custom made manifold

[wizzbilly]

alright all am after some recomandations from pepole that have had custom manifolds made.

its a turbo car and at the minute have tried varios manifolds from £1000quid to cheap and nasty ones of ebay and there as bad as each other , so for this project i will be needing custom one made .

its a turbo manifld am after and prefably someone that has had plenty of experince and braces them to the block correct to try ellimanate cracks , i no its goin to happen in time unless get iconel but cant affored this just yet

have tried protec but they are to busy at minute

[neiljohnson]

Try Primary Designs they very expensive but from what ive heard they are pretty much the best in the business.

[CNHSS1]

cant recommend anyone in particular, but having used stainless in 304 and 316 for turbo tubular manifolds, i would use mild steel next time. doesnt harden and fracture like stainless. ive tried bracing and all manor of tricks to stop cracking, but ultimately they allseem to sooner or later. mild seems to have a bit more flex (ductility) so doesnt suffer the same fractures.
as for bracing to the block or head, i tried that and found it still cracked, but in different areas. i ended up using a 'gallows' scenario attached to the rocker cover hanging over the turbo/maniolf assembly (search for pics of Bailey jobbie on cosworths). from the gantry i added two rosejoints with threaded rod in between. this takes the weight of the assembly but allows small amount of lateral movement to allow for thermal expansion. the turbo itself is a fair old chunk of weight and seeing as i have loads of pics of the SS manifold glowing orange on the dyno that weight causes most of the (my) problems.
another tip is to make the manifold and machine the flange surfaces flat and fit. then run for a while in anger (dyno or testing etc) to ensure the manifold has got properly cooked. then remove and remachine the flanges again. now they will stay flat. also may be worth cutting the head flange as one, then once machined flat, cut slots between each port to separate them to allow for expansion.
hope that helps
CNH

[Boosted LS1]

Is it a complex manifold with lots of bends and curves or something flatish. I can do flatish castings like these chevy lsx items.

[black1]

try prospeed in cardiff 02920461444

[BB-Q]

Make your own with mild steel Schedule 10 steel weld on elbow fittings. About £6 per elbow. You'll need 12-16 for a 4 cylinder car, plus half a metre of straight pipe to make the collector with and to add length to individual pipes. Make sure you weld stubs to the flanges first and then send them off to be milled flat. You'll find that's a lot cheaper than getting a machine shop to try and bolt a complete tubular header to a mill. You shouldn't suffer the cracks if using mild steel.

Get it chromed or ceramic coated afterwards and Robert's your father's brother.

All the above assumes you can weld.

[Mr Whippy]

BB-Q said:

All the above assumes you can weld.

[marT350T]

A few pf my friends have used Nortech, and they seem to be top class.
I will try to get a number for you.

[Mr Whippy]

Boosted LS1 said:

Is it a complex manifold with lots of bends and curves or something flatish. I can do flatish castings like these chevy lsx items.

Nice to see a resident PH 'caster' by the way

Could you manage something like the one below at all, without the top-outlet for EGR (blocked there), and with the bottom turbo outlet matched for a different output location/angle/face? (ie, so when I fit the turbo it points it's exhaust outlet in the right place)



And how much do you charge roughly... just all ideas for now. Most people who fit different turbo's to these engines either build or buy long tubular manifolds to bring them to the front of the car (next to head near battery on my car), just it'd be nice to fit one in the same place and depending on cost it might be cheaper too!

Feel free to PM me if you have any rough idea/costs so I can throw them around in my head.

Thanks

Dave

Edited by Mr Whippy on Wednesday 17th September 17:03

[BB-Q]

Here's what one of our members over on Turbobricks did with the elbows I mentioned above (except he did his in stainless):

[Boosted LS1]

Mr Whippy aka Dave, yes I could do that as it's basically a horizontal split. I could put the turbo flange anywhere you want it. Downside is a pattern has to be made replicating the shape before you produce a casting. What engine is this and is it popular?

[wizzbilly]

boosted ls1

pm me a ruff idea what sort of price looking at so can have a think , to fit a ls7 engine with conection for turbo and to run external wategate of it

thanks


and i dont think my skills are upto making my own manifold wish i could would save me fortune

[Mr Whippy]

Boosted LS1 said:

Mr Whippy aka Dave, yes I could do that as it's basically a horizontal split. I could put the turbo flange anywhere you want it. Downside is a pattern has to be made replicating the shape before you produce a casting. What engine is this and is it popular?

It's a PSA DW10 diesel.

It's probably one of the most common engines around really, though the amount of people who might actually want a bigger turbo and an uprated manifold might not be huge


In tuning circles within the PSA marques though it is pretty popular.

It is quite common to see people fitting modern VNT turbo's to them, either with rather rough and ready manifold adaptors and bent exhaust downpipes, or with a custom tubular manifold taking the turbo to the side/top of the engine bay, then a custom exhaust back down and out...
OK, it works, but I'm sure costs are not great, nor reliability of the very long and hot pipes expanding and contracting.

I'm just curious of the cost... I think a proper cast manifold would be possibly be the same cost, but much more reliable, easier to fit/maintain, better response performance etc...

