A Bit More Progress

[choppinczech]

I finally got these all tacked. It was some work getting around the steering.

I ended up using 2", 2 1/2", 3", 4" and 6" radius bends.

 

[Gerry]

Great job. Even more impressed you matched the other side.

Really need to be chromed to do them justice.

 

[choppinczech]

Thanks Gerry, the plan is this high temp ceramic coating.

Automotive Ceramic and Powder Coatings | Polished Aluminum Ceramic Coating | Rukse Coatings

 

[Spanky]

Those look great! How do they sound?

 

[fletcherson]

Nice! Good job, pleanty of clearance around the starter too...

 

[2old2fast]

I see frame mounts/supports at the collecters , are these flexible or is your engine mounted solid ?

 

[butch27]

Just beautiful work.

 

[choppinczech]

I see frame mounts/supports at the collecters , are these flexible or is your engine mounted solid ?

Those are just temporary to hold the collectors in place while building the headers.

I'll have some high temp grommeted mounts attached further back in front of the crossmember.

 

[AusBucket]

That's seriously nice work on those extractors, but then it just mirrors the work on the rest of the car. I tips me lid.

 

[gif]

 

[Intrepid]

Damn straight.

 

[choppinczech]

Damn straight.

Thanks guys. I'm stitch welding the seams now with .023 mig wire. Starting with the toughest, twisty #7 tube. It's got like 12 seams.

I figure if I can get that one looking decent, the others with only 3-4 seams should be easy.

This is the latest finish I'm looking at. NitroPlate’s Bright Finish in Nashville.



I have to get these headers really smooth. The ceramic finish doesn't fill or hide flaws.

 

[benT]

Choppin: hate to burst your bubble, but NitroPlate no longer coats non-production headers. They only coat for header manufacturers. The headers in your picture are from The FabShop here in Indy. Our shop does now the polished ceramic coating for them.

As you said, the smoother your pipes are, the shinier they will be. The headers are polished in a vibratory polisher filled with little ceramic beads. Imperfections smaller than the smallest beads can't get polished out. Also, the farther apart the tubes are, the better the finish as you can get good spray coverage when applying, and the polishing beads can get in and around the tubes for polishing.

There is only 3 companies making the coating you are looking at. One is propriatery-Jet Hot, and the other 2 are CermaKrome by Techline, and Cerakote Glacier Chrome by NIC. All ceramic applicators are using one of these. We prefer the Techline product for the polished applications.

There are several quality shops on the west coast that apply these. Caps Brite Hot in Fresno does a lot of cermakrome and has a good reputation. There are lots of guys ceramic coating, but most don't do the polished finish due to the temps required to cure (above 650) and the polishing equipment necessary. If you want to ship them to Indy, We'd love to coat these up for you. PM me if you have any questions regarding ceramic coating.

 

[choppinczech]

If you want to ship them to Indy, We'd love to coat these up for you. PM me if you have any questions regarding ceramic coating.

Awesome! Thanks Ben.

 

[Gerry]

Just a little tip on cleaning up welds on pipes. My S Steel pipes had 2 welds in each. I started with an electric power file (about $50) and took off most of the welds. Then it got interesting. I research pipe polishers and after falling over with the costs I decided to have a think about how I could do it myself. This is what I came up with which proved to be very effective. I ordered a couple of rolls of production paper in different grits




Then simply made a loop out of a length and backed it with parcel tape



Meanwhile I mounted a length of polyurethane round stock on a spindle and cut 4 groves in it.



The rest is self explanatory. Once you have got a little practice under your belt you can guide the loop around bends into tight places, just about anywhere you want. The grit paper wears out before the backing tape gives out. I used a normal mains powered hand drill as the 'power source'



After power file



Once the welds were finished nice and flat I then went over each pipe from top to bottom with the Gerry loop method using another couple of grades of grit paper before I finally polished them on my home polisher. The polisher I bought was about the same cost as I was quoted for a professional to polish them for me, but it has since done a lot of other work.
Hope this may help.

 

[Gerry]

Oh I just remembered, I made a smaller version of the red ploy thing with flanges on each end to use the power file belts around the weld areas first, sort of a concentrated effort in a small area. As I have loads of these belts in a wide range of grits it seemed sensible to use them on the hard stuff. Just turned them inside out and ran them with the drill.
G

 

[choppedtop]

Now that thinking outside the box. Good idea Gerry.

 

[choppinczech]

Nice! I'm gonna try the narrow belts with spindle.

The driver's side tubes are done and I'm on to the passenger's side now. I've learned a lot since doing the first tube, and each one gets easier.

I've been welding them up and grinding off most of the welds. Then checking for spots where I didn't get overlap on the stitch welds.





When all of the tubes are done I'll do a final water dunk test to make sure there's no pin holes.

Man, what a ton of work. 2 months and counting.......

 

[one finger john]

CC will there be bungs for air/fuel mixture gauges ?

John

 

[choppinczech]

CC will there be bungs for air/fuel mixture gauges ?

John

Yes, I've got a couple for the collectors.