Yep I do. We have kits in single and twins for 302 or 351's in the 94-04 chassis.


We use 14 and 16 guage mild steel. Not because it is strong but because it doesn't grow .064 per foot (like stainless 304) when heated to 1000 degrees. When you have tubes all different lengths trying to expand different amounts you get metal fatigue. This leads to broken primary tubes, and broken primary tube welds.

If treadstone would have had a clue he would have told the original poster that his fuel was to fat and timing probably to low. This causes most cases of breaking at the merge. when you take the turbo off and see that nice black soot your not tuned properly. It should be a light grey coating almost a off white.

 

Thanks for your input, i looked at our tune as SAFE

john

 

Yeah my fault. Thinkin' again. Mod motor was in my head for some reason....

 

I'm with you John, it's cheaper to replace a header then 8 pistons. Lol But it is something that people got to keep in mind.

 

The Biggest problem is the Tubes were not capped and purged with Argon making for Very poor strength welds

 

Everything I've read sugaring doesn't make for a weaker weld. Just killes the corrosion resistance. But I've seen theChinese just like to use solar flux instead. Which works also

 

Well guys, this is bad news to me. I just purchased a stainless steel set of hot side pipes for my fox turbo build. They look identical to the ones the ones posted. And I'm near the end of my budget, I guess I'll go ahead and install them unroll I can get a replacement set. Or when they crack.

 

you can buy a hot side from b@gcustom turbo for like 550 or 650 complete. why not sell yours and go with something thats going to last

 

well, i guess i could do that. thanks for the tip!

 

Wow, that is some great info for my first turbo build. Thanks to you and the site for all the paths to stay away from.

 

You'll be farther ahead. Amazing how much "I'll just weld it when it cracks" and "buy the kit and replace everything but the tubing with good parts" I see around the forums.

 

I would almost go far enough to say that even those cheap headers wouldn't crack if they were sent out and stress relieved ( providing the welds were good ) like 10secgoal said they bring to much of the tube mat into the puddle and not enough filler rod, and speaking of filler rod they don't use it they use strips of scrap mat for filler. We have stainless piping systems fabed up for refinerys all the time and every weld has to be stress relieved even on pipe with a 2" wall. We have what we call an AML for pipe going into plants.( Aproved Manufacture's List ) and Japan and China is not on it or allowed for use in the plants becuase of the poor quality of the pipe, it does not meet ASME or ASTM standards. I would almost like to buy a set and send them out to a heat treater to be stress relieved just to see if im right.
Look at the weld on the stainless pipe in the thread i posted ,all of those had to be stress relieved before going in the plant.



https://www.theturboforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=137823.0

 

Holy sheet! thats some beautiful work on the oil line stuff

 

the reason it breaks around the weld is largely due to welding stess's and fatiques the metal to start with,then in a turbo app the heat cycles just compound the problem,(ie,you can mig weld chrome moly,but to much heat from mig welding fatiques the metal and well cause it to fail,thats why its tig welded)you should use a thicker gauge,or better yet iconel stainless steel for longer life,but at some point during the life of the setup cracks may happen due to heat cycles,its the nature of the beast

 

+100000000000000000000000000000000000

 

For a source of 304 for building headers check out acestainless. Got my stuff from them for cheap. Glad to see that someone agrees with me on mild or stainless too. I got mild, and got alot of flack over it. Funny cause alot would say to buy a chinese 304 header that would just need welded time and time again.

 

Go to the Corral and that's the mentality you will see.

 

Mine are made out of mild because I can't weld SS lol, when I can mine will be 321 Isn't 302 good if you have a good welder weld it?

 

Went down this road, same header kit, its been on the car for at least 2-3 years now. 10-15k and i live in Washington where we all no it rains quite a bit. if you like brown looking crappy turbo headers these are for you. i only had to weld the crack on the turbo side once, its held up since. I have been lucky with it as they've held up to the abuse i put them through but, they look bad. also had to grind out some of the header bolt holes to line up on my heads. these are cheaply made with cheap material.

 

I am redoing my headers in 304SS since I know how to TIG know. I think if they are proper thickness, and welded right they will be perfect. I know the DPs on my GTR are stainless. If all else fails I will just put my mild hot side on. You guys also have to remember that companies like UGR, AMS, and LMR use stainless on most if not all of their build.