after baulking at the extraordinary cost of a V8 exhaust system from luego (or anywhere else in fact!) I decided I was going to make my own, I'm going for a header style like the dax rush exhaust cos I like the shape and the pipe lengths come out pretty close to each other. I just wanted to post a few pics and tell people that its not that difficult a job (so far anyway) and your exhaust system can be cheap and look good

Spend so foar on parts is:
9 x 90 deg welding bends at ~4 quid each
3m of 304 stainless pipe @40 quid
set of rover v8 manifold flanges from ebay ~20 quid
2 x stainless 4-1 collectors from custom chrome ~50 quid

assuming I can pick myself up a pair of motorbike silencers for less than £100 I think I can make the whole system for less than 500 quid, and its going to be a system I'm really happy with not just a bit of flexible pipe from a stock manifold into a silencer!

pics so far:
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another:
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last one:
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Wish I could weld stainless

Looks good but just remember you may have to take them off one day! Looks a bit tight coming out of the side panel , suspect the torque reaction from the engine will cause manifold to hit .

the holes are gonna get bigger I just didn't want to cut them too large to start with, the external pipes arent connected to the internal ones yet so it all comes apart at the moment.

I'm really not an experienced welder thats why I'm posting to show what anyone could end up with with some time and care.

quote:

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Originally posted by marcjagman
Wish I could weld stainless

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Building your own is sooo much more satisfying........ imho, that is looking good.

Mine came in at around £125 so you should see change from your £500 budget.

Cheers Mark

looking good that can i ask what welders wire and gas people are using to weld stainless i fancy having a go

Without it at hand, all I can tell you is it's inconel rod (tig) and pure Argon gas (cos that's all we ever use!)

There's a few coded welders on here, who'll tell you more

ATB

Simon

Where do you get the pipe and the preformed bends from?

Also how do you weld the 4-1 collector on to the end of the 2x2 array of down pipes... I can't see how you could possibly get the welding torch to all the required joints... or is there a trick to it?

Ta,

Mark

Plenty of places on ebay sell bends, just search for stainless tube and have a look in thier shops.

Welding a 2:1 4:1 is easy enough, for a 4:1 as an example..

Make a plate like a vending machine 4 hole cup holder, ie square'ish with four holes to suit the incoming pipes !

Push this over the ends of the tubes and weld each one in turn (effectively from the inside), grind down the corners back to a couple of mm of the tubes the tubes (a slight ridge is good to stop gases going backward).

Now get a piece of the exit tube and quarter down its length (except for the last couple of mm, then spread the end open enough for it to go over the four combined pipes and weld fom the outside.

Make up 4 triangles for the infills left and weld in.

To finish cut the exit of the collector flush and weld on the exit tube.

Flush ending tubes into a collector work far more effectively than bends merged into one, although a little more work required to produce.

Regards Mark

http://www.hpe.co.uk/

Good company.. reasonable prices.