In a previous post I designed weld flanges for the throttle body and supercharger snout and 3D printed them to check fitment. Since then I had them CNC machined from 6061 aluminum and they came out great. Due to minimum volumes I have a few extras so let let me know if you’re interested in a weld flange for ab LS7 or an LT5.
The prior version of the supercharger-to-throttle-body tube was in the passenger’s ear. The new version is much better. The passenger could put a pad on it and use it as a head rest LOL. The good news is that it fits behind the carbon fiber panel so it won’t be seen, but it sure as hell is going to be heard! The improvement was achieved by using tight-radius, mandrel-bent, made-in-the-USA tube from Performance Tube Bending.
One of the neat things that I learned from Abe is how to surface finish tube like a pro. Apparently there’s a specific tool for sanding and polishing tubes. It’s basically a belt sander with two fixed rollers and a third roller on a spring-loaded arm. When pressure is applied the belt conforms to the tube’s OD. Once I had removed the big grooves, scratches and dings, I found it useful to mark the remaining blemishes with a black sharpie. Similar to using a guide coat during body work, you sand the area until the black is gone. The video below shows a surface-prep belt (similar to a scotch pad) on a 4” aluminum tube. In this case the tool is clamped in a vice and the tube pushed into the belt. When I used the tool to remove the mill scale on the 1” OD chromoly, I switched things around and clamped the tube in the vice.
The tubes had some relatively deep grooves from the bending process. In addition there are some minor ripples on the inner radius of the bend. Even with the right tool it took me over an hour to get the surface to a perfect condition. Well, it actually took 45 minutes longer than that because when Abe went to tack weld the pieces on the car it didn’t fit…
WTF? D’oh! I accidentally used the cut end! Next time I’m going to use a sharpie to put some big “X’s” on the cut end.
Things would have gone faster if I had a belt with more aggressive grit for the first pass and a narrower belt when working on the inner radius. In any event, I’m happy with the results.
The next step is to fabricate the cold air box.