i was thinking of making my own exhaust for my 83.
debating on adding a turbo.

i dont have any experience with custom fabbing exhaust parts. what type of metal would be best for making a manifold (torbo or non turbo, i may go either way), downpipe, and the whole lot. ive seen racing beat headers and they seem to be made from some fairly thick stuff. and im sure the stock manifold is ungodly thick. this isnt going to be an expensive project as the rest of the car is a hunk of crap, so no "titanium" answers please =)

 

If you have a welder you could use schedule 40 water or gas pipe. It's nice and thick and I know it makes good turbo headers.

 

If you do, get it down to a science and folks here (priced right) will eat it up! Including me, I would love to add a turbo to either of mine!

 

Use steel or stainless steel. The flanges are 1/2" thick(I think) and the tubes are 1/8", but they could be a bit thinner.

 

steel all the way

 

titanium seems to fare well against heat. financially, stainless steel

 

do you have the tools?

your going to need a mandel bender so you get the nice smooth bends.

you can go to a shop and have it done.

then you will need a welder? there are many types.

im assuming a mig welder is what will be used?

 

speacking of welders.. i need to get me one of them... they can come in handy.

 

http://www.sdsefi.com/techheader.htm

Have fun with this! It's a great page for the cheap turbo projects. I might do one someday.
Grant

 

thanks for the replies.

i have access to welding and machine tools. the main thing is that i dont know what gauge or ?alloy? to use.
perhaps alloy isnt the right word. the type of metal to be used for the project. i can get it bent, i suppose, or get surplus pre-bent segments. i wondered about the heat involved. surely a non-turbo exhaust system would not need to stand up to as much heat as a turbo system would. the manifold/headers in stock systems are usually of a much thicker (denser?) metal than the normal pipes. is this a typical durability issue? how thick must the header/manifold be and how far back must it be so? i dont think i could make this a commercial project. its more of a learning experiment. ill go read the links now.. hehe thanks again.

 

ignore the questions i just repeated even though i already got answers to them. hahaha