JMortensen Posted September 6, 2013 Share Posted September 6, 2013 I know that you can mig stainless, because I've done it on accident. Looking at making a stainless muffler, wondering if I should just mig it up, or if I should pay to have someone tig it for me. This is for the race car, so it will be garaged and trailered, and won't rack up many miles at all. I really don't care if it doesn't have the perfect stack of dimes weld on it, but I don't want it to fall apart at the track either. How about tack welding with the mig so the welder doesn't have to do all the setup? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Domzs Posted September 6, 2013 Share Posted September 6, 2013 I would MIG weld the whole thing yourself . You should be able to lay a nice bead with a MIG . You can clean it up and put some high temp silver paint afterward . Unless you are using polished SS piping and wanting to show it off . If you are going with TIG , I would tack it , at least 4 spots evenly around the pipe . The welder should be able to weld it w/o warpage . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam280Z Posted September 6, 2013 Share Posted September 6, 2013 http://www.lincolnelectric.com/en-us/support/welding-solutions/Pages/compact-welders.aspx 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted September 6, 2013 Author Share Posted September 6, 2013 Awesome. Thanks Sam. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnc Posted September 7, 2013 Share Posted September 7, 2013 Just buy a small spool of 309L wire and some Solar Flux paste for the backside of the weld. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Naptown Dave Posted September 10, 2013 Share Posted September 10, 2013 (edited) The 309 wire and solar flux is probably the best way to do it but if your exhaust system and muffler is well supported you would be fine with carbon wire. I work for an industrial contractor and we weld carbon to stainless with carbon filler metal in low pressure / non structural applications. We use 309 for more stressed joints. I'm welding in my magnaflows with carbon wire tomorrow, I'll let you know how it turns out. Edited September 11, 2013 by Naptown Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Namor Posted September 11, 2013 Share Posted September 11, 2013 Doesn't welding with carbon steel wire defeat the purpose of using stainless pipes? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Naptown Dave Posted September 11, 2013 Share Posted September 11, 2013 Namor, in my car I'm using aluminized carbon steel tube and bends. I just wanted the magnaflow sound. My car will be a sunny day driver so it shouldn't matter too much but the mufflers should outlast the pipes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted September 11, 2013 Author Share Posted September 11, 2013 I was considering welding with carbon wire, and the reason I'm doing this at all is because I wanted a lightweight, quiet muffler and the Burns Stainless unit is $458. I found www.coneng.com and with some of their parts and some generic SS tube, I'm going to make my own 18" mufflers (2 of them) for about $200. It's a race car so it won't see a lot of miles and I'm sure that longevity of the welds wouldn't be an issue. It was cheap enough to do it right that I just spent the extra and bought the flux and the wire. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Naptown Dave Posted September 12, 2013 Share Posted September 12, 2013 You can't go wrong doing it right! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnc Posted September 12, 2013 Share Posted September 12, 2013 FYI... The Burns mufflers are not quiet. The knock off about 5db. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted September 12, 2013 Author Share Posted September 12, 2013 (edited) Looks like it does better than that, and I'm going to emulate the 2 stage (will put a couple pieces of angle in the flow path): http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/articles/sounding-off/ Edited September 12, 2013 by JMortensen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JIM73240Z Posted September 12, 2013 Share Posted September 12, 2013 i just welded mine with carbon wire. race car. not many miles, and i live in a desert. not to worried about rust. jimbo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted September 17, 2013 Author Share Posted September 17, 2013 Got all my stuff in and started on this one and my welder liner is finally past it, so got the end of one muffler welded on (crappily) and then had to stop. Hopefully a more consistent feed and speed on the wire will help out. Definitely getting more spatter than I get with normal wire too. Here's a bit of the trial and error I've gone through so far: I wanted to make the muffler serviceable, so I had to figure out a way to get the perforated core in and out. My first attempt involved a harbor freight tailpipe expander in the perf core. I figured it would be easier to stretch and I could slide it over the 2.5" pipe on the other end. That didn't work out so well. As I stretched, the perforations did just what you would expect paper to do, and one line of perforations just split very neatly in half. I didn't buy a whole lot of extra core, but I have enough that I'll be able to cut out the damaged end and weld a new piece in there. Next attempt was to stretch a piece of 2.5 tube, figuring I'd plug the core into that. That failed as the tailpipe expander couldn't handle the force necessary to stretch the tube. Finally I cut about a 1.25" section of the tube and stretched that. I was (barely) able to stretch that, although the expander tool isn't working so hot anymore after doing two of them. When using one of these tools, one thing that seems inevitable is that one end will stretch more than the other, leaving you with a cone shape. I used this to my advantage, sizing the pipe up until I could smack the core into the cone and get it to barely bottom. My hope is that this will keep the core from rattling when it's all together. The cone is sized such that the one end of it is large enough for the perf core to slip into and the other end is a little too small for the 2.5 pipe to slide in, so what I did there was to hog the end of the cone out a bit with a burr, then slid it over the 2.5 pipe and welded it. Then I welded the end plate to that, and welded that whole assembly to the end of the 4" muffler tube. So basically there is a female socket for the perf core in the end of the tube. On the other I'll have a 2.5" tube that sticks through the muffler end plate and the core welded to that. So the ~18" core will come out with that end. To make it serviceable I need to be able to remove this, so I took a 1/2" wide piece of the 4" muffler body tube and cut out a bit so that it slides into the muffler tube, and welded it back together. This piece with its reduced circumference will be welded to the muffler end cap, and then be screwed into the muffler body and sealed with some exhaust pipe sealant. If I didn't want these serviceable, I'd probably be done already. Still haven't decided where to put the angle iron. I'm thinking right in the middle. I think Burns puts them more towards the inlet, but my thought is that they deflect the gas into the packing and I'd do better with that right in the middle. Putting them more towards the exit side would probably work too, but I am thinking that might increase backpressure if the flow ended up getting hurt by the end cap on the exit side. Nice thing about making these serviceable is that if it isn't quiet enough I can pull it apart and play with it some more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted September 30, 2013 Author Share Posted September 30, 2013 Mufflers are done. Wasn't too hard, once I found the time to get out to the shop. I'm going to install them with V-band clamps, and that way I will use a turn out and if they're too loud I'll attach a supertrapp baffle to the end. I think with the angles and 40% open perf tube in there there will be enough resistance to flow that it will cut the sound down some. I hope. They're definitely not beautiful, but if they work they saved me about $700 over the Burns equivalent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Naptown Dave Posted October 2, 2013 Share Posted October 2, 2013 Looks great to me! Let us know how they sound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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