, instead of having to buy an alloy v-band and a pipe. Cheers John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Golfpro Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 It is going to be much heavier than an aluminium one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hodge Posted December 20, 2012 Author Share Posted December 20, 2012 It is going to be much heavier than an aluminium one. I don't really care about weight, I'll just turn the boost up Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TBDevelopments Posted December 23, 2012 Share Posted December 23, 2012 can't see a problem, i've built many very high power 3sgte cars and fabricate my intercooler pipe work from stainless and never an issue. other bonus is you can polish it and it stays that way over alloy which needs constant polishing to stay shiny. Tim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j.oe Posted December 23, 2012 Share Posted December 23, 2012 There's no problem at all in using stainless steel for charge piping. The only disadvantage is that it's heavier. And it's much harder to form a flange to it's end preventing hoses to slip off. Jürgen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hodge Posted December 24, 2012 Author Share Posted December 24, 2012 I've already ordered some alloy parts to make up a pipe guys. Jamie has also offered me a ready made pipe made from alloy. Thanks all for the advice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TBDevelopments Posted December 24, 2012 Share Posted December 24, 2012 There's no problem at all in using stainless steel for charge piping. The only disadvantage is that it's heavier. And it's much harder to form a flange to it's end preventing hoses to slip off. Jürgen i normally just run a thick bead of weld around the ends to create that raised section to stop hoses pulling apart Tim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hodge Posted December 24, 2012 Author Share Posted December 24, 2012 i normally just run a thick bead of weld around the ends to create that raised section to stop hoses pulling apart Tim This is what I've done on all my 4" intercooler hoses. Works a treat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TBDevelopments Posted December 24, 2012 Share Posted December 24, 2012 yep never had any issues so far Tim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j.oe Posted December 25, 2012 Share Posted December 25, 2012 Hi Tim I also already did so. But first it's hard to melt a weld bed to the end of a thin cross section. And although @ my tuned diesel car the hoses always slipped of, 'til i took a hammer and forged a flange to each end rising 3mm at least. Cheers Jürgen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TBDevelopments Posted December 26, 2012 Share Posted December 26, 2012 are you using tig or mig? when i did mine i Tig'd it using a 2mm wire and low heat, just enough to melt it onto the pipe over actually it bleeding away in the weld pool. Another trick is if your having serious pressure holding problems is to weld 2 little boses, 1 on each pipe and then connect it with a bar that bolts into place. This means the silicone is just holding the air inside the pipe creating a seal and the metal bar is stopping them pulling away from each other and out of the silicone connector. Did this on some of the drag car setups on every silicone connection, never had a problem as we had same issues as you with hoses coming apart over 2.5bar of boost pressure. Tim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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