The turbo of choice at the moment appears to be the BMW 120d VNT, with a few people running these having over 200bhp and 300lbft. An uprated turbo is ideal anywhere after about 160bhp/270lbft, and lots of people seem to want that level of power, so the market could well be fairly large if this just fit off the shelf (then again maybe some people like all the twisty pipes and visible turbo in their engine bay)


Just ideas really. I'm currently looking at talking to AET Turbines about a hybrid turbo to fit the stock manifold/intake/outlets, just seeing what they can do for about 185bhp/300lbft potential... but it may well be cheaper to just source 120d turbo's and a manifold for loads more potential than hybrids with no VNT and older design etc.


Cheers

Dave

[wizzbilly]

mr whippy i would be looking at holset turbos , they are proper deisel turbos and are very good and price is also attractive , they supply to mosy commercial veiceles along with garret

[Mr Whippy]

wizzbilly said:

mr whippy i would be looking at holset turbos , they are proper deisel turbos and are very good and price is also attractive , they supply to mosy commercial veiceles along with garret

I'm honestly not sure what I need.

My car has ECU control but the turbo is still actuated via manifold boost, so no real options for effective VNT control bar an adaptation of using manifold boost to vary the A/R of the exhaust turbine... not ideal, but it works...

I just think if BMW are slapping VNT turbo's onto their top-end diesels then using their turbo's from their 2.0 4 pot cars makes sense... or hybridising a turbo so it fits the existing housing/exhaust/intake etc...

A brand new turbo that isn't VNT nor an easy swap just doesn't seem to make sense to me... though of course I'm happy to be proven wrong and shown the light

Dave

[BB-Q]

I was discussing turbos with a diesel fitter the other day (trying to find somewhere I could buy Holsets for cheap) and was shown that they are going away from VNT because it's too unreliable (who could've predicted that? ) and going over to compound turbocharging now.

go for a small Holset- they go for very little money on Fleabay when they turn up- you're looking for a turbo like an H*25 or similar.

[Boosted LS1]

wizzbilly said:

boosted ls1

pm me a ruff idea what sort of price looking at so can have a think , to fit a ls7 engine with conection for turbo and to run external wategate of it

thanks

Something like this, these are for ls7 or any lsx for that matter? The Tial is on the underside.



Fit the turbo's onto the front via an elbow or adaptor.

Edited by Boosted LS1 on Thursday 18th September 22:17

[Mr Whippy]

BB-Q said:

I was discussing turbos with a diesel fitter the other day (trying to find somewhere I could buy Holsets for cheap) and was shown that they are going away from VNT because it's too unreliable (who could've predicted that? ) and going over to compound turbocharging now.

go for a small Holset- they go for very little money on Fleabay when they turn up- you're looking for a turbo like an H*25 or similar.

Interesting.

I must admit I am a big supporter of just using what you have already, and just adding a bit more, hence the idea of (if possible) a hybrid, with as bigger compressor and turbine stuffed into the existing housing as possible... (I don't like the idea of these cut blades etc though)

I'll just have to see how it goes with my current modifications, it seems even current ubercars like the Nissan GTR use conventional turbo wastegating, but very good design, so I imagine a well matched Holset (decade newer tech really) and a good mapping setup should deliver the same kinda response as now, but a whole load more efficient flow at the same time

I'll keep my eye out. You really can't tell much form pics on Ebay though, you need them in-hand next to an old turbo from your car to get an idea...

Have two spare engines now anyway, and a spare shell, so my brother and I will be rigging one up to see what can be done with the rather limited space behind the engine, but without anything else but the bulkhead to get in the way of ponderings


Thanks

Dave

[wizzbilly]

to be honest if you just after a little bit more perfomance nothing stupied, agetting your oem manifold flowed is decent upgrade depending how restrictive the oem is .

de-cat is another one

and am sure your stock turbo will take a bit more boost .

you dont realy need to go external wastegate unless u going over 400bhp imo aint realy till you get to that figure you start getting boost creep..

i am a big belive in holset turbos , had a few now , once you figure out how to work the power etc out that they will flow pretty simple .

holset are just deisel turbos , so for example a qouted 500bhp holset will probley flow in the region of about 700on a petrol car .

i have 2 here from a scania truck which are holset turbos and qaulity is as good as uswell

[wizzbilly]

Boosted LS1 said:

wizzbilly said:

boosted ls1

pm me a ruff idea what sort of price looking at so can have a think , to fit a ls7 engine with conection for turbo and to run external wategate of it

thanks

Something like this, these are for ls7 or any lsx for that matter? The Tial is on the underside.



Fit the turbo's onto the front via an elbow or adaptor.

Edited by Boosted LS1 on Thursday 18th September 22:17

any chance of some basic mesurments need 2 decent size turbos to be able to fit , and as its not going in the chassis it was designed for , could get tight .

i take it there cast or have i got it wrong lol would much prefer cast saves the cracks but they look very sturdy , when you hanging 2 dirty bg turbos on them there bound to break .

you got any pics by any chance of them fitted to a car just so can get ruff gauge where they will sit as new chassis is much narrower

many thanks and sorry to be pain in arse lol