Turbo6Smackdown
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Dec 31, 2005
- Messages
- 6,110
Ok, who here welds for a living? And I don't mean production welding, on just one style of welder. I need a mad scientist, that experiments constantly. Turbofab? Jason? Shane? Jay?
I have a CAST exhaust manifold, for my other forced induction 3.8, and it's cracked as well. But I already had it halfway ported, before I found the cracks. (they were pretty hard to spot)
I'm assuming, that the bulk of the repair jobs we see fail, is due to the rapid & extreme heat cycling manifolds go through, during their life cycle. So a local exhaust shop confirmed what I had already been thinking. They have to be heated up pretty hot, as a whole, THEN welded on, THEN slow cooled as a whole.
Though which type of welding would be best, I don't know. A welding shop said they brazed them, with good success. I asked him what do you heat it up to, when you braze, and he said around 900 degrees. But, isn't our exhaust gas temps at the header, somewhere around 1600 degrees? Is that going to work?
Here's my dilemma. I'm trying to mod my daily driver on the cheap, but don't want to have to do it twice. My fear is, that someone's going to fix this, I'm going to have it extreme sterling coated by jet hot, then it's going to crack, and I'm going to be right back where I started last month... Can someone confirm, A. that brazing will/will not work? and B. suggest a tried and proven method then?
I have a CAST exhaust manifold, for my other forced induction 3.8, and it's cracked as well. But I already had it halfway ported, before I found the cracks. (they were pretty hard to spot)
I'm assuming, that the bulk of the repair jobs we see fail, is due to the rapid & extreme heat cycling manifolds go through, during their life cycle. So a local exhaust shop confirmed what I had already been thinking. They have to be heated up pretty hot, as a whole, THEN welded on, THEN slow cooled as a whole.
Though which type of welding would be best, I don't know. A welding shop said they brazed them, with good success. I asked him what do you heat it up to, when you braze, and he said around 900 degrees. But, isn't our exhaust gas temps at the header, somewhere around 1600 degrees? Is that going to work?
Here's my dilemma. I'm trying to mod my daily driver on the cheap, but don't want to have to do it twice. My fear is, that someone's going to fix this, I'm going to have it extreme sterling coated by jet hot, then it's going to crack, and I'm going to be right back where I started last month... Can someone confirm, A. that brazing will/will not work? and B. suggest a tried and proven method then?
