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Originally Posted by slackfaster,Dec 5 2008, 07:30 PM
I'm one of the people w/ a broken J's 60rs.
I took it to Burns Stainless's ti welder - chris at BPR
all Chris does all day is weld custom race ti exhaust manifolds..
He had some interesting things to say about ti exhaust and my J's in particular...
1 - don't buy a ti header... great for a racer w/ a budget that includes replacing their cracked headers often -- not great for the rest of us.
Stainless lasts.
2 - ti mufflers are almost as silly (from a practical stand point) - but they experience MUCH less heat and vibration -
so, if well built, have a decent failure rate.
3 - the J's is well built.
Did he have some issues? yeah, he would have built it differently, but he said for a commercially mass produced product it was pretty damn good.
He cut mine apart - found the all the pieces of ti mesh that were rattling around in my resonator - repacked (he did say it was packed like ass before) and re-welded the J's back together and it's as good (or probably better) than new...
here is the piece welded back together
So, yeah, they do sometimes fail for a daily driver - but not often - and they are very easily fixed by any commopetent ti welder.
Chris was great -- anyone that needs work done - give him a call...
He's been making exhaust lately for a euro conversion company that's putting B20's into the Lotus Elise
Thanks for the post! That is exactly the kind of information I've been looking for!!
I've gone through four titanium exhausts from Amuse, J's, and T1R, and none of them failed under hard use. The only resonator that failed in my experience was the Mugen SS.
nothing inherently wrong with ti exhausts. lots of sports cars use ti exhausts oem, including the corvette. the problem is not the material, but the quality of construction.
nothing inherently wrong with ti exhausts. lots of sports cars use ti exhausts oem, including the corvette. the problem is not the material, but the quality of construction.
who's construction methods would u consider to ne the best and why? just curious.
Originally Posted by mr flannery77,Dec 7 2008, 08:21 PM
who's construction methods would u consider to ne the best and why? just curious.
actually, i really don't know. i heard the thickness of the walls makes a difference, and some aftermarket systems sacrifice too much material in the name of weight savings. personally, i have the T1R EM-TI, and it seems really well built, but that's just subjective as I have never measured the wall thickness against my vette's.
as for ti being brittle, again, i think that has to do with the alloy composition or method of creating it. many bicycles have ti frames, and they are known to be much more flexible than aluminum or steel, but yet do not fatigue. for example, my dean titanium duke softail is full suspension, has a shock, yet does not have joints! how does that work?--well, the ti flexes so much, it is used as a semi-joint! so, no, not all ti is brittle at all. quite the opposite. ti is one of the most resilient metal alloys available.
your Dean (classic bike by the way) wouldn't work if made out of aluminum... because aluminum is much less "brittle" then ti is --
it would just deform... it would bend and bend back
same for chromoly or other steel.
but benefit (for your Dean) is the "problem" with ti too..
it doesn't deform --
it breaks --
And sometimes one would rather a part deform under stress then just bend to it's limit and then break...
It's all about designing the object to use the positive aspects of a material and to engineer around the negatives.
You make a thin walled header out of ti and the heat and vibrations are going to cause it to crack.
Where as the same header made of stainless will withstand more more of the natural stress that piece is under.
A ti muffler isn't under that much stress so it makes sense to fab one out of ti.
A Cat Back is closer to the source - so they break more often.
Originally Posted by slackfaster,Dec 6 2008, 02:08 PM
as for $$$ --
I honestly don't remember... he charged me hourly.
--- he has the jig now (to fit it all back together) so anyone else will benefit from my hourly cost
I also had my Ti exhaust repaired by Chris at CPR... Very competent and knowledgeable guy. He is (or was the last time I was in there) a one man shop, with a lot on his plate; so turn around was about 1.5-2 weeks, at $250(ish). His welds were damn close to the JDM ones that came on my Trust TiR.
Chris gets from me as well.
You will be very impressed with the Amuse Titan Extra, if you have the coin and you get the reassurance from bulletproof on warranty issues you got yourself a beautiful piece that will set you apart from the crowd. I would have gone with the J's 70RS for the piping and resonated feature I like, but you will be happy with your purchase.
