Header

New TurboX coating applied after ~10,000 miles.  See bottom of page.

starting with Sch10 stainless weld els and a laser cut turbine inlet flange and a 1.5" 4-into-1 collector

we made the cylinder head flange from 3/8" mild steel

after welding, using a mig w/argon/c02 shielding gas, the welds were buffed on a wire wheel. 

The header and turbine housing were jetcoated.

Collector was welded completely outside and also inside in the lower and inner curves then the bead was ground back off so no cracks would be forming in that center area

the runners were fitted separately, welded, wire brushed then attached to the flange while being fastened to a junk head to reduce warping. 

 

This is made for using a DSM turbo-,a stock C/S unit will also fit the header just that would need a different downpipe.  We used studs on the turbine inlet flange on the inner side and bolts on the outer.  The turbine inlet flange is back-cut to the shape of the 4 runners that form together to make the collector on the bottom side of that flange and to the shape of the turbine inlet on the top (round)  We tried as best as we could to keep the 2 outer runners the same length as the 2 inner.  We came close, about 1" difference. 

This is a short .avi file of Kurt welding.  Move your mouse over the picture below and it will play

This picture below is of that weld

These are the parts after received from the coater, the downpipe shown here fits a car body not the truck.  The truck downpipe (will be) shown lower on the page.

ok the header has been back from being ceramic coated, it was ran for a few days now we removed it to match the ports from piece to piece.  We used a air grinder, a carbide drum cutter and a few different grinding stones.  Took about 2 hours to do all this.  Removing the header/turbine housing/downpipe is done separately or as a unit, we designed it that way. 

This below is a video of Kurt porting, mouse over and it will play

 

wastegate flap needs to open a full 90 degrees

ground much material away, removed the step at the entrance

matched to cylinder head to the header flange and blended into the runner

matching, we ran the motor these first few days to look at where the metal needed to be removed

tapering the exit flange back into the runner on the underside

opening stays round to match the turbine housing but now the runners blend into this area and not run into a wall in each corner

this is what each runner looks like when blended into the flange

downpipe section wasn't off very much

all parts assembled before mounted on the cylinder head

copper anti-sieze used on all exhaust fasteners

small gold colored bung -that's where the EGT probe goes

EGT probe wire ran

ready to mount back on the motor

assembly goes down into the engine bay and slides over onto the studs

the lower support bracket shares the upper bolt to the engine mount bracket to take the weight load off the cylinder head studs

just push the exhaust up onto the downpipe and insert the bolts and tighten

Sept. 01, 2006

~10,000 miles has passed since the original coating we showed above was applied.  We used two pieces of short straight pipe that were galvanized (and haven't ever used any more since) and even though that was ground off the coating still didn't totally adhere in those areas; it slowly peeled up and started to fall off.  It did turn from flat gray to a satin gray-bronze color.  This coating didn't hold up to the heat.  Its range limit was ~1200 degrees.  We used a different coater this time and a different coating.  They sandblasted the old coating off and coated the header and the turbine housing with TurboX.   This new coating which is much thicker and smoother said to hold up to 2000 degrees.  Satin Black.  The first coating was 150.00 for all three parts and this was 140.00 for two.  We haven't fabricated the new downpipe yet that will include the dump for the external wastegate that comes off the turbine housing.