Titanium exhaust

[The Wind Breezes]

So as anyone who's ever pulled the exhaust out can attest to, they're really heavy and for the most part, hugely overbuilt. What would be a good metal to use instead of really thick stainless steel? In lieu of beryllium, which aside from being expensive and dangerous to work with is probably too rigid and would crack, titanium is our best choice. In addition to being very strong, titanium is highly chemically inert at reasonable temperatures and thus is an ideal candidate for a part of the car that will see moderate heating and complete exposure to the elements.

This thread is about titanium exhausts--full system not including downpipe. Comments from all are welcome but thoughts from current owners of titanium exhausts are especially solicited. Now, for me, the available systems on the market are very expensive, but more importantly, are already built, leaving me out of the loop on crucial welding experience. So I ordered all the parts I need for a full 3" system @ 1mm wall thickness with a "suppressor" style race muffler which may be too loud. I'll modify my gutted stock downpipe to use a 3" Vband to connect to the Ti catback instead of that awkward 2 pipe arrangement. Looking forward to what that mod might do to the exhaust noise...expecting more deep bass and less ugly resonance. This setup will be more or less straight thru with no resonators or any of that BS, only the race muffler, so if I can guarantee one thing, it's that the sound will be polarizing! The cost for this will be slightly >$1K + my time.

I'm getting the metal delivered next week. It will be be backpurged and TIG welded as properly as I can manage without pulse or any trick features. I'm not what the pros call an experienced welder, but even so I'll post pics of the finished product with all welds exactly as they were done for better or worse.

[Gangplank]

Sub'd. Interested in how this comes out.

[zx10guy]

It'll be interesting to see how things turn out with your project.

I do have experience with titanium exhausts but only on my motorcycles. My 04 ZX-10R came from the factory with a full titanium exhaust system; from the headers all the way back to the muffler. I did replace the stock muffler with an Akrapovic titanium slip on exhaust which eliminated the catalytic converter in the stock muffler. Even though both were made out of titanium, the weight savings with the Akrapovic slip on was pretty substantial.

I also changed out the stainless steel mufflers on my Ducati 848 with a set of Akrapovic titanium slip on mufflers. I also got the benefits from weight savings with getting rid of the catalytic converters in the stock mufflers but also heat reduction.

[The135is]

Can't wait to see / hear it once you're all done!

I've got the BMR 3.5" stainless steel exhaust with a custom built down pipe so it's all straight and no Y splits. I love the sound.
I was originally planning to have my stock cat modified for a V-band as well, but got a great deal on a used down pipe so we used that instead.

I had a Tomei titanium exhaust (no resonator, just a straight through muffler) on my Genesis Coupe 2.0T (4 cyl turbo) and really liked the sound, it seemed much deeper than anything else.

[mike@x-ph.com]

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[houtan]

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[AB M2C]

Do you have previous experience welding Ti? I've never personally done it, but I know getting your temps just right is crucial and extremely difficult. Also how are you going to shield the backside of the weld?

Really excited to see how this turns out and see what you think of welding the titanium.

Good luck, keep us updated!!

[The Wind Breezes]

Yeah I have about 45 minutes experience. My goal is full silver / straw welds. The metal welds very nicely the problem is all in shielding and pre weld cleanup. I backpurge with a second flowmeter I T'd from my argon bottle and use aluminum foil to block the gas in. I'll be plugging the pipe around the welds and just purging the heat affected zone so I don't waste a bunch of gas trying to purge the length of the entire pipe. I have an oversize pyrex cup but I can only weld around 1CM before I have to stop and let it cool otherwise my weld bead turns unacceptable colors. I may build a trailing deal for my torch so I can make longer welds.
Here's the muffler:

View post on imgur.com

has a brushed finish including over the welds which pisses me off because while I doubt it will fail you need to see the unmodified weld to judge whether it's acceptable.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by The Wind Breezes

Yeah I have about 45 minutes experience. My goal is full silver / straw welds. The metal welds very nicely the problem is all in shielding and pre weld cleanup. I backpurge with a second flowmeter I T'd from my argon bottle and use aluminum foil to block the gas in. I'll be plugging the pipe around the welds and just purging the heat affected zone so I don't waste a bunch of gas trying to purge the length of the entire pipe. I have an oversize pyrex cup but I can only weld around 1CM before I have to stop and let it cool otherwise my weld bead turns unacceptable colors. I may build a trailing deal for my torch so I can make longer welds.
Here's the muffler:

View post on imgur.com

has a brushed finish including over the welds which pisses me off because while I doubt it will fail you need to see the unmodified weld to judge whether it's acceptable.

I can appreciate what you're saying with the shielding gas and welds. I have a MIG welder and played around with welding some stuff. I didn't use any shielding gas and only flux cored wire. It was a total mess.

I have to take some pictures of the Akrapovic titanium exhausts I have on my bikes. The welds are just a pure work of art.

[ShocknAwe]

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with. Titanium has a really nice acoustic quality to it as well.

[Orangee94]

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