Intake Design and Building: How to?

Mr_Asa said:

Not 100% what I wanted, but not a bad result either.

Whats the issue?  Not hugging the profile as tight as you would like?  You could print an 'outside' of the tool to fix that, right? 

Nice!

Is that just a solid 3d printed slug you pressed into the tube?

ProDarwin said:

Mr_Asa said:

Not 100% what I wanted, but not a bad result either.

Whats the issue?  Not hugging the profile as tight as you would like?  You could print an 'outside' of the tool to fix that, right? 

Not hugging it as tight, the printed part not being strong enough, a couple of things.
This was a test run before I go buy a lot of tube for this, I think I'm going to reprint it with thicker walls, then buy some thinner tubing and add some bracing to the completed part.

iansane said:

Nice!

Is that just a solid 3d printed slug you pressed into the tube?

Solid slug would probably work better, but picture it in your head, there'd be no way to get it out without deforming it back to your initial shape.

Here's what I did:

Heat treating to a malleable temper is your friend.
I've made tapered runners from 6061 round tubes tempered to T0.

A Tapered plug made from metal rod, a HF 20 ton press, plenty of lube.

Welded the runners to flanges, then heat treated the whole thing back to T4.

DIY Hydroforming, using sand/oil slurry into an enclosing female mold?
3D print the female plug, cast it into an enclosing piece of steel pipe with surrounding plaster/concrete/epoxy.

Melt out the plug, hydroform the part.

I want to tack these in place so bad, but know that I have other things I need to do beforehand. 

Man

Man oh man.  Man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man.

Anneal tube.  Squeeze tube.  Cut tube.  Check mock up.  Freak the berkeley right out.  Post.  Immediately start annealing more tube.

I didn't like what the press dies did, not 100%, so I printed an anvil.

First pic, the press die alone.  Second pic, how far down the die'd piece fits on the anvil; most of the resistance from it fitting is the bottom of the port where it kind of squares off.  Once that is hammered down (just a little ball peen hammer) it slips down to where that little line of aluminum is.  That line of aluminum is where the previous runner was hammered against the anvil.

Third and fourth pics: same pic as the first but post-hammering, then a final fitment on the port.  You can compare that to the pic above, much much better fit.  I can tack that in two or three spots then squeeze it a bit and get it to fit better.

Next up, I'll show you guys the jig I'm printing to help weld it in place so I don't have to think when I'm doing that part.

SendCutSend delivered my top mounting flange today, so I got to play mock up!

Other than the other aluminum tube, I'm probably a long weekend and a TIG welder away from putting it all together.  I can tack it with my spool MIG gun at least.

Anyone got a TIG welder?

In reply to Mr_Asa :

That's sexy.

Stampie said:

In reply to Mr_Asa :

That's sexy.

I reiterate this.

First of all, whoa! Second, how did I NOT know about SendCutSend? I just plugged in a few DXFs and prices are downright reasonable. 

maschinenbau said:

Second, how did I NOT know about SendCutSend? 

Right?! Early on, for E36 M3s and giggles, I plugged every panel I showed earlier into it, $500 for it all.  I can save some money by getting it elsewhere and cutting it myself, but damn!

What/who did you end up getting the velocity stacks from?

In reply to Asphalt_Gundam :

Amazon, Autohaux was the brand. 

I think I found a link somewhere recommending a bellmouth that stood proud of the floor of the intake, but not a lot more beyond that.  The sizing may be completely wrong for the overall design, but they will be better than no transition area at all.  I probably could do some CFD to actually try and optimize it, but I'm ready to move forward with this lroject

I think they were $10-12 when I got them, but there was a sale going on for Crimmas.  Now Amazon wants $15 and eBay wants $20-25.

Nice...sure cuts down on fabrication time. This is coming out really cool!

My last two pieces of pipe were delivered today, so I got to forming.  Haven't taken the new pieces to the anvil, but here we are.

I need to adjust the side farthest from the port.  It doesn't match the bellmouths.  I need to figure out a way to shape that somehow.  Exhaust pipe expander maybe?  Gonna dig around and see what I can find.

When I saw this I thought this was a slide throttle assembly. 

In reply to DrMikeCSI :

I've helped build one of those and for a bit I honestly thought of doing it for this project just to take it to 11, but its a bit too complex for what I have available.  That being said, that was before I got into sending stuff to SendCutSend...

I can always get back into it.

Well.  This is going nicer than this welder normally does.

More pics when I'm done.

Ok, let's get to it.

First things first, time to get the runners mated to the flange.  Jig, tack, check alignment and adjust, burn it in.

Next thing you do is give yourself a nice little burn cause you didn't put on all your PPE.

All better now

Now time to get these situated.  For now I'm not fully burning them in, just got about 3/4 of an inch of bead in three spots

Now comes the pain in the ass.  Lining up the two pieces after they've been subjected to all that heat.  It did not look great.  In, what felt like, a small stroke of genius I used an exhaust tube spreader as a jig.

With that jigged up, the end runners were pretty far off.  I wasn't worried though.  I went #4, #3, #5, #2, #6, #1, getting each one held in place with two tacks.

As an example of how it worked, here's the (I think) #5 before and after I used the exhaust spreader to hold it in place while I tacked it.

Next week/month will be fabricating the top half of the intake.

Outstanding work sir

Get a new stainless steel wire Wire Brush. Scrape the crap out of the joints (till shiny) then wipe down with acetone. Should go a long ways in improving your welds by getting rid of most of the contamination.

Asphalt_Gundam said:

Get a new stainless steel wire Wire Brush. Scrape the crap out of the joints (till shiny) then wipe down with acetone. Should go a long ways in improving your welds by getting rid of most of the contamination.

Agreed. Other thing that will help is even just taking a propane torch and say a 200 degree heat marker and throwing a solid preheat directed at the thicker base plate material. You would be surprised how much that will help with penetration, especially when you are sticking some 16G to what looks like .375" plate. 

If that were me I'd bolt that directly to my work bench, clean the heck out of the welds. And preheat directed at the base plates, then we'd it up. Personally I'd use a TIG but a spool gun would work as well. Once she's welded up, let it fully cool, while still bolted down to the bench. Or even bolt it up to a piece of say 2x4 box tube.  Just something that we'll help keep your plate from moving around on you as you weld. 

Once that's done, I'd personally be taking it to a big 20" grinder and finishing it off with some long boards and finally on a surface plate. But not everybody has that. So a long board and 80 / 180 / 320 with some dykum to let you see the highs and lows works just as well. Just not as quick, obviously. 

In reply to Asphalt_Gundam :

In reply to GaryC83 :

Yeah, I'm not 100% happy with the welds, but despite using a E36 M3ty welder I got decent penetration and coverage.  I did bolt it to the head after fully welding to help keep it straight.
Haven't cleaned it yet, but I'll do that this weekend.