Charge pipe

This is classic REDNECK INGENUITY.  Thank’s to Mark at Waldrop’s Service we had access to an exhaust pipe bender and instead of buying mandrel bends and piecing together a charge pipe we had another idea, Purchase a thin wall piece of aluminum pipe from the local scrap yards usables department.  Cap off one end and fill it with water.  Add a soft cap to the other end and put it in the freezer.  In theory,  the ice will keep the pipe from crushing when you bend it and we will have a 1 piece charge pipe.  While its freezing over night make a template of where the bends need to be.  Note: one of the caps has to be able to be pushed out or the water will blow out your pipe when the water freezes  Time for a cheap skates mandrel bend, or so we thought!  The template was made out of scrap pieces of pipe that we had. Here are a couple of before pictures and a video of how it worked out.

It isn’t perfect but was a lot less than buying mandrel bends and we are planning a custom intake manifold that will require a new charge pipe so we decided it was good enough.  If we were going to do it again we would make sure to cap both ends of the pipe after it comes out of the freezer so that when it bends the ice can’t be pushed out.  We had also considered filling the pipe with sand but didn’t have any handy.  If you do decide to try this out we would love to hear how it worked out!