insides of 3500 plenum....PICS!

[merlot566jka]

I dont know if this has been shown before, but i was curious as i bet a few of you are. here ya go

[Mars]

I wonder how much power that "sleeve" inside there is costing us...

I'd chop into mine and cut that part out, But don't have acces to a tig.

I wonder if you can MIG weld that stuff with some alum. rod ? anyone tried ??

[merlot566jka]

been trying,i dont know how to weld tho. i can weld other kinds of alum, but with this nothing would stick to it and i got it too hot and melted some of it. its shitty metal!

i dont think that sleve cost power, i think it evenly distributes are and makes the correct length for a ram pipe. also i think it decreases plenum volume to a more workable amount

[IsaacHayes]

At first I was like "Dear God why??" Then I remembered your's was smashed already from the wreckers and saw the crack in the #1 port.

Now you can polish the whole inside.....

Yes the neck inside is part of the design benefits of the 3500. Never thought about it displacing plenum volume but that is another factor.

I think mine may be a different casting, it has different front mount tabs than others (with the vertical braces underneath them) and on the inside it from what I remember seeing and feeling it had a longer "brace" at the end of the neck side that split the air to either side instead of just a pillar brace like yours is showing.. It was up against the end instead of in the center.

[Ortie666]

yeah, with aluminum mig wire you can weld intakes.. if u really wanted to keep it cheap, u could go buy aluminum arc rods.. There kinda messy, but once the slag is cleared away it looks ok..

[angrysk8r]

If you're going to mig it you'll need pure argon gas, aluminum wire, and a spool gun (well, not necessarily a spool gun, but you'll get much better welds with it), also since the intake is cast aluminum you'll need to preheat it or risk having it crack all over the place from thermal shock. Make sure to purge your lines too before you start welding to make sure the argon gas is circulated through.
For stick welding you'll need a machine that preferably runs AC current and the special aluminum rods.
Also for both methods, make sure to clean the weld area with a stainless steel wire brush to remove the surface oxide prior to welding. That may be your main problem as of now since you'll need such a high amperage setting to break the oxide layer that by the time you melt that the clean aluminum underneath is already completely melted. Welding aluminum is always generally somewhat more difficult than welding ferrous metals.

Of course, you could always take it to a place too and they could preheat it/tig it for you since you said you weren't experienced with welding.

[ForcedFirebird]

If you're going to mig it you'll need pure argon gas, aluminum wire, and a spool gun (well, not necessarily a spool gun, but you'll get much better welds with it), also since the intake is cast aluminum you'll need to preheat it or risk having it crack all over the place from thermal shock. Make sure to purge your lines too before you start welding to make sure the argon gas is circulated through.
For stick welding you'll need a machine that preferably runs AC current and the special aluminum rods.
Also for both methods, make sure to clean the weld area with a stainless steel wire brush to remove the surface oxide prior to welding. That may be your main problem as of now since you'll need such a high amperage setting to break the oxide layer that by the time you melt that the clean aluminum underneath is already completely melted. Welding aluminum is always generally somewhat more difficult than welding ferrous metals.

Of course, you could always take it to a place too and they could preheat it/tig it for you since you said you weren't experienced with welding.

Man, my post would have read almost identical if you hadn't beat me to the punch

[Joseph Upson]

I haven't tried it yet but I have an aluminum welding kit for my MIG unit that uses a nylon liner in place of the metal coil liner for the steel wire which causes .023 aluminum wire to kink at the feed point in the welder repeatedly.

I have an Argon tank also but I'm not sure what shape the gas is in now since it's at least 5 years old. My reason for wanting to get experienced with the aluminum welding is to make a higher cooling capacity radiator, by welding two stock cores together. I have a plasma cutter now so it makes metal cutting a heck of a lot easier.

[19Cutlass94]

You can buy aftermarket two core radiators instead of the single core.

[angrysk8r]

yes a nylon liner definitely helps, much better than the metal ones for aluminum, i forgot to mention that. the metal ones tend to grab onto the aluminum wire and like you said, cause it to kink or not feed very well.

[Joseph Upson]

You can buy aftermarket two core radiators instead of the single core.

For the Fiero they don't offer much of an improvement, usually the brass two core with ~3/8 rows, cools no more than the stock aluminum 1" single row. The stock aluminum radiator core width can be stacked 3 wide from my measurements with the tank flange ends trimmed and welded together, to make one unit.

The radiators are about $20-25ea at the yard vs. ~$325 or more for a custom rad with that kind of capacity.

There's also the "I did it factor" that I like.

[19Cutlass94]

ahh... well having a Fiero is a little different then! I know for most W's theres aftermarket ones, but I didnt know you had a Fiero... My bad.

[ForcedFirebird]

For the Fiero they don't offer much of an improvement, usually the brass two core with ~3/8 rows, cools no more than the stock aluminum 1" single row. The stock aluminum radiator core width can be stacked 3 wide from my measurements with the tank flange ends trimmed and welded together, to make one unit.

The radiators are about $20-25ea at the yard vs. ~$325 or more for a custom rad with that kind of capacity.

There's also the "I did it factor" that I like.

Couldn't you just feed the outlet of one radiator to the inlet of the next etc. to make a series?