My KAT manifold progress and IC test fit. ohhhh pics too!

[RBS14]

been working on this off and on for the past two weekends. Wish i had a plasma torch, grinding this stuff takes forever. the turbo (z31) is gonna be bottom mounted, so the collector will be made from the ends of the two pipes. it's obviously not equal length but hopefully it'll be better than a log style. opinions/input?

*imagestation sucks, hope the pics work. if not click on the link to the album below.

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid120/p39bd9b3ab4c398ed159319012498511c/f860928e.jpg

another
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid120/pe4400209d365598f8e8f2eaebbd3d4ae/f860918f.jpg

as for the IC, it's from a starion. good size and efficiency. havn't decided if i want it to sit on that part of the frame or down in front of it yet. i like the idea of having it up there so if/when i have a drifting/touge accident, it won't get messed up. As you can see, there are no more headlight/hood latch brackets......... where'd they go?

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid120/p354c269ed44626933e8fe870ed6df426/f8608e62.jpg

here they are. welded some new brackets in between the brackets and bumper support. then i just cut the brackts off and took out the botl in the bottom. very stiff, lets hope i don't get in a big accident or everything's getting pushed around.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid120/p20fcbd5edeeff517304f9fadd975dea7/f8608f65.jpg

and the panda for good measure
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid120/p2a375f46a2cc383709dfde3bf12c2861/f8608cb5.jpg

got a couple other random pics in there too. boost gauge, more pandas and a spray can barely fitting under my front lip, damn my car is slammed!

http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4286633749&idx=16

*sorry for some of the shaky pics, not enought sleep, girlfriends and cars do that to me. :yum:

tell me what you think.

[Bbandit]

very nice! looking good man! more ka-t! yay!!
your manifold looks different.. im anxious to see how it will look under the hood. weld those up man and post the finished product.
What kind of fuel are you going to be running? 370cc+safc+walbro fuel pump?

as for the intercooler.. wouldnt it be better if you flip the IC.. since the majority of air will go through the part thats closer to the inlet and outlet.

[Gladman]

Not sure how you'll pull off the manifold, but glad to see theres someone else out there willing to try it out on their own.

[Grandpa]

Do you mind a little manifold criticism? I hope not, cause you're going to get it. :p

Because of the cuts you made on the two 90 degree bends on the 1st and 4th runner, the exhaust gasses will be entering the stream near perpendicular to that of the flow of the 2nd and 3rd runners. This is not optimal.

It would be better to use, say, a 45 degree bend facing the medial line on the 2nd and 3rd runners, then another 45 degree bend to bring the runners parrallel. This would give you more room to merge the 1st and 4th runners into the stream, and it would decrease turbulence greatly.

I'm working on a DIY bottom mount too, trying to make it equal length. Let me tell you guys, it's a pain in the butt. I wholely commiserate with the poster. Bletch. It's amazing how fast a heavy 90deg weld-el will fly when it slips out of the clamp when you're trying to cut it. :bash:

-john

[240eggsx]

You also paired the cylinders incorrectly... should be 1&3, 2&4.

[RBS14]

Bbandit: woot kat's rock! for fuel i'm just going to be running 370's and a hacked maf for now. won't be going past 250hp for a little bit, so i won't need the pump just yet. IC........... hmmmmmm. I still don't know what to do. yea, maybe i will flip it upside down. Since it's pressurized, air should flow evenly through it but maybe not i guess.

Grandpa: no, i don't mind criticism at all. Yea, i was wondering how they were going to come together. I was hoping i wasn't going to have to cut so much out of the 90's, to keep as much of the radius as possible, but no such luck obviously. we'll see how it works.

240eggsx: not so, this has been discussed ad nauseum and it's not that big of a deal, with n/a yes, but turbo it's not as big of a deal. besides, look at a log style mani, those things are as basic as it gets, so this should be as good if not better.

keep the comments coming! good, bad, i don't care.

[Gladman]

90% of the guys out there are running DIY log manifolds, yours is guaranteed to be better than those.

[skatanic28]

if you can smooth out that intersection i think its gonna be pretty nice. i agree with you on the runner pairs too, i cant imagine a mechanical system actually bein affected with such a fast firing sequence.
more pics of the mani once youre done, any reason to go bottom-mount?

[Bbandit]

bottom mount:
1. more linear downpipe which gives better exhaust flow
2. sleeper look/less bling (me likes, eventhough i have a top mount..duh!)
3. IIRC with z31, if you wanna keep the internal wastegate, its better to go bottom mount. cuz you have to clock the turbo if you wanna go with top-mount. Also, if you wanna keep the z31 turbo exhaust elbow, bottom mount is the way to go, am I right?

If I have to do my ka-t all over again, Im going to go with bottom mount equal length manifold.

[Grandpa]

4. If you don't suck at designing it, you don't run into as many clearance issues with the MC. With my revhard, I'm pretty much stuck with the stock MC until I upgrade, then I can go with a z32 MC.

-john

[Bbandit]

yea that too.. i was pretty sure that i forgot something heat related... but yea MC... top mount people will always try to find a way to keep the MC cool

[transient]

If I might pose a quick question, wouldn't it be better if the flange to the head was seperated? Less metal to expand / contract, less chance of warping / cracking.

[Grandpa]

And it will be best to do it AFTER he welds it all up, after the stresses from the heat warp the metal to a small degree. Make sense?

Look at Full-Race's manifold, probably the best in the industry. It's obvious they separate the runners after it's all welded up.

