FMIC Piping Kits

[Metzger_Merkur]

Gawd damn thats a whicked looking engine! Killer work there buddy! You have some more pics online of this car? youtube vids?

[Camaro5690]

Unless there's been changes made, and I'm not saying there hasn't, the typical Ebay stuff will show cracks in less than 12 months under the hood of an XR. Silicone is like stainless steel. It's just a name. Ask those rusty "stainless" clamps.
There's a reason the good stuff costs more.
I bought some Silicone Intakes stuff this build, mainly because I couldn't find the oddball angles and one oddball transition I needed in 3". The 3 pieces I bought weigh (and cost!) less than the one Goodridge 135 bend I have coming out of the turbo. Seems to be holding so far.

My setup has been on for over a year. Looks the same as when installed, just a bit dirtier. (Daily driven) And as for the tbolts, they never claimed stainless in the ad. I just assumed, and the bands are stainless just not the bolt.

You must be thinking of the ebay stuff from like 5-7 years ago when they were selling 2 and 3 ply silicone that was cheaper than the spectre stuff you buy at autozone. Its not like that anymore. Atleast not in my experience, or 4 of my friend who have had great success using ebay parts as well. One of these cars happens to be a single turbo 302 Mustang, running an 11 second in the 1/4 mile. Using OMG ebay couplers with no issues.

That said, I only get certain things on ebay. I bought my fuel pump from mc2. My MBC from Boostvalve. My dual piston BOV from Merkur Depot.

[RatFink]

Have you used Ebay stuff before? Or silicone intakes before? Im just curious. Because alot of the people I hear saying things like "I prefer American", or calling it cheap chinese ebay junk, infact have no experience with the actual product itself.

I have indeed had experience with the stuff from Silicone intakes, Vibrant Performance, Verocious Motorsports and ChineEEBAY, although, I choose not to use it on any of my cars and prefer to not use it on any of my projects. I know what it is and I know how cheap it is. I never called anything junk, as a matter of fact, I never really made any reference to any of it. I simply stated what I do and tried to help by providing links to some of the lower end vendors I use here in America. If price point is all you care about when you are looking to down grade your car, it's nothing to me. Be my guest, pinch all the pennies you want. I'll still stop on the road when I see you broken down and help you out anyway.

When I work on something, I try to think. I think about all the different forces that act on the system and the components of that system. A lot of people use silicone 90's right out of the compressor, I choose to do things a little differently because I see a potential for failure by placing even a good quality silicone elbow right at the source of the highest amount of heat in the whole inter cooling system. is it easy, cheap, or convenient? No, but it's the way I do things.

Here are some shots of just a couple small projects I have had some experience with.

[Camaro5690]

Well Ratfink, Im going to agree to disagree here. You clearly have spent probably 10 times on your car than what I have.

But I have been using my cheap inferior products on my XR4Ti as a daily driver for well over a year now. I'm far from the easiest on my cars. And have yet to have any issues with my 100percent chinese intercooler set up. All the quality on my parts was good. I did a budget build. And I am aware that others may want to do things on a lower budget.

Yes your car has much more expensive parts on it. But not everyone here is going for that. I pulled my XR4Ti out of a field and saved it from a fate of sitting their till it was gone to a scrapyard. Its a budget build, yet it has always been reliable for me. More so than possibly any of the cars I have previously driven. And this is even with my cheap inferior products.

Keep believing in the fact that everything that is cheaper than what you have is going to break. Keep spending more on your car, I don't care. I have a blast with my car, and don't regret using any of the (aftermarket) parts that are on it. 16 months of daily driving. No break downs to speak of. I have to say, I know alot of 100 percent stock XRs that cant claim that.

By the way my XR4Ti was a free non running car when I picked it up.

[wicked93gs]

