Header update

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Most of you saw my post a couple of weeks ago about building some headers for little formula cars.  I have since delivered one batch of 5 headers, have another batch of 5 ready, and am finishing up 4 more sets.  Here is a pic of the first batch:And here are a couple of pics of the first one installed in a car:It has been taking me longer than I would have guessed to weld these things up.  So, I sat down tonight and figured up exactly how many inches of tig weld I'm putting down on each header and I was astounded!  Would you believe there's 164.84 inches per header????  That's 13.73 FEET of tig weld per header!  No wonder it's taking a while to finish them!  On average it takes me about 4 minutes to weld all the way around each 1.875" diameter joint on the primaries, and that includes repositioning as I work around the tube.  factor that in to the total number of inches and I'm looking at 4.1 hours of weld time per header - not counting fitup and tacking.So, now that I've done 10 headers in the last 2 weeks that totals 137.3 FEET of tig welding .049" wall and thinner (where the bending thinned out the tube) with .035" diameter filler rod.  No wonder I'm getting sick of welding around these tubes!
Reply:TubularFab,Now that's some nice looking work.Is that your car or for a customer?Syncro 250 DX Dynasty 200 DXMM 251 w/30A SG XMT 304 w/714 Feeder & Optima PulserHH187Dialarc 250 AC/DCHypertherm PM 1250Smith, Harris, Victor O/ASmith and Thermco Gas MixersAccess to a full fab shop with CNC Plasma, Water Jet, etc.
Reply:You may be sick of it, but you sure are good at it.
Reply:Very nice work, as usual....I'm a Lover, Fighter, Wild horse Rider, and a pretty good welding man......
Reply:I completely feel for you. I used to work for the hack jobs over at GHL, and had to build headers. It loses it's flair after the first few welds of the first header.Jimmy
Reply:Those look like there hooked to something that would be awesome to drive! What kind of hoespower do they have? And whats top speed,etc.?Good judgement comes from experience.Experience comes from bad judgement.
Reply:Those tubes are turning out great...nice job !The car looks like some sort of S-2 (Sports 2000)?....and possibly powered by a Ford Z-tec ?-Graham-Mechanical EngineerAutosport Mechanic/Fabricator
Reply:very nice work!Not sure if you want to answer back on this, but when you are fabbing those headers up, do you piece them together on the motor or do you have a jig setup for them and how do you go about welding them, as in, do you weld it with everything in tack or do you do one runner at a time or two at time then connect the others? any chance you can show a pic of your jig, or describe how it is, if not thats ok.Last edited by disepyon; 05-02-2008 at 04:12 PM.
Reply:very nice work ChuckASME Pressure Vessel welder
Reply:Nice,,got any other car spec's to give us
Reply:Nice work, when I get a job like that, I just keep my eye on the $, relax and do the job. Those jigs really help. DavidReal world weldin.  When I grow up I want to be a tig weldor.
Reply:Thanks guys!  The customer supplied a sample header for a couple of days plus some very basic fixtures.  The fixtures make it much easier, but are really not very robust for the job.  Plus, they weren't as diligent as I would have been when they made the first one and the jigs about having tubes meet squarely to one another.  I am a real stickler for cutting the tubes perpendicular to the bend tangents and they cheated with cutting angles on the joints.  It just doesn't look rreally clean up close when you do that.  I tack up the primaries in the jig making sure there are no gaps.  I then weld up each primary individually, and put it back in the jig to weld to the flange.  It seems to work we doing this way.  Besides, I do not think the jigs are strong enough to hold against the welds pulling things around anyway.The car is a little formula car with a chassis made by Van Dieman (the English division of the Panoz Motorsports group) that is for one of the SCCA Sports Racer categories.  i forget which one it is - either C or D sports racer.  It has a full body made to look somewhat like a scaled down LMP car.  The engine is a Ford Duratec.  The same chassis is available with a Ford Zetec, but it is not as popular.  I have looked at the header on it from a quoting standpoint.
Reply:very nice work they look great Creative metal Creative metal Facebook
Reply:Plus, they weren't as diligent as I would have been when they made the first one and the jigs about having tubes meet squarely to one another.  I am a real stickler for cutting the tubes perpendicular to the bend tangents and they cheated with cutting angles on the joints.  It just doesn't look rreally clean up close when you do that.   ive done alot of stainless exhaust and header fabing and totally agree with this!!!!btw  very nice!!!!!!!!!!bob
Reply:Tubularfab,Do you have the owners manual for the Silver Beauty 90175?  I sure need one!!
Reply:Hey man, top-notch work there, those are beauties!!  The welding looks excellent as well, nice job!  Have a Jeep Cherokee?  Click Here!