Crumpler

As a you may know, I'm a raw aluminum freak, so the concept appealed to me from the get go.
Pictured you can see the desperation of my old tubes: held together with various adhesives and plumbing supplies!
Accompanied by various aluminum prototypes, on the bench.

If something's NLA, then a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do right?
Actually the project was started by Dadddio, but since he came into two brand new freaking tubes... he lost interest and bequeathed the project to yours truly.

Various shots of cutting and fitting.
Finishing work includes hand polishing and Shark-Hide metal protectant. This is the product I used on the intake, and it's held up very well.
Two silicone sleeves are used to slide onto the cowl and hold tubes in place.

jbrob007

Those... Look... AWESOME!!!

DeWolf

Is heat soak a concern?

yardpro

Sweeeeeeeeet

Crumpler

Sigh,... now I know how Carl feels.

Yes, it's a concern, because I knew it would come up, just didn't think it would be the second post.

No, it's not an issue, this is high grade/low temp aluminum.
But, to justify I ran the car with both the stock plastic tubes and then the new aluminum tubes. I took IR readings each time. Hell, I even ran plastic on one side and aluminum on the other...
Believe it or not : the aluminum was cooler.

Ran until hot, coolant to 185 F to kick electric fan on.
TB cover average 127 F
Airbox average 104 F
Plastic stock Tube 97-98 F
Aluminum Tube 90.6-92.2 F

Here's a better picture however, sorry of about the quality of the first set.

hwyengr

Shut up and take my money!

I mean, um, do you plan on selling these?

MjRocket

Very nice indeed..If I had an S3 I'd be all over these.

Great job!

jbrob007

I was going to ask about heat transfer ( in the first post Are the tubes different on the S3's as compared to the S2s...? If so, I can't tell... Someone please enlighten me (yes, I know I'm asking to get flamed!) Also, would you mind making & SELLING these for the S2s ???

bureau13

(*drool*) If you're making these available, I'm interested...

FWIW, I would think the only time the air is sitting in those tubes long enough for heat soak to be a concern is when the car is parked with the engine off. In other words, no problemo...

James Bailey

the 85-86 are SMALLER diameter to clear the large plenums......have been N L A for years

atb

Nice work Big Dave! Looks awesome!

DeWolf

It was just a question...I didn't mean to be a smart **** or anything. I have an 86 5.0 and my tubes are cactus. So if you do a production run I may every well be interested. Oh, and good job by the way.

Crumpler

Absolutely no worries DeWolf, I had done the field testing knowing how educated our people are -- knowing that I would get asked by someone, lol.

Thanks Adam and everyone else, for the feedback.

So in reality, the tubes were supposed to be a custom "one off" project. Born of desperation, because we don't have even the expectation of getting the stock tubes back in production. Not even Roger's powers of necromancy have been enough, in this case!

I've talked with Chris (Dadddio), our concern with the concept of a production run with these aluminum tubes would be that there are so many variables car to car.
Variables like airbox postion, MM compression, and even the plenum itself become moot with the plastic tubes -- because they can compress and flex.

Those variables become pretty important when you have the metal tube in the system, each tube would have to be custom fit on each car, which limits things.
In theory the welding and fabrication can be done on this end, but the product would be pretty far from plug and play. I guess neither one of us feel great about that concept...i.e. charging friends for something that they would have to make fit after they got it in the mail.

atb

How about posting a parts / vendor list and some fab tips for the DIY's, could be helpful to someone?