Alright, I've seen TONS of pictures of your amazing and beautiful turbo setups. However, they've all been from a few feet away! I've tacked together my hot-side and I have a dilemma I need to solve before I completely weld and send off to coating. My turbo is mounted dead center in front of the water pump pulley and I'm thinking I should add in some flex couplers between each header and the turbo flange. But if the turbo is solid mounted to the motor(say, a bracket off the waterpump bolts) will I need this? I'm guessing since my goals are pure street car, I should just for longevity sake.

Regardless, I'm interested to see what others have come up with to, hopefully, elegantly solve the turbo support issue.

 

If the turbo is mounted solidly to the waterpump/block/heads/whatever then no you dont NEED flex couplers, mine does not have any and the turbo flange is solid mounted to the passenger side head. The time when your really NEED them is when the motor and trans are on rubber/poly mounts and teh turbo is hard mounted to the chassis.

Now as the different components of the hotside expand/contrace at different rates as they heat cycle there are induced stresses on the hotside that flex couplers could releive. Are those stresses really a problem? probably not. I would not run any personally if I could avoid it.

 

Yep, just make a bracket to the motor and skip the flex couplers. Try to avoid flex couplers when possible. I cannot on mine. Turbos solid mounted to the fenders with poly mounts for the engine/trans. I need a flex to make sure it doesnt crack

 

IIInnnnteresting. I had presumed flex couplers were pretty important especially in a street driven car. Not the case? That's good, I don't have to chop up my merge pipe for flex joint! I'm guessing bracing the actual turbo flange off extended water pump bolts would be the best idea?

 

Just think about it. All the stuff thats bolted to the motor is free to move with the motor. If its solid mounted then motor wont move at all. If on rubber mounts, it will flex, but everything attached with the motor will flex with the motor so nothing can break in your piping.

Only time you really need flex pipes is if you have the turbo supported by the body/chassis of the car thats separate from the motor. Since the motor will move and the body will not, there can be added stress on the piping. If solid mounted motor, then nothing should move so you dont need flex pipe.

Flex pipes also can make up for some expansion in pipes due to heat, but the proper application for that is a bellow, not a braided flex pipe.