What's the trick?
 

I have 2.5" turbo inlets and therefore bought 2.5" t-bolt clamps. For the life of me I cannot get them on no matter how loose I get them. Is there a trick or should I have gotten a half a size bigger T bolt clamps. I also tried my 3" intake pipe and coudln't get the 3" T bolt clamps on.

Any suggestions would be great. I am using them to hold on the silicone couplers for the turbo's and throttle body. I did put a very small bead around the ends of the pipe to hold the coupler. The coupler fits no problem but the T bolt doesn't.

I don't know if this is your situation, but when I was ordering 3.5" ID clamps there were two to pick from. One was for black rubber and the other was for silicone. I'll take a look and make sure what I just said is not just babble. Are your joints black rubber by any chance?

Just looked, check this link out.

http://intakehoses.com/Merchant2/mer...gory_Code=TBC5

That's interesting. WTF. You would think if using 3" pipe and coupler whether silicone or rubber it would still have enough slack to use either. I am using silicone and rubber. I purchased mine from a hardware store that sales everything. I am just going to exchange them out and get a 1/4 size bigger. Surely they will still torque down. So I will get a 2.75 for the 2.5's and get 3.25 for the 3" pipe. What sucks is I am ready to assemble and fire this thing. Wasn't expecting this. Guess, I will have to wait until monday. Thank you for posting that though. I was feeling pretty stupid trying to figure out why I couldn't get it to go on. No way it should be that difficult. The bead around the edges are going to make it a little bigger so a 1/4" bigger size will hopefully do the trick.

Your welcome, I ran into the same thing on my GN

You buy the clamp to suit the OD of the hose you are clamping...obviously.

Not the size of the smaller hard pipe.

go 1/2'' bigger i.e. using 2.5'' od pipe get 3'' clamp

It won't be too big to clamp down? I'll go try my 3" that I have on the 2.5 turbo side and see how it does. Thanks.

Just measure the OD of the silicone pipe when its fitted over the hardpipe.

Then buy clamps to suit that. Dont buy too big though, try and aim towards the lower end or the middle of any sizing. And definitely not at the tight end.

well every coupler i have seen is 1/4'' wall so i have never had a issue going 1/2'' bigger.

You can get 3, 4 and 5 ply silicone. So there are various thickness's.

i understand that but the overall thickness is still about 1/4'' wall