aluminum charge piping
 

Anyone using this? It seems like it could work pretty well as far as disapating heat. If I could find some mandrel bends I could just cut and braze as needed. I could even get a bunch of cheap intakes off ebay and use them. It would be a little more expensive than steel but I think the bling factor would more than make up for it. Plus, there might even be some additional performance. Any input?

Re:aluminum charge piping
 

walls kind of thin, but it should work.

Re:aluminum charge piping
 

disepate heat?Aluminum is a really good heat conductor.It will not disepate heat.It will draw heat.If your running an intercooler the acool aluminum will draw the under hood heat.

I would stick to good old 16 guage steel.It seems to keep cooler IMO :-\

Re:aluminum charge piping
 

i thought that it would disapate heat, like when you heat it up with a torch it cools faster that steel

Re:aluminum charge piping
 

That is true but figure this, itll also suffer from heat soak from the engine and everything else (turbo... wink wink) thats in the engine bay. If you need serious bling factor go stainless, shines better, doesnt conduct heat as well as mild steel, and even mild steel doesnt conduct heat nearly as well as aluminum. Plus fitting charge pipes is easier with stainless because its easier to weld than aluminum...

Re:aluminum charge piping
 

it may cooler faster, but that means that it heats up quicker.


so it would take alot less time for it to get hot and stay hot than mild steel would, but then when u turn of the car it will cool quicker.

now, which is more important??? :o

Re:aluminum charge piping
 

a couple of pieces of my ghetto ass charge pipe setup are from old cold air intakes. works fine.

Re:aluminum charge piping
 

i guess i'll just go with mild steel and hit it with some mexican chrome for the bling ;) i thought it would look pretty nice if it came out well, plus it would give me a chance to show off my brazing. sometimes when i bored i cut soda cans in half and braze them back together :P

Re:aluminum charge piping
 

I try and weld beer cans to ---- all the time.. it rarely works. The other thing I do is try and get the fire in the burn pit hot enough so it melts the beer cans.

Re:aluminum charge piping
 

it is pretty difficult to do. its tricky to get the can hot enough, but not too hot. i actually had some really old guy teach me how a while back. i'll try to post some pics when i get a chance.

Re:aluminum charge piping
 

Aluminum is good for keeping the weight down.

Re:aluminum charge piping
 

actually i am under the impression that aluminum takes longer to heat up. when welding aluminum a much higher amperage setting is used. this is the reason why a lot of people will heat the pieces in a furnace before hand so that it is easier to weld as it won't dissipate the heat as quickly. i do agree that aluminum dissipates changes in temperature far superior to ms or ss- hence the reason it is used for all intercoolers, rads... i don't see any disadvantage to using it for charge piping, i am!

Re:aluminum charge piping
 

What are intercoolers made out of??? :o

Re:aluminum charge piping
 

So is 18 gauge tubing to thin to use for intercooler piping?Sorry to tread jack

Re:aluminum charge piping
 

because its lighter and stronger than copper. if copper was stornger, you ic would be made of it.

Re:aluminum charge piping
 

If Intercoolers were copper, they would be hella more expensive

Re:aluminum charge piping
 

okay let me set some ground welding rules down.

the process of heating the metals up first before welding is very helpfull in creating strength of the bonded metals. On top of that it prevents warping, when you introduce the high current of welding to whatever then it will want to warp after that much heat. If everything is more of a constant temperature then the bonding will hold stronger.

The advantage of the Tungsten Inert Gas heat gun is it operates at a frequency, heating up the metal area where the filler rod is going into.

Damn, haven't any of you dicks ever welded cast iron before?

Re:aluminum charge piping
 

i'd buy one