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So a friend of mine built a smoke machine to track down some hotside leaks. The build has like 200-250 miles on it. He expected to see a V band leak or whatever, but instead the China flex couplers are leaking internally. The V bands on the ends are good, but smoke slowly comes out between the mesh. These are the turbo couplers with the internal stainless rings. Has anyone seen this, and are the Vibrant ones better? I am curious how many guys would even notice this.
Those couplers use the same old flex pipe on the inside the sale at the vatozone or checker or whatever. Those use a maze type seal that works good under no or low pressure. They wont seal under pressure period. They dont leak a ton and can be used but they arent sealed. You need the convaluted or accordian type to use pre turbo. Like this. They look like this instead of the mesh covered flex pipe.
I’ve blew out the vibrant ones also.... just make sure when you buy new ones they say “pre turbo” in the description.... they are more expensive but that’s what they are intended for.... they look like regular flex pipes but they have a sleeve inside ...or just do what I did and put a piece of pipe in there in stead of the flex pipe
I was just a little shocked by this. I've seen tons of guys use them and never really heard any complaints, so that's what we built it with. He reached out to Vibrant and they gave him a specific part # to use. He said he heard a leak, and that's what started this. I can't hear very well anymore, and I didn't notice anything. The car still made boost no problem. It just made me wonder how many other setups are out there in this situation. On any of my previous turbo cars, the turbos have all been right off of a manifold, so I had no experience with these.
Due to the size and location of this turbo, it has to have a flex coupler in it. We have no way (very easily anyway) of mounting the turbo to the block, so hard pipe is out of the question.
its pretty common i think. i've blown out a few. vibrant and china clone. with a 6.0 and the tiny turbine of a 7875 i melted two in short order. exhaust would puff out fo the mesh haha
Vibrant bellow like pictured above in my crossover for a year and no issues pre turbo. I just added a no name braided with interlocking liner in the down pipe by my electric cutout as I’ve heard good things about them. The bellows are very flexible so it’s best to keep them relatively straight and in a straight section when things “grow” when they get hot. So make sure they aren’t flexing when they are installed, bc when they get hot things move more and in different directions. I also have a vibrant interlocking inner liner and braided outside style sitting on the shelf.
U can see the bellow in the crossover by the waterpump inlet Braided with interlocking inner liner after the cutout.
He ended up buying the Vibrant stainless bellows. I was just surprised that the stainless mesh with the interlocking rings leaked.
On that note, does anyone know if the China knock off bellows style are thin or something? I ask because I know a guy who used some style, not sure if they were knock offs or vibrant, but my guess is knock offs. Anyway, he had one on a dump tube tied into the downpipe, and it cracked.
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Turbo flex couplers differences??? 
