I will be starting on my turbo n/a soon hopefully and i am getting a lot of parts made for me. I was wondering what kind of material would be best to make a custom turbo manifold. i had the intention of buying a the RB Header mount piece for him to use as a base to start from. what kind of metal should i have him use for the piping to the turbo flange? if anybody has had one custom made already a picture would help a lot :D. the guy i have doing it welds for a living, but he doesn't do anything with cars... just navy ship parts. so he does a good job but doesn't know much about turbo manifolds.
Also, i've seen the lower intake manifold in pictures and it looks like there is a lot of extra material meant to bolt on the acv. would it be worth the space to grind a lot of that away and just weld and gaping holes closed with a metal plate? or would i be running into the intake ports without much gain in space?
i've got my turbo and intercooler from a 90 plymouth laser for $75 and it doesn't have any play and with the custom made parts all i have to pay for is materials. so i'm hoping to get away with this conversion with a record low cost. :D
Stainless steel is the best material to use for the manifold.
You can definitly grind away the ACV mount and plug up the holes. Any welder capable of welding aluminium can take care of it. However, it is a LOT of work for basically no gain.
The turbo from the Plymouth Laser is way too small for the 13B rotary.
i was thinking the smaller turbo would have better response and help with fitment issues by the strut tower and the acv. and i have an s5 so the compression is a little higher and i don't want to blow it instantly, i'd like to get at least 500 or so miles out of it :D
The problem with using a small turbo is that it will reach full spool by around 4000RPM, and drop off quickly after. It will choke the engine at the high end. Any turbo sized for a 4 cylinder is way too small...You need something around the size of a T-3, such as the stock turbo.
Even most T3 style turbos are too small, even though the compressor side might be an acceptable size usually the exhaust will be much too small, the HT18s is much closer to a t3/t4 style turbo.
Just buy a stock turbo to start with dude, they're cheap as anything anyway.
Suggested Materials?
Posted - Mar 25 2003 : 11:54:48 AM
