Hmmmm, I got 3/8 from amazon. Warped horribly while welding. Oh well hopefully they work for now. Plan to run at low pressure this spring and summer at the track and that should find every issue pretty quickly.

Looks good!

Try to practice the welding... Some looks tig, the rest migged?

Did you have a great sync when you welded it? They warp uncontrollably when you don't.

If the pipes didn't fit well before you welded, they will have even more issues after welding. That's why you hear so much about fit up in the fab world.

On it's own yes, a full triangle is always better. But in this situation it would have been redundant and just added weight as the structure between the hinges creates the vertical. If anything, I would have added a piece perpendicular to the bottom tube up to the top hinge.

All TIG. The fit was really bad. Lots of big gaps. So we used a ton of filler.

The warpage was mostly me forgetting to bolt it to something.

The part between the hinges without the brace is way stiffer than the other parts. The structure of the unibody is really stiff there which is different from the rest of the fender.

Edit: oops you totally said that in the post above. Its too early.

its all good lol, thanks for backing me up. but yes, to add to my point, the structure behind the firewall where the hinges bolt is substantial. the idea is to tie that section into the shock tower structures, or as close to, as the area between them is floppy.

Also I'm pretty sure that the forces the fender brace are countering are when the front sees compression and flexes up. If this is the case ten the forces will directly in line with the tube. Am I right about my analysis of the forces or do fender braces serve a different purpose?

that is exactly my thought on how they work.

the upper tube should be in compression with the forces directed from front to rear, and the lower show be in combo bending/tension, or maybe just bending- upwards.

edit: actually the lower is a total guess without knowing where the pivot point is.

My grandfather and I made some coolant spacers, as I thought they would be a good starter project for me to try my hand at some machine work. And I enjoyed spending the time with him, as they live ~7hrs away and we don't make it up there as often as I'd like to. I have the equipment local to me to make more, just needed some help getting my feet wet. Took it slow, measured lots and took slim layers at a time. Super pleased with how they turned out. Just need to machine the bung and tig it on.

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I found out that I have a local machine shop that'll face both flanges for $80. That aint bad. When I made my manifold the first time I considered doing it, went to go fixture it in the milling machine and said fuck this its too much work, I'm going to go drink instead.

My manifold did crack though. The location was not someplace I was anticipating, so I'm going to blame it on poor welding.

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But I fixed it and braced it. The outer fix weld looks a little shitty because I didnt do a good enough job getting the ceramic coating off.

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Nice work. I wish I had the space for full sized machines.

that and DROs FTW. what i would do for a decent DRO setup for the lathe and mill.

I don't like that style of manifold because the mitres required and quite sophisticated to get fitting right On cylinders 2 and 3 besides the compromise from a flow perspective from that design.


If the flanges are bolted, even with bad fit up you can still get it to look nice... But there is a high potential for warping with use if you didn't purge and get a full penetration weld.


Did you use a gas lens and have post flow set? That will keep your welds looking better if you cover the weld in argon post-flow.

M

No gas lense and no post flow. I'm relatively new to welding and my friend whose TIG I was borrowing does it as a hobby. When I get my own TIG I will be doing a lot more research.

The welds look like that because of no post flow

I'm not sure how your work was secured when you welded it, but you definitely want that flange bolted to something during the weld to avoid warping.

It was tacked in about 10 places around the flange.

Did he make your wife (his precious daughter) wear a medieval chastity belt while dating?

If so, touche!

lol, so?