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LSX454 swapped 95 BASS burb.

Little lower, little cooler, bigger sounds.
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I'm not a fan of ball and socket either. I fought leaks on a couple different sets I've had over the years and they constantly loosened up even if they were double lock nutted. I ended up welding them both solid and that finally fixed it once and for all. The slip fit and those band clamps works okay but you need tight fitting pipes. A beed of high temp silicone under the seam on the clamp will seal them right up and still allows you to take them apart in the future. Or do V bands.
 
I have ball and socket on my CC, and the seemed to seal up decent after about 4-5 tightenings lol

The style I have now isn't even a lap joint. I have 3" butt to butt coming off the headers,

I do have the lap joint style at the muffler, but they're leaking as well. They stay tight better , but leak.

I'm going to keep what I have for now and do the max temp silicone thing. See how well that does I guess.maybe they'll do better if I get the pipes rubber mounted:dunno:
 
V bands would be awesome. When I finalize the exhaust, may e that's what I'll do.
 
I'm beginning to think I still have an issue...

All I did was drop these bolts in to verify the diameter worked...

And now I realize that maybe, they're too short:thinking:
I didn't turn them at all, so I would think the bolt would be standing up off the housing it's in a little.
So it could start a few threads before it crushes the rubber.

I'll see in a few hrs I guess.

IMG_20240911_141707097.jpg
 
Watching some vids on it, it looks like this intake doesn't use the rubbers.

IMG_20240912_044003235.jpg

IMG_20240912_044315077.jpg

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I’ve wrapped the joint in aluminum foil and then put those slip on pipe clamps on. Haven’t had an issue that way.
 
I was thinking of doing just that. Lol

We have really good thick stuff at work.
The kind you can string out of the roll about a foot or more and it'll hold horizontal.
I got a few rolls at our inventory sales.
Think I'm going to wrap them, and still put the sealant along the seam of the clamp for good measure.:waytogo:
 
shady said:
Unfortunately I'm not set up to weld stainless at home. So it'll be 'buy tools' or 'have some one else do it.'
Click to expand...
There's a list of things you're supposed to do to weld stainless, but I've welded up a lot of joints in exhaust using C20 shield gas, making a roll of stainless wire the only investment. Welded fine, looked fine, but I had expanded pipe and overlap. I don't know if it stays clean with butt joints. An exhaust pipe is not critical like medical equipment or food processing.
 
Really all I need is a different gas and stainless wire I think. I just never have need of it, so don't really want to get the gas and wire for 2 flanges.

When the time comes if I do something with them, I'll probably bring them to work.

I'll just do it with this . Lol.
If I had thought of that sooner I'd have just done it this time.
But I'll give the current setup one more chance.

IMG_20240912_070523784.jpg
 
I'm 90% sure I removed the rubber isolator from the intake bolts for my TBSS intake swap.

Also, unless you want OCD nice stainless welds, just use regular mild steel mig wire and gas. Who cares if there's some crystalizing of the weld inside the pipe? The other downside is mild steel mig wire will rust but a shot of high heat paint over the weld will work fine. I wouldn't even worry about that as this isn't your winter daily driver.
 
Chevy305 said:
I'm 90% sure I removed the rubber isolator from the intake bolts for my TBSS intake swap.

Also, unless you want OCD nice stainless welds, just use regular mild steel mig wire and gas. Who cares if there's some crystalizing of the weld inside the pipe? The other downside is mild steel mig wire will rust but a shot of high heat paint over the weld will work fine. I wouldn't even worry about that as this isn't your winter daily driver.
Click to expand...
Correct, the tbss manifold doesn’t require them and has a certain length bolt with washers.
 
When I did the TBSs swap, I just dropped the bolts in the way they came off the old intake.
They had enough length to stand up and give me a few threads in before it started squishing the rubber.

2 of those pics from the vids I watched with no rubbers installed are TBSS and not the intake I have lol. So I'm good there.

I e never tried welding stainless to stainless without stainless wire. Just assumed you couldn't.
I've welded stainless to mild with I think 309 rod. Been a long while. But I've never seen a wire like that. Always just see stainless and mild lol.

I haven't final torqued my headers yet. So with the aluminum gaskets I'd probably be ok to pull em back out at this point....
But I always seem to pic the this is easier now route and regret it later..... Why change now lol:haha:

I actually do thing the foil tape with a clamp over it will work well. So I'm going to try it. It really wasn't bad before. I could just see the spot staining on my pipes and only knew they were leaking that way. Couldn't hear it.

Figuring out the soft mounts will help a LOT with the loosening too.
 
Chevy305 said:
Also, unless you want OCD nice stainless welds, just use regular mild steel mig wire and gas. Who cares if there's some crystalizing of the weld inside the pipe? The other downside is mild steel mig wire will rust but a shot of high heat paint over the weld will work fine. I wouldn't even worry about that as this isn't your winter daily driver.
Click to expand...
A little roll of stainless wire is about $30, IIRC, which may be worth the piece of mind. Using regular MIG gas is what I was talking about. There is also flux-core stainless wire available, which may get around these "problems".
shady said:
I e never tried welding stainless to stainless without stainless wire. Just assumed you couldn't.
I've welded stainless to mild with I think 309 rod. Been a long while. But I've never seen a wire like that. Always just see stainless and mild lol.
Click to expand...
I've done the opposite and used stainless wire on aluminized pipe because the joint doesn't rust nearly as fast. Seems like mild wire welds eventually fail where a pipe goes into a muffler or something. But yeah, all of these steel metallurgies can melt together. It's not a structural member where you need to know the exact tensile strength or rate of fatigue.
 
List of things to do....

Run new transmission lines and mount the new cooler.
Mount the oil cooler and hook it up.
Figure out the exhaust hangers.
Replace throttle cable and reengineer throttle pedal.
Bolt converter to flex plate.
Install starter and converter cover.
Plugs and wires.
Hope like F*** that the new MAP sensor works.
Wire roll control.
Install floor shifter.

And reinstall the rest of the front clip.
 
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The converter ended up farther away from the flex plate than I thought it was going to.
I have .200" clearance.
I have some grade 8 washers that are all .080". So I'll put one between each bolt and have right at 1/8"

The bolts the converter came with are perfect for a stock flex plate, but not long enough with the TCI one. So I'm going to try and find new ones that are longer.
I have some that are the right length, but they're 8.8 instead of the 10.9.
If it was the 6 bolt mount I'd run em, but it's a 3 bolt so I want at least the grade that came with it.
 
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