I having my headers(4-1) highflow cat, and speedstate exhaust all hooked up on sat morning by a friend. He's done exhaust work before, but I don't know if he's welded stainless before. Does anyone out there have any welding experience that can give me some hints/tricks that I can tell him. I know you need a stainless welding rods, but will there be a problem welding stainless to steel or to cast iron etc etc.

He's doing this for me as a favor, but I don't want it ****ed up. The only other place around here that'll do it, will charge me $300 plus parts.

Any help tips tricks or experiences would be extremely useful.

thankx guys

 

i am *BY FAR* not the most experienced welder around the boards... but my suggestion is use a MIG welder. welding cast (pot metal) requires special rods because of the type of material used in casting. but in reality there should be no welding of potmetal in an exhaust install. just weld all the pieces together. i would bolt everything on, then just tack it all into place real well. (IE make 4 tacks per joint to be welded) then take it off the car as a unit and weld it while on the ground. make sure he knows how to weld pipe tho... if done wrong it wont fit, and youll have to bend it. im *sure* youll get some better answeres than this tho.

 

Yeah, spot on the car and do the real welding off of it.

I only know arc welding, but it's pretty easy to do an "okay" job. Problem is that most people go way too fast and don't get good metal adhesion. Or they go way too slow and overheat the metal, which makes it brittle. A nice smooth motion is all you need.

As for welding cast iron to stainless, can't say, but the alloy compounds in the stainless may not like the plain cast iron and speed corrosion. Hopefully someone who does a lot of exhaust welding will chime in. I've only done plate welding so far.

ac

 

I may be mistaken, but, I think you may need to shorten the speedstate (MBRP) exhaust a little to get it to fit to the 4-1 headers. Somebody else who has done the whole conversion should know for sure.

 

ok got them installed. I did use a mig welder, and it doesn't really matter what you weld to what, caues it all hooked up smile.gif Steel/stainless/aluminum.

Anyway, I had to extednd the speedstae to fit, but that wasn't a problem, because I had to add a cat anyway, so it was all good. You can check out the pics at
www.deckernet.net/problem/