intake and exhaust plumbing

[farmallgray]

What do you guys use to replicate the intake and exhaust piping for engine swaps and other custom applications? Evergreen doesn't make solid rod that big and plastic or aluminum tubing is difficult or impossible to bend. Plastruct makes acrylic rod but I have never worked with it. 3/16 would be roughly equal to 4" in scale. I'm thinking maybe 6 gauge aluminium wire which is .162". I could use sprue but its inconsistent and not always round.

[Jim B]

When I swapped out the Caterpillar 3406 for a Cummins NTC350 Big Cam III (well, Big Cam-ish, anyway) I used aluminum tubing for the straight sections. The couplers to the air cleaners are from the kit, and the 90deg elbows are scratchbuilt from Plastruct elbows and strip stock for the ribs.

Here are the elbows before paint:

With this swap, I got lucky & the kit exhaust part fit with just a little tweeking.

[farmallgray]

I didn't know plastruct made elbows. I'll have to check them out.

[Tesla]

When I swapped out the Caterpillar 3406 for a Cummins NTC350 Big Cam III (well, Big Cam-ish, anyway) I used aluminum tubing for the straight sections. The couplers to the air cleaners are from the kit, and the 90deg elbows are scratchbuilt from Plastruct elbows and strip stock for the ribs.

Here are the elbows before paint:

With this swap, I got lucky & the kit exhaust part fit with just a little tweeking.

Nice work!

[Superpeterbilt]

I use two methods. I made myself a little bender and buy .187 aluminum rod by the foot. I bend it and polish it out, and hogg out the end with a dremel tool to simulate the hollow. I also use plastruct/evergreen tubing with plastruct elbows.

[Truck parts]

Thank you for the tip.

[southpier]

anyone have a good source & part number for the Plastruct elbows?

i've spent hours trying to order these and the Plastruct website is just too darn complicated.

thanks

[Jim B]

Nice work!

Thanks, Dennis.

Joe, the part I used for the elbows was E-6.

http://plastruct.com/Pages/OnlineProductDetail.lasso?-op='eq'&CCode=E-6

Their site can be kind of confusing. I found it easier to search for the tubing size, then go find the elbows I needed.

[fantacmet]

Plastruct sells metal core styrene for bending like this too. Might be worth checking into. Also I don't know how fearful you are of lead, but I have an exhaust pipe made from pencil lead(fishing weight not actual pencil lead). Might be kind of hard to keep it from darkening up, might not. The solder we use is part lead, and I think white metal and pewter both have lead content as well but I could be wrong on those.

[Force]

Auslowe has right looking resin elbows for intake tubes, they have 3 different kind of 90º bends (long, medium and short) sold in pairs and an assortment of different agled elbows in sets of 12 in a pack.

http://www.auslowe.com.au/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&category_id=23&page=shop.browse&Itemid=27&limit=20&limitstart=20

Edited March 17, 2015 by Force

[Ben]

I sell rubber elbows for the intake piping. A set of twelve different types is only 5.00.

Http://bwicke9.wix.com/class-a-resin