Originally Posted by tjwong

Hi Glen, I spent over 20 years in the process industry (pulp and paper) as a EE specializing in process controls. We used a lot of 304 and 316 SS tubing for instrumentation impulse lines. In those industries if the tubing is not secured properly or made up properly to account for expansion and contraction of piping runs. The tubing will work harden as you mentioned and in time will just snap off. This can be especially dangerous in a boiler application where we are measuring high pressure steam line pressures. Imagine a 18" steam pipe that is carrying superheated steam at 1800+ PSI and the pressure transmitter impulse tube snaps off Superheated steam is especially dangerous under high pressure because it is essentially a superheated gas, it can cause serious burns in a split second, and legends from old mill hands will tell you that in some rare and extreme cases a blown steam line like that can literally cut you in half!

The headers that I have had to be replaced were made by Borla, and in these cases they were all LS1 based truck engines. I won't even recommend them to anyone these days. I had to replace 4 sets of them in the last two years. And being the good guy I am I ate the labor just to keep the customer happy. I have had to repair a couple of no name LS1 SS headers in the last year that were brought in to me with cracked tubing right at the flanges. And I had to repair a set of 8.1L SS headers from a suburban. I got a guy that is an excellent TIG welder so far so good