Indeed. Get rid of the doughnuts.

 

no im not getting rid of the doughnuts, im using the bellows to allow flex in the pipes and absorb vibration ect, which should prevent further wear of the doughnut area. there are other guys here that have done the exact same thing though i cant remember their names right now, that's where i got the idea from.

 

i would however not be opposed to getting rid of the doughnuts if someone wants to tell me how to get rid of them.

 

alright upon further reading you guys are correct, i need to eleminate doughnuts, next question is where do i get the flanges to replace the doughnuts with?

 

 

where did those flanges come from? and the gaskets for them? ill get um on order right now if someone will give me some part numbers lol

 

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...-up-pipes.html


you really should have read this as suggested on page one.

you cant buy them..he makes his own.

 

the first sentence...first response.

 

i did read through a whole lot of that initially honestly that should probably be cleaned up and made a sticky, there is alot of rambling to cut through to get the points out, i can see making the flanges, i guess i have to by some gaskets from riffraff and use them as a template for the flanges huh

 

buy some header gasket material and cut them out to match the flanges you built. the flanges need to be 3/8 thick.

we are a chatty bunch at times lol

 

You'll have to redo the pass side pipe to use flanges like I do. With the bellow up that close to the end of the pipe, you can't get the bolts in and out. I put the bellow down between the two bends on that one. I built the ones in the pic Aaron posted. I do them a little differently now than in my thread (which is a sticky). I don't use the half of a donut, just the gasket, and I make the flanges out of 3/8" instead of 1/2" now. It is very important that the pipes are oriented correctly when you weld the bellows in, if not you may have rubbing and fitment issues.

 

do you think if i use studs on that side rather than bolts i could make it work the way i have them welded or do i need to start over and get a new pipe and another bellow for that side? the reason i welded them the way that i did is because that is how riffraff has them welded in the photo on their site

 

You can try doing studs. Did you have the pipes bolted to the manifolds and in the collector and tack them together, then take them off and weld them up, or did you just cut the pipes and weld them up off the engine?

 

http://vibrantperformance.com/catalo...roducts_id=138

Would these flanges work?

 

Also we cut and welded them off the truck, the cuts and welds are on straight sections of pipe only so there were no angles to line back up, we did also make a straight line from end to end past the cut points to line back up so even though it was a straight section cut it went back exactly in the same position as they came off