turbocad's custom fx

as long as you get good penetration, who cares what it all looks like. Just weld it up then grind it down to look 'nice'
The power coat well be nice and will help contain the extra heat :)
 
yeah man, I can weld no problem, always cutting cars in half & welding them back together & stuff, that's one of the things I can do pretty well :smile: the reason I wanted someone else to weld them though is because I don't have a tig welder... if this was thin wall exhaust tubing then the tig would have been much better but with the schedule 10 piping not as important so that's what I'm doing, weld it myself then grind it then ceramic coat it & it'll look fine really...

if I ever redo these in 321SS or better then that I would really want to be tig welded... I just love clean perfect welds, they can be almost like a work of art sometimes... I have a titanium bike frame & just the raw welds on that frame are so beautiful & perfect, nothing like a perfect clean tig weld... I'd love a pair of inconel headers welded like that someday, but I guess I can settle for my more crude prototype headers with ugly welds, it'll look ok when it's done really anyway. if I totally obsess over every minute detail it'll just never get done too, so some things like this are a reasonable compromise I guess & in the end it'll still be nice...
 
hahah for sure - that's one thing I've always wanted to learn, is how to cut a car and put it back together. I can't imagine the alignment that needs to be in place to make sure that it still drives straight once done! haha

I completely agree though, don't rush it, but don't fizz over the little stuff, otherwise it'll take you ages!
Ah the life of a bodyman/mechanic :)
 
TeckniX said:
hahah for sure - that's one thing I've always wanted to learn, is how to cut a car and put it back together. I can't imagine the alignment that needs to be in place to make sure that it still drives straight once done! haha
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I used to know a body guy who spliced together 80's era VW's for resale. Apparently there are alignment tolerances to which these cars have to meet to be deemed "road worthy" but not really any rules about how to achieve these numbers. As an example, he would buy a Jetta that was crashed in the front and another that was crashed in the back, cut them apart and weld the two "good halves" together. He would then put the car on a frame rack and literally stretch it beyond the tolerance so that when the winches were released the frame/body would relax and be within the specs. At that point he would sell them with "salvaged titles". Very sketchy dude this guy... Anyway, I was talking to him about the procedure one day and when the topic of fatigued metal arose I asked him if either his or his wife's Jetta (Both 80's era) was one of these cars. His reply was literally "F*ck no!"
I would hope that everyone doesn't do it that way, but if so it's not so much a matter of maintaining the alignment during the welding as it is a matter of stretching it once the welding is done.
 
headers about done, now I'm starting on wastegates & down pipes... a lot of work but coming out really nice. need this done & out of the shop now:tears: past few weeks have been 6 days a week working till midnight & later... engines been in & out of the car over 20 times by now :shy: hoping it can go in & stay in permanently after this weekend. gonna have my friend go over all the welds with a tig before sending them out for ceramic coating


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Pretty friggin cool AND they fit......Hey, you should have a digital clock readout by each image group indicating the elapsed real time craftsmanship going into this labor of love, probably pretty scary huh?
 
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