I bought a intercooler with all the pipes and what not and need it installed. But instead of using hoses and clamps, id like to get the pipes welded together. Someone in socal want to offer their services to help me weld my intercooler pipes? BTW the pipes are aluminum.

 

If you were around seattle i would be more than happy to help. Out of curiosity what turbo/mani do you have.

 

I have the older begi / FM kit, carb legal kit. Garrett 2554

Anyone in Socal that can help me??
I went to visit a shop today and he wanted 600 dollars to weld / install my piping.. I think thats an unreasonable price =\

 

I'm in nor-cal. if you're ever in nor-cal my dad can weld anything together

 

You won't be able to do it completely, you realize that, right? Once welded, a complete pipe won't be able to come out of the car without cutting. You have to use couplers to attach it to the intercooler, turbo, and throttle body. You'll probably want to split up the cold and hot pipes with a coupler or two to avoid cracking, as well as the above mentioned removal issue. By that time you only have a couple joints to weld and might as well just save the $$ and use couplers and clamps. TiG welding is a difficult process and a hard skill that takes time, especially prepping the parts. $600 is about 7-8 hours labor in typical shop time, so that estimate sounds about right.

 

from start to finish my whole intercooler install was 5 hours. I could easily crank them out in like 2 if i had a jig made up.

 

Local services around here wanted $100 to weld 4 seams. I had the same idea, and can weld some aluminum myself but holy hell it's annoyingly tough. Not like welding stainless or mild.

Just cut the parts and use markers to label where they need welded and ask WELDING shops how much they'd charge to weld a few seams on your (2", 2.5", 3") pipes. Won't cost much.