curves and turns effect the pipe in absolutely no way. You can have three 180 degree bends in a row, and as long as your not actually crimping the pipe to impede the flow, the sonic resonance will happily follow the path. You can even have angled bends, that go in 20* segments or whatever.
Important things are keeping the cones and chambers cylindrical, and not flattened or ovaled in any way. Thats far more importatnt than placing bends in the pipe.
edit...
if your going to try to make your own pipe, the one piece that is absolutely critical is to make sure you have a straight, clean and smooth entry from the head pipe (which idealy should have a 2-3* taper of its own) into the diffuser cone. So when you weld the head pipe to the diffuser cone, go back with a die grinder and smooth the joint on the inside, make sure its all flush.