Wiggins saved my b5 marriage

[TheDarkness]

So I was sick of my intercooler charge pipes popping off under boost, so I bit the bullet and bought 1 wiggins clamp for that driver's side lower FMIC connection (Running a DUH / custom setup w/ Vibrant Hoses & Clampco T-bolts) that kept popping off leaving the car inoperable and stalling out in the middle of wherever it would decide to happen.
*The oil build up on the couplers/clamps I beleive was the culprit along w/ bad pipe alignment*

Now it got a little out of hand after I dropped it off at the shop, the simple job turned into a new $$ custom setup. First, since the Wiggin's clamps come with Alum. ferrals and my DUH intercooler pipes are stainless, we had to change the entire setup. Considered some Wagners, but I'm too deep into this setup and I have no rebar left!

So why not ditch the old Bi-pipe /piping setup that was McGeivered together. We trashed to old setup and installed a new set of 034 Alum Bi-Pipes (Thanks 034!), Tbolts w. new silicon couplers to freshly welded alum. piping going from the Bi-Pipes to the Intercooler inlets via Wiggins clamps...now X4

The setup is well worth it & they did a great job, now I can feel more confident switching to my 25 PSI file and not feel like I'm gonna blow an intercooler pipe off.

Another leason learned here with tuning the b5, that paying more for quality when attemping to make the once daily driver Stage 3 b5 a little more reliable works! And, because Racecar...NASCAR style



Beauties





Clamps have a surprising amount of flex to them which is important to have with the amount they move under WOT, etc. I can literally move the pipes around a few degrees. Think I should remove the RS4 mesh grills and leave them exposed?






And since the stage 3 has graduated from daily driver to weekend warrior, new blank canvas parked next to er'!

[vavJETTAw36]

Setup looks good.

I had a problem with those t bolt style clamps allowing my lower ds smic hose to pop off, so I finally switched back to the regular worm drive and it's never popped off.


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[TheDarkness]

thanks! Yea I never had issues on the passenger side pipes, just both driver's sides. The pass side mostly had the worm clamps too.

I think it's mostly the oil that gets on the weld bead, couplers and piping as they keep coming off and going back on that made them near-impossible to seal-up correctly to handle 20+ PSI

[Seerlah]

Not a 2.7t, but have been running Wiggin clamps for a while now. Cheaper than Vibrant and gets the job done. Picked mine up on ebay years ago in black, when you could still order in a size like 2.5". Regardless, nice to see they worked for you too

[NOTORIOUS VR]

Usually when I've seen cars with piping popping off it's because of poor alignment/fab of the pipes that causes the issue.

[Monty23]

Piping looks great! Definitely keep the grills in there though, the crabs legs just don't look nice hanging out of the grill on the twin turbo FMICs imo.

Also fwiw, I have run 39psi through my 3" intercooler piping without issues, so normal couplers and T-bolt clamps work fine when implemented properly. You need to use high quality couplers and you need nice beads/lips around the ends of the intercooler pipes to keep them secured.

How hard are the wiggins clamps to attach the two interccoler pipes? I heard they can be a PITA, is that true?

[TheDarkness]

wasn't a simple fab job, that's for sure. The clamps come iwth multiple pieces and aluminum ferrules, so it's welding aluminum to aluminum intercooler pipes and to the intercooler core inlets is all

and LOL at "Crablegs", I think that term is more for "some" of the JHM or eBay FMICs that give all b5 FMICs a bad name

[Monty23]

wasn't a simple fab job, that's for sure. The clamps come iwth multiple pieces and aluminum ferrules, so it's welding aluminum to aluminum intercooler pipes and to the intercooler core inlets is all

and LOL at "Crablegs", I think that term is more for "some" of the JHM or eBay FMICs that give all b5 FMICs a bad name

I know the DUH is a far superior product compared to the ebay/JHM crap. but it still has 4 pipes and that kills it for me.

And you misunderstood my question. I am asking about how hard it is to attach the pipes after the wiggins are welded on. Is it super easy to align them at snap the clamp on or is it not so easy? I never messed with these style clamps but I am definitely interested in them for future projects.

[TheDarkness]

as long as your custom alum piping lines up correctly to the clamps then it's simple, you can lock and release each clamp with one hand even

[Monty23]

Thanks!