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mild steel, as that is the industry standard and a way to keep costs down. The overall craftsmanship is great. My only grief with the SZ pipes is that I *suspect* they used the same steel filler wire required to join mild steel to fabricate the pipes. This is only an assumption given the fact that I found all the welds on my SZ pipes to be magnetic. In the SS family, martensitic alloys are magnetic and feature nearly no nickel. The addition of nickel alters the crystal structure and this group is called austenitic. This is where you find your 304, 309, 316, etc alloys. But back to the point, filler wire of the martensitic family are not as common as the austenitic. Mild steel filler wire is cheaper than SS filler and could be used to join the mild steel flange to the SS tubing. However, it is generally understood that the higher grade alloy's appropriate filler should be used, in which case you would want to use a SS filler. It is possible the fabricator used all MS filler in which case corrosion resistance is only as good as the plating. Austenitic SS are corrosion resistant due to their chromium oxide layer, which can reform over scratches and wear to continue to protect the part. But one a plating is scratched, the base metal is exposed an corrosion is likely.
Jared
1994 Twin Turbo |
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