-john

[RBS14]

yea, i'm bottom mounting it to try to keep the bling to a minimum. what a foreign concept? haha And as stated above, MC clearance is a lot greater if i can put this thing in a reasonable place. Bbandit has it all right, i don't want to just rewrite what he said. but with the z31 exhaust elbow, it's gonna be really close. hopefully i can use it, but it's looking like it's going to be tricky with the steering column right there. we'll see. I might just have to cut off the end and have a new flange brazed onto it so i can route the dp past it as i wish. hopefully not tho.

about the exhaust manifold flange, i will be cutting it after i'm done. that's just how JGS makes em.

since the starion inlet/outlet is 2" and the turbo outlet is 2" i'm going to be using 2" piping. the cool thing about that is that i'm going to be routing the piping in between the radiator and the radiator support up by the headlights. it's going to cut down on the length of ic piping quite a bit. that's why i was hoping to put the ic like that. what should I do about the IC inlet outlet, since i think Bbandit is right about the most air flowing throught the top of it, which is directly behind the bumper support? I was thinking about moving it all the way up to touch the top of my radiator support. since i don't have a grill, it'll get quite a bit of air. Then the bottom of my radiator would get more air too. what do you think?

sorry for it being so long.

[Grandpa]

Like this?

http://img39.photobucket.com/albums/v121/jbragelman/240%20pics/hella_horns.jpg

The pipes are going to an unmodified npr (medium) intercooler, mounted about 3 inches in front of the core support. you can't see it in the pic, but it's there.

-john

[Dream240]

Grandpa,

Why does your front bumper look like Frankenstein's neck? Is that just a quick fix from some accident? Also why the tie wraps to the front of the chassis? Did you remove the front bumper support altogether? Interesting.

I'm still learning about the turbo world so I'm sure this setup is obvious to some of you guys....:)

I've got another question for anyone. Not to jack this thread or anything but, are NA drift cars pretty common? I mean I don't really see that many guys with an all motor setup in a drift car. Just curious. Maybe because the turbo setup gives the KA that much more power to get it sliding right?

[Grandpa]

My roommate backed into me, and since I don't have a bumper support (I removed it completely because I mounted the npr so far forward), the bumper pretty much just split in half. :duh: So now it's held together with zipties.

The new turbo setup will have a different mounting point for the ic, so I can put the bumper support back in, as they're pretty useful.

-john

[Dream240]

Ahhh...I hate it when the roomate does that! :duh:

[transient]

And it will be best to do it AFTER he welds it all up, after the stresses from the heat warp the metal to a small degree. Make sense?

-john


Definately. I didn't mean to imply that it should be done now, I just wasn't sure that it was in the plans so I thought I'd point it out.

[dvdevo]

thats a nice manifold ya got there..

[Flybert]

Good work man. How long until you get that thing on the track? Paranoid at all? Did you compression test your motor? Sometimes I think about making my own setup except with prolly a T25 and an SS autochrome.

[RBS14]

Grandpa: exactly like that, except the IC would be behind the bumper support. I really don't understand why more people don't do it, cuts the lenth of the IC piping by at least a couple feet.

Chris: Yea, i'm hoping to get it back on the track ASAP! i'm so tired of going to these events sans my car! shit i tell you! I'm actually not too paranoid. I compression tested it last week and got 155-155-160-155. so i'm just going to be curious about the A/F ratio. I think Nic and I are going to go halves on a wideband. I'm getting pretty close, once i finish this mani (hopefully this weekend.... please god i'm asking for a favor!) i'll just need to do the dp which will be quick and ic piping. the injectors are going in with the hacked maf soon too. then i'm done! yay!

[Bbandit]

lube your injector o-rings! better yet.. replace them with some new ones... OR ELSE!! (fuel leaking and flooding from HELL!!!!!11!)

Oh, I like you're idea though. shorter IC piping = good. plus you dont have the front grill anyways which makes it better. as long as it clears the bumper support, I'd say go for it.

[Grandpa]

Grandpa: exactly like that, except the IC would be behind the bumper support. I really don't understand why more people don't do it, cuts the lenth of the IC piping by at least a couple feet.


A lot of times, IC design dictates pipe routing, at least it did for me. I don't have access to a tig, or my setup would be 100% different.

-john

[s14unimog]

I have a great idea.... buy an SR oh yeah post pics when it blows

[RBS14]

^^^^^^

don't come into my thread and post stuff like that. do me a favor and leave. you speak with the conviction of ignorance, many kat's hold up for a long time at high hp. oh yeah, an sr costs you at least 2k with no aftermarket parts. i'm gonna have more hp for $900.

Bbandit: i've got new o rings, and i'm gonna vaseline em up! thanks for the heads up tho.

[Flybert]

Chris: Yea, i'm hoping to get it back on the track ASAP! i'm so tired of going to these events sans my car! shit i tell you! I'm actually not too paranoid. I compression tested it last week and got 155-155-160-155. so i'm just going to be curious about the A/F ratio. I think Nic and I are going to go halves on a wideband. I'm getting pretty close, once i finish this mani (hopefully this weekend.... please god i'm asking for a favor!) i'll just need to do the dp which will be quick and ic piping. the injectors are going in with the hacked maf soon too. then i'm done! yay!

Are you gonna use the stock rad or are you going to upgrade that too? I know I'd be pretty paranoid seeing as Buttonwillow is sooooo fucking hot in the summer. Damn, I can't wait to see this. You gotta promise to let me roll with you when you get this thing out there. I know how you feel when it comes to not having your car. My car was down for a month and a half while I was periodically working on my KA->KA motor swap on the weekends. It sucks having a racecar sitting in the driveway with no chance of driving it. I feel for you dude. Good luck man. I hope you get that thing fired up this weekend.