Part 1 Modifying the stock Headers
Getting the R1 engine gases to exit the back of the car was a little challenging to say the least. The system had to be made to fit the low underside of the IQ, it needed to be made of Stainless, Titanium and carbon fiber, and it had to look and sound as good as it worked. so here is part 1, Modifying the stock headers.
Stock R1 Titanium Headers
I purchased 2 sets of R1 headers from ebay, the 2012 set cost me $120 delivered and and earlier set from a 2006 model cost me just $60 delivered.
The 2006 set has much straighter center sections on the down pipes so these would be cut out and used to fill in the gap where the 2012 set would need to be modified to go lower under the engine.
Cutting Titanium
Both sets of headers had to be cut.. more than once, as cutting them too short meant I would have to go buy another set.
Titanium is hard
Cutting of the down pipes was tricky, Titanium is hard, but also very brittle and even though a good sharp hack saw would cut through it was not an easy task. All the cuts had to be dressed with a grinder to get them to fit as close as possible so the welds would hold up.
Cleaning up for welding
All the mating surfaces were cleaned and de-greased ready for welding. I did purge the inside of the pipes when I TIG welded them, in fact I used half a bottle of Argon just on the Headers.
TIG welding Titanium
Cutting, grinding, measuring, over and over again. The headers had to be modified in length so they would clear the front drive shafts and exit towards the back of the car where they would join up with the Stainless steel mid pipe. I am actually pretty new to TIG welding Ti but after researching how to weld this exotic metal I got the hang of it and finally started tacking every thing up.
We have some new Headers
This task took a couple days to get completed. I would much preferred to have made them from scratch from stainless tubing, but for proof of concept on the R1-IQ build I worked with what I had. Surprisingly they are very sturdy, I bent,wiggled,and tried a couple of hammer blows to see if the welds would hold and they do! Certainly not the prettiest welds but I planned all along to wrap them in heat tape so it all worked out.
A perfect fit
Once the headers were welded up, the Mid pipe can start to be fabricated. This photo shows how close everything was, and how difficult to get the rear exit of the headers in the right place. This photo also shows the rear of the engine cradle and the bracing to clear the exhaust pipe.
Out of the car
As I mentioned before the front sub frame was easy to remove from the IQ, this is how I built the Engine cradle and had room to mock up all the drive train, it also meant modifying the headers was a lot easier to do too, and working at a comfortable height was nice for my back.
Back in the IQ
This photo shows the whole assembly back in the IQ. The headers have been wrapped in high temp "Lava Tape" The tape was secured with Stainless zip ties and goes all the way down to the end of the pipe and into the collector. This high temp tape should keep some of the heat out of the engine bay and also away from the aluminum cradle which picks up heat pretty easily. There is nearly 40 feet of tape on those headers!
My Lava Tape smokes
I understand the boy racer aspect of using this stuff, but for me it was really needed. When I started the IQ up the Lava tape smoked quite a lot, I am assuming the oil and sweat from my hands will take a while to burn off, plus whatever other impurities are in than stuff when they make it. It`s getting better, but it it still gives off some smoke.
Gas tight
The rear of the headers exits and joins up with the mid pipe, the Lava Wrap goes all the way to the end of the headers. This joint is gas tight and involves joining the Ti headers to the Stainless coupling flange. No leaks!
Flexible coupling
The rear of the headers has one rubber mounting point, then it goes into the mid pipe that also has a flexible stainless steel coupling with rubber mounts. The R1 engine does not really move around, it has no rubber mounts, but I decided to give the exhaust some flex especially with the temperatures that these would be under so it has room to expand if it needs to.
Part 1 Building the Headers is completed.
Fabricating and modifying these was not as much fun as I had thought, TIG welding Ti is a pain, the rods are expensive and I went through a ton of Argon with the back purging, as this needed to be done so the weld was not contaminated on the inside and cause a fracture down the road (literally). So now onto the mid pipe, which is basicly just 5ft length of pipe that connects the headers to the rear Carbon cans... this is covered HERE on another page.