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Ok, I am redoing my piping and I have come to a fork in the road here. We dont have many places to supply what I need here so Ive got a problem.. I need 90 degree bends for my intercooler piping. Now I went to a plumbing place and they had bends that were nice and would have to be welded to a straight piece. The only drawback is that they weigh 1.5 pounds each and I will need to use 7 of them. They would work perfect but there pretty heavy.. Then there is exhaust pipe.. I was thinking of using a bent piece of this but the problem is that the size gets so much smaller around a corner. So what do I do here? Will I loose that much with a crushed bend or should I just bite the bullet on the weight and get the mandrel ones.
I am reluctant to get ones off ebay due to the cost, the shipping time and I just dont have the patience to wait for that right now.

Do you guys have a company like Jegs or Summit in Canada? Or better yet maybe they can ship it to you...
I got a whole bunch of mandrel bends from Summit and they weren't too expensive. I also got them in three days... but I doubt it'd be that fast for you.
I would see which one (jegs/summit) has a location near you, call em up and see how long it might take.

then again you could do DIY mandrel bends: take pipe to a muffler shop that can crush bend. bring alot of sand. then in lengths of piping pour in the sand and pack it tight, weld on end caps so it can't spill and have them bend it. then cut off the caps and clean out the sand. This is, in essence, how mandrel bends are created... kinda sorta...

PS i would NOT use crush bends in the intercooler piping. They create ALOT of turbulance...

No, we dont have any places like that here.. Mabey Ill just use those heavy ones. Come to think of it I only need to use like 5 so that wont be too bad.. Hmmm Decisions Decisions...

Just curious.. I havent been in this situation.. but couldnt you just go to an exaust shop and have them custom bend whatever diameter piping you need all in one piece? Dont bite my head off LOL I havent worked with intercoolers or turbos very much and though I have heard the terms Mandrel and Crush.. I am not sure what the difference is..

Tunes67

Your looking at a weight of about 10 pounds total - how heavy is what you got in there now and how heavy are the ebay ones? Can't imagine overall a big difference, maybe a few pounds at most. Personally I'd go with the local ones - I hate waiting too and at least you know exactly what your getting!!

don't use the schedule 40 pipe for any kind of length... extra weight and it will retain heat and heat up the intake charge. Maybe couple of tight radiuses it would work, but beyond that, I would take the time to do it once and do it right with thin walled tubing. You can buy mandrel J or u-bends around here for $25CDN or so and 1 will give you 2-90 degrees.

If you're building the ultimate set-up, there will be a point where you notice those crush bent pipes being a thorn in your side... if you're not doing anything spectacular, you would likely only notice a few horsepower loss. I've seen some scary setups work far better than they should have.

Shady469 wrote:. then in lengths of piping pour in the sand and pack it tight, weld on end caps so it can't spill and have them bend it. then cut off the caps and clean out the sand. This is, in essence, how mandrel bends are created... kinda sorta...

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off topic........ but im curious to know, since i don tknow much about mandrel bends...

Is it possible for someone to make their own mandrel bent exhaust piping if they have a fairly heavy duty pipe bender and enough sand ?