Here is the root of the problem. You have two countries, country A(USA) and country B(China)
1. Both countries start with the same wage scale circa 1900, but in 1913 country A decides a central bank is a good idea...they call this bank the federal reserve(even though its privately owned) this bank tells the treasury to print money with no commodity backing out of thin air...then charges the government of country A interest to do so...whereas before this country A had to pay no interest to print money. Country A decides they need to institute something called an income tax to pay this private bank to do something they could do for free.
2. Wages are relatively stable and competative between the two until 1931 when country A decides to go off the gold standard domestically(they confiscate the gold of the citizens and make gold illegal as a currency or commodity)
3. From 1931-1971 as a result of that decision inflation starts to rise in country A slowly...by 1971 the value of the currency in that country has dropped 50%. This means that wages must rise to compensate. Meantime wages in country B remain the same(or close to it even though sometime in there they too go to a paper currency).
4. 1971 country A decides to go off the gold standard internationally(now they no longer pay their debts in gold, now its just printed paper with no value...oddly domestically they make gold legal as a commodity again, though not as a currency...probably to placate the people opposed to the policy).
5. 1971-2012 Due to the decision to go completely off of a backed currency country A's currency drops another 47% from 1913...making that currency worth only 3% of what it once was. To make matters worse, there is no significant increase in wages to keep pace. The result of this is that the only way the average citizen can afford to buy anything is buy products from country B. This destroys the manufacturing base in country A and gives a huge economical boost to country B. Comapnies in country A are no longer able to compete with companies in country B for the same product. Wages in country B rise as a result...but prices do not rise nearly as much.

And that is where we stand today. Inflation has killed our economy and made it so we cant buy american products and american companies can not make a profit. Income tax(used to pay the federal reserve interest) takes away another 10-15% of people's money. Lets say that in 1913 you put $500 in the bank...in 2012 you retire....and draw it out(ignore the long lifespan). You go to withdraw the $500...which is still there...but now that $500 only buys $15 worth of goods....where did that $485 of value go? The federal reserve stole it from you because they wont stop printing worthless paper money. While the gold standard may not be ideal...it did hold the value of money stable. One dollar in 1796 could buy the same amount of food in 1912(except for a short period of inflation in the civil war)....but today it only buys you 3¢.

That is the root of the problem right there. It has little to do with quality and everything to do with inflation.

[John Brennan]

Very, very well said, and quite irrefutable if you ask me. Not sure how we're gonna get out of it, but I do know we have to try.

One thing we can do is vote with our dollars, and start being choosy that way. It WILL have an effect. The money you think you're saving by falling into the above-described trap isn't really saving you anything in the long run. With all the attention currently being paid to politics and the upcoming election, remember that your dollars are all votes that are actually far more powerful than the ones you cast in the ballot box.

[wicked93gs]

The whole problem if you ask me is that people dont understand what money is. Do you know the definition of a dollar? A dollar is really .523 grams of silver...thats what the definition of a dollar is. When I look in my wallet I see no silver...just a bunch of monopoly money. This distinction is important because you can always print more paper money, but there is only so much silver to go around so the only way to increase the silver money supply is to mine more...this leada to minor inflation...but we are talking fractions of a percent(assuming a population that does not increase) as opposed to the thousands of percent that paper money has over the last century. The problem that voting with our dollars has is that our dollars have no value...you can no longer trade one dollar for .523 grams of silver. The people at the top dont care because they can just print whatever amount of money they need...money that you and I have to actually work for. They have a word for this...its called slavery, enabled by the Federal Reserve approved by congress. A congress whos JOB it is to coin and print money(see the US constitution section 1 article a job which they had NO RIGHT to give to private bankers. The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was passed when the majority of congress was in recess during the holidays...along with the federal income tax neesed to fund the interest payments on the money they printed. So in effect our money has no clout and the only way to get out of the mess we are in is to end the federal reserve and amend the constitution to make sure a central bank is never again allowed to form. The Fed is not the first(the first central bank was chartered under george washington...but when Thomas Jefferson became president he refused to renew their charter because he saw what it was going to do) or even the second(the second central bank of the US Andrew Jackson spent his time as president killing). A couple of interesting facts about central banks....the communist manifesto has two of its main blanks as
1. Establishment of a central bank
2. Establishment of a graduated income tax
There was a recent one time audit of the federal reserve...you know what they found? During the recent recession the Fed printed 16 trillion dollars(yes, you read that right...trillion) that they used to bail out banks here in the US and across the world...an increase of 16 trillion dollars in the money supply means that inflation rose...you wonder why gas has risen in price so much in the last few years? Hint:it has nothing to do with oil. Food has also almost increased 30%....sure signs of rampant inflation by a central bank that acts only to save their colleagues and places the burden of the cost on us. A bag of say...doritos in 2008 was 2.57, today its 3.57 for that same bag

[Ray]

Oh wow, i just read an article on this a few days ago... it's worth the read.

http://permaculture.org.au/2012/08/08/t ... -exploded/

goes right into what wicked just posted about. However, i still believe that made in the USA shines with a quality not really seen in "Made in China" or "indonesia" or "malaysia" - i just feel better buying products made here. Is the quality of our steel better? Probably (to be honest).