First the bad, I was driving home from vt on friday, and it began to rain...as in monsoon type rain, slowly i realize me car is getting loud, and after about 10 min its rediculously loud, and running like poo except under wot. I pull over in the monsoon, in the middle of nowhere, pop the hood and there is exhaust smoke everywhere. I geuss the cold water hitting the already warped manifold caused it to warp way worse. The worst part was that I had a 6hr drive home, and the car wouldnt idle, terrible part throttle, and was only smooth at wot, but very loud. I rolled up my mcdonalds napkins and stuffed them in my ears and that helped a little, although I got many interesting reactions on the way home.

Anyways Sun I ripped the car apart like I do pretty much every other weekend, and began the new manifold.

First I made the collector. Now you are suppose to use a band saw, and put the metal in a jig at 12.5 degrees or something exact like that...I have no bandsaw so I rented a chop saw and made what i geuss could be called a very crude jig


Not to bad, it was off by 3 or 4 degrees, but the welder will fill the gaps



Next, attached the turbo to the downpipe, and welded that rod to the head flange and turbo flange so that I know where the turbo flange needs to be in order to be square with the downpipe.


Then I began the 2 day puzzle. The trick is to bend the tubing around itself, the framerail, and the motor mount support,( which was much higher than I anticipated, which cause me to change me design. Because of the this, the manifold will not be equal length, which probably wont make a difference on my turbo, but it might make a pulsy sounds like a wrx), and also get the tubing ends to line up squarely. I put paper on the inside and tape on the outside and slowly got everything to work out





And finally...well its not pretty, but it will be fully functional unlike my old one. It goes to the tig welder tomorrow and hopefully he can tidy things up. The guy welding it used to weld formula 1 cars and is the best in the area, he does amazing work. Oh yea, and the beer for size comparison, this thing is big and weighs prolly 40lbs. Also much beer was consumed and much profanity was spoken.




This project was much harder than I thought, this is what I was going forfull race manifold
, which costs $1200. Its not that I didnt want to pay the money (although i didnt) its more that I enjoy making stuff myself.

Total cost $220 in 304/304l schedule 40 steal tubing, and abour 70 in flanges, and probably 200-300 in welding

 

all i can say is someone got skills

 

thats some amazing work there Tom [sm=hail.gif]

 

Wow Tom . Your an animal

 

Wow, that's awesome man. Very impressive stuff here!

 

Thats looking good

 

Looks good dude...

 

crzy ****

 

i wish i was as cool as you tom

 

Wow, that rocks. Great skills. You can always expect cool shizzle from the TomRitt.