Ok Guys...time for me to fab up some exahust and intercooler/intake piping. Was about to buy some U-bends and Donuts but always try to find a way to do it myself...i'd rather put that money towards something that I can use later. So I am considering getting one of these and bending the tubes myself:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=35336
I need to use 3" pipes for the exhaust and turbo intake and 2 1/4" for the intercooler plumbing. I also hope to able to bend some DOM with it later as well.
Anyone use one of these? Do you think it will put kinks in the pipes or make nice bends if I go nice and slow?
For heavy wall Pipe , not tubing , yes it will kink, Also see how big the bend radius is,
When you need to bend the DOM find a friendly Fab shop.
3-2.25 is big for most inexspensive tubing benders so youll have to buy 90-180-donuts anyway.
The harbor freight one will not work BTDT
try this, it isnt to painfully priced
http://www.jd2.com
Coleman also sells one that looks very practical
oops I dont know if they make dies big enough for what you want
well, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but a "cheap tube bender" doesn't exist... especially one that will do 3". I picked up a JD squared model 3 bender for doing roll bars and it works great. check out vansantent.com or tricktools.com (same site) for more info. the model 3 will do up to 2", so that will be perfect for homemade exhaust systems. the large diameter innercooler stuff, which i've done in the past for friends; is easiest and cheapest, by getting pre mandrel bent sections and doing a cut-n-paste assembly.
Now if you do buy a small tubing bender, you can use some cheap seam welded tubing and bend it up as a mockup for what you want your larger intake mandrel bent tubing to be like. then take the mockup to the mandrel bender guys and they'll copy it in the big stuff.
Good luck with those projects.
Find a muffler shop that has the big heavy duty hydrolic bender, and dies, and bring your project to them. Many will do a quick cash job of bending for you. Unless you want to do a lot of bending (many many cars worth) or you just plain have money to burn, do not buy a bender, ask the muffler guy to help out.
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