Copper IC piping?
 

Ran across this just now and it seems like it has some real potential to be put to use on here:

http://www.autospeed.com/cms/A_2540/article.html

It seems there are lots of advantages in cost, local avalibility of bends, and extra heat-shedding on the hotside. Downsides are that it is arguably more ugly and the coldside piping will absorb more ambient heat if not insulated.

how much would it cost to braze the pipes together?...here in fresno, the local hardware(lowes, home depot, ace) i havent seen copper piping...unless im not looking hard enough!!!

Copper has gotten ridiculous expensive recently.

Search on the user name Darth Maulata...I believe he had some, if not all, of his intercooler pipes as brazed copper.

Copper is heavy and expensive.

I see no benefit to using it over mild steel unless you don't have a welder and absolutely MUST DIY rather than fabbing it all up, marking it and bringing it to an exhaust shop for welding.

if you build your charge pipes out of copper a mexican will come in the middle of the night to steal it.

I think Porsche is using copper... at the compressor outlets if memory serves.

Aluminium seems like the best bang for your buck concerning weight/heat transfer ratio. same deal with CPU heatsinks. copper heatsinks are better, but they weight so much that its dangerous to mount the motherboard vertical, the heatsink might fall off. aluminium is the choice for all the OEMs. good enough to get the job done.

it would be cool to see someone try it...but i wouldnt do it...GL

Indeed. While copper tube and fittings are readily avaliable in the 2" to 2.5" sizes that interest us, they are ludicrously expensive. For the same cost you can pick up an equal configuration of mandrel-bent aluminim elbows and silicone couplers from an eBay-type outfit such as vecco. Much lighter weight, much easier to assemble.

If you really wanted to go wild with copper, the intercooler itself would be the place to do it. And yet I can't recall seeing any of the major players in the field doing it. Wonder if this tells us something...

indeed, lol

Easier to assemble is another matter Joe. Brazing and sweating copper is dead nutz easy dude. TIG'ing aluminum etc is abit tougher.

True. I was making a comparison between brazed copper and silicone-joined aluminum. Not an absolutely fair comparison, but a simple one.

Although it adds cost and potentially failure points, I like the ease of servicability afforded by silicone couplers. When I need to remove a part of the plumbing, it's just a matter of turning a couple of screws and lifting out an elbow or two. Having the entire coldside and hotside sections built as a single long piece of brazed or welded pipe makes this sort of thing marginally more tedious.

Silicone couplers also have the advantage of building a certain degree of flexability into the pipes.

it would be expensive as hell for all that piping. Copper has high scrap value

Copper pipe comes in many gauges. The thinner wall stuff wouldn't weigh much and is less expensive. The PSI ratings are way more than we need even on the thinnest stuff. It could be really functional and after it turns green will look unreal ghetto fabbed. The CR guy with the rusty fenders and trunk would love this!

I'd polish that shit and clear coat it... would look bad ass.

esp with a mahogany valve cover.

mild steel would rust right? it would have to be stainless or aluminum to have any durabillity down here :td:

aluminized steel, or powder coated mild will live a long and happy life as IC piping.

I'd think that after it turns green, some of the heat-transfer characteristics that supposedly make it preferable to polished aluminum would be lost, no?

the only reasion they stoped using copper in the automotive industry is cuz of cost a copper rad will shed more heat then an aluminum one ...but the cost is way more ... why do u think they use plastic end tanks now??? not because it works better its cheaper ...