ok, milwaukee challenge.. Who has a mandrel bender?

[customgtp]

Its time to design and make headers for the GP but having a hard time finding a mandrel bender in the area..
HELP!?!?

T.I.A.

[BR3W CITY]

I thought national muffler had one?

[nismodave]

Does Clocks Off have one?

[Dr.Buick]

I don't think of anyone around her. I just buy bends

[-stew-]

Yeah, i don't think there is such a thing as a mandrel bender. i think the pipes are bent then a ball is pulled through or they are filled with water and then pressurized to make the pipe uniform sized.

[Nickerz]

Yeah, i don't think there is such a thing as a mandrel bender. i think the pipes are bent then a ball is pulled through or they are filled with water and then pressurized to make the pipe uniform sized.

There are mandrel bending machines, but they are huge and expensive. Neither of which is appealing for most specialty locations. If you want truly mandrel bent stuff you'll have to get in contact with an industrial location that does it, and they'll want a decent quantity of items to do.

Long story short its going to cost you a ton of money to do it right. I just went through this wanting to get a custom catback for my car and decided I would have to go off the shelf. I could do custom but it would look like shit because it would just be cut and welded with prebends. Fine under the body, but from behind it would look like garbage. The IRS exhaust systems are practically a work of art.

[TheRX7Project]

I think National Muffler has a PRESS bender... which in all honesty will probably be fine... and will be significantly cheaper.

[BR3W CITY]

^ahh gotcha. I had them do a peice for me before and it turned out good....whatever it was.

[TheRX7Project]

Yeah I like the guys at national muffler, they've done some work for me as well.

[Cryptic]

Midnight Hot Rods uses Header Legos... you just snap to get various bends like Legos and you know all the bends you need to buy to fabricate custom headers.

http://www.icengineworks.com/howstep.JPG

[TheRX7Project]

Ford Focus header there ^^ ? Those are pretty cool!

[BR3W CITY]

hahaah wtf? Thats awesome. I've never seen that before.

[The Shaolin]

SO cool!!

[-stew-]

Car Craft just did an article about them last month.

[Gregor]

http://forums.quattroworld.com/s4s6/msgs/43928.phtml

But this doesn't really help you on your exhaust system. What about pre bends tacked in place, have them fully welded till you get to the mufflers and then go off the shelf after the mufflers?

[customgtp]

yeah thats the thing... nobody makes mine "off the shelf"... Ill look into those header legos :) thanks andy

[juicedimpss]

i looked into a mandrel bender not long ago. The bender itself was 60k plus 4-6k each size for the mandrels. That would take alot of exhaust work to pay off.
we continue to use pre bent mandrel bends and cut/weld to fit each application.