My New Project: LS/T56 swap into a 2003 E39 M5

[1NAWTY5]

I love the mod you did for the powersteering pump instead of using the turnone fitting. Congrats on getting married.

[nsogiba]

Congrats on the wedding, the day will go by faster than you think.

fab question: when you put this section together, what's your work path? I assume you fixture the naked tips first, and then work your way back to the muffler. How are you determining the lengths of the curved pipes, along with the length of the straight sections? Do you measure before cutting, or just trial and error until it fits? I have yet to find a method that allows me to match up sections of pipe perfectly face to face. I'm always off by a couple degrees.

[tptrsn]

Wow, UNBELIEVABLE fab work!!!

Even your jig is awesome.

[garretvs]

Pretty Cool!

[auaq]

Congrats on the wedding ....

At first I thought you misspelled the word welding, but then I went back and reread the post and now I understand why. Congrats Schitzo!!!

[Schitzo]

^^ Thanks fellas

Congrats on the wedding, the day will go by faster than you think.

Good

fab question: when you put this section together, what's your work path? I assume you fixture the naked tips first, and then work your way back to the muffler. How are you determining the lengths of the curved pipes, along with the length of the straight sections? Do you measure before cutting, or just trial and error until it fits? I have yet to find a method that allows me to match up sections of pipe perfectly face to face. I'm always off by a couple degrees.

This goes back to when I order the mandrel bends. I know for tight areas such as the muffler/tip area, I will need bends with a tight radius (2" - 3") as compared to areas such as the x pipe where I need large radius bends (~6"). In this case I used 3" radius bends to make the pipe between the tips and muffler.

Once I know the radius bend I am working with, I determine the start and end of the piece I want to fab, the overall shape, and the path it will take. In this case, the pipe will exit the muffler, turn right with a 3" radius, go straight, then turn left with a 3" radius to meet the tip.


I know the radius and overall shape. Now I need to determine lengths of the bends and straight sections. This is what takes time. I use a piece of 3/32 tig welding rod to determine lengths of the bends. You can use whatever material you want to mimic the mandrel bend (e.g .construction paper, copper tubing etc). I measure A LOT and only when I am sure of my measurement do I cut. Here is an example of how I determine the length of the one of the bends. I makes marks on the TIG rod where the cuts should be. The inner edge of the tape is where I will cut.


When cutting, I try to make the cut at 90 degrees to the tangent of the curve for all cuts. What this does is ensure when you go to join the pieces together, not only will it be a gapless joint but it will maintain the path you wanted. If the two pieces being joined are cut at different angles, it could result in being off a few degrees once you join the tubes together. On the pic below the dotted lines are what you want. Cutting at the red line will mess up your angles.

Once I have the curved pieces cut and test fitted, I measure for the straight piece. I cut it just a little bit longer than needed (about the thickness of a Sharpie maker).


Finally I dress the edges on a belt sander to make sure the joint is gap free. If you are MIG welding, this step is not necessary. It is also not necessary when TIG welding but it makes welding the part much easier.

Sometimes you have to change direction (left or right) as well as change height. That is when things get complicated. For example, in the pic below, what you don't see is the height difference between the valve and muffler outlet. So I need to make a bend all the while dropping to the correct height in a very short distance; it will be a hair puller. I will try document exactly how I do it. I may need to use pie cuts.

[tptrsn]

I think all of that helps explain why your work looks SOOO much better than mine does! My method is more like measure none(se), cut many, grind a lot. Lol

[nsogiba]

Looks like the wire trick is the key. I could never get the length of the bend just right, always ended up too long or too short, with a gap. That post deserves a sticky of some sort. The compound bends are really tough.

Are you cutting on a stand-up band saw? Or a chop saw? I find it tough to get a cut exactly perpendicular to the CLR using a chop saw

[Schitzo]

I use either the portable band saw on a stand or chop saw; it just depends on the type of cut. Certain bends or very short pieces of tubing cannot be clamped on the chop saw (at least not easily) so I use the band saw in such instances.

For some reason my bandsaw blade has lost its alignment and I cannot seem to fix it. It just won't cut straight. So I usually will have to use a belt sander to get the cut perpendicular to the CLR.

[nsogiba]

Thanks for your input. Time to start tool shopping again. Keep the updates coming.

[Schitzo]

Sunday night update.

The passenger side muffler is now done. I had hoped to get it done last week but just couldn't seem to get the remaining outlet tube to work the way I wanted. After it had kicked my a** several nights last week, I decide to take a different approach. Rather than work underneath the car, I revised my previous jig to allow me to work on the muffler on the bench.This made it much easier to fabricate the tubing.

Here you can see the jig that holds both of the tips.


Once the jig was done, I was able to fab up the second outlet tube relatively easily. I used the same "tig rod" technique mentioned in an earlier post.


I tack welded the second tube in place then installed it in the car to check for fitment. Once I was certain everything was where it needed to be, I welded everything together. I'm very happy with it turned out.

[nsogiba]

legit!

[tptrsn]

Man that looks GREAT -- those tips are right where they should be!!

[daniels635turbo]

Latest pics not visible

[bimerok]

Tips and work looks great.

Latest pics not visible

Must be problem on your end. Works fine here.

[daniels635turbo]

Tips and work looks great.


Must be problem on your end. Works fine here.

Probably tapatalk.

[auaq]

Looking great!

Tapatalk is no good for seeing pics.

[Maynor]

Love the work! Keep it coming.

[LSxDreamer]

Probably tapatalk.

Going to second this, guess Tapatalk doesn't like the quickimg tags. Took a look in browser mode and that's some phenomenal fab work OP.

[JimLev]

Schitzo, nice welding, you need to give some of us rookie chumps welding classes.
Nice sign on the back wall. Do I spy a MA license plate?

[Schitzo]

Thanks guys.

Schitzo, nice welding, you need to give some of us rookie chumps welding classes.
Nice sign on the back wall. Do I spy a MA license plate?

Jim, best advice I can give is practice practice practice. Worry about weld integrity first then aesthetics later.
The girl bought the sign for me at the MN State Fair a few years ago; it reads "Robert's Welding Shop EST 2013". I need to find a place for it on the garage wall.
I bought my daily, an '02 530i, from a guy in Boston back in 2011. We flew down there then drove it back up over a couple days. The owner let us drive back with his plate since it had current tags on it.

[ckpitt55]

awesome work Robert, looking good.

[Schitzo]

Sunday night update

The second muffler is now complete. It went much faster than the first one since I knew most of the dimensions. I started by locating the tips where they needed to be then used the same jig as before to hold the tips in position.

Locating the driver side tips using measurements from the passenger side. I established several datum points and used them to ensure the tips were symmetrical.



Once located, I fabricated the tubes and tips and shown previously. I am very happy with the way they turned out. Lots of work to get here but well worth it! I sure hope they sound as good as they look.

[auaq]

Looking really good there, Robert!

[tptrsn]

Man those look GREAT!!! Beautiful, tidy welds on them too. Too bad the world will never see them...