Is $1k too much for charge pipes?
 

That's what I got quoted for labor and material, and I'm wondering if it's a decent price.
Welding aluminum is certainly not in my skill set, so I gotta source this work out, but, am I being overcharged?

Good shops should be around $100-150/hr, which means they quoted you ~6hrs labor. That’s 3/side without any material, couplers, clamps, fittings, etc. I’d say that’s very reasonable, as long as you’re happy with the finished look, quality, and fitment. Make sure you go in with as much detail to what you want as possible. Nothing worse than giving no details then pointing out everything you’d do differently once it’s done.

FWIW I don't have a TIG welder, but I do have a cheap flux core welder and I made my intercooler pipes with steel tubing and welded them myself. They turned out great. If you can MIG weld then that could be a good option. If you can't, well learning on thin wall steel tubing would be difficult so probably a bad idea.

Thanks, curly!
Exactly what I wanted to hear!

I've seen guy's work, and it's outstanding.

Thanks for the info!

Seems cheap to me.

Ya, I recently quoted someone for welding in a flange and building a downpipe. I was easily at 700 bucks without supplies or parts. One off stuff is real difficult no matter how simple it seems.

Proper pipe fitting is time consuming, so is proper aluminum prep to weld. The amount of welding gas you use on tig machine is pretty astounding too. I go through 85 cf bottles @ 2500 psil ike nothing.

What spec steel tubing did you use, and where did you get it? Did you just use exhaust pipe? Were you able to buy off-the-shelf mandrel bent 90’s? This seems like a nice idea, I’m getting tired of boost leaks and the total weight difference can’t be more than 5lb compared to aluminum.

why not use existing intercooler piping solutions like flyin miata or cxracing at half the cost?

or diy the piping with a universal 2" and 2.5" pipes and bends? i have a modified cxracing setup with 6 clamps and never had boost leaks

I bought the tubing from mandrel-bends.com Just a bunch of 2.5" OD steel tubing, all off the shelf stuff and cut and welded it into what I needed. First pic you can see a couple weld beads at the top where I welded it together. Painted it after so it don't rust and looks nice. They hold 40 PSI no leaks no problems, so works good.

https://i.imgur.com/luPKbedl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/bsEFOoTl.jpg

Looks tidy.

Did you coat the inside of the pipes in any way?
I'd be worried about non-stainless steel rusting over time and dropping flakes of rust etc into the engine.

There's definitely a difference between professionally made custom pieces, and the DIY/OTC route. I've fitted half a dozen of FM's silicone pieces, and although they work great, I'd rather use custom pipes, and the oil drain hardline is another story. I think only one of those setups had AC, and that car was a nightmare. It takes a little more time and skill, but worth it to fit your sway bar, your intake manifold, your throttle body, and your intercooler perfectly.

I didn't. I've run steel pipes in the past for years with no observable rust, so it wasn't an issue.

I would think the oil/gas vapor from the motor and turbo would do a pretty good job inhibiting rust.

I would be alarmed if I found oil/gas in my charge pipes. How is it getting there in your setup?

you should not have oil or gas in the charge pipe. Oil isnt good for detonation prevention and gas sounds like an opportunity for a top fuel supercharger type explosion.

Draining oil out of bmw intercoolers is practically SOP for oil changes. There’s oil in there, maybe not BMW levels, but it’s there.

In a stock turbo car I can see that since crankcase vapors are usually routed to the intake. I think most of us avoid that for the reasons Ryan mentioned.

Turbo seal issues would be the primary reason I reckon.

Yes, for the purposes of this forum I probably should have just said oil vapors and not gas. If you're running a stock-style PCV system then you would have both gas and oil from crankcase blowby going into the intake tract. If you're not, then it would just be oil seepage past the seals in the turbo. I don't imagine it's much, but I also don't imagine that it takes much to inhibit rust when the exposure to water and corrosives would also be very limited.

This has been my experience. When I did my first turbo setup I did steel pipes, and after a few thousand miles, all the pipes had a very light coat of oil on them. Never filled the intercooler or anything like that, but it was a garrett turbo with journal bearings, and I guess a bit of oil got into the compressor and kept the pipes from rusting.