Pipeline that bends

[chenji]

The only thing that still looks a bit weird is the attachment point, is there a way to get the rod to be more straight instead of this obvious bump? (see attached image, its exaggerated) 

Thanks in advance!

I assume you're talking about make the mesh more smooth , not making the rod behave like the red line. If that's the case, you may take a look at the Obi path smoother component, there is a smoothing setting that may help.