KA sheet metal intake mani

[IvanAtSPRacing]

Just thought I would share some pix of a sheet metal intake manifold I am putting together for Norbert's KA-T. It was just welded together yesterday. Let me know what you think.

http://www.phatka-t.com/PKA-TMani01.jpg

http://www.phatka-t.com/PKA-TMani02.jpg

http://www.phatka-t.com/PKA-TMani03.jpg

[w1ngzer0]

teh hawtness?

[Phlip]

yeah, but why?

[IvanAtSPRacing]

yeah, but why?

Why what?????

[nismo2491]

sure is a cutie ivan.
KEvin

[TurDz]

It looks nice and looks like it would support a larger volume of air, but have you thought about turbulence and design to reduce it?

[cdlong]

looks good, how'd you do it? the plenum looks like it came from something else. what do the runner ends look like in there, are they horns?

you might want to thread in a hole for a bleed screw in the coolant tube

[Ghettokracker71]

:hitit: Wow....

[sil80forme]

How Much $$$ To Make Me One?

[IvanAtSPRacing]

looks good, how'd you do it? the plenum looks like it came from something else. what do the runner ends look like in there, are they horns?

you might want to thread in a hole for a bleed screw in the coolant tube



Check out http://www.zilvia.net/f/showthread.php?t=69280&highlight=phatka-t+intake for the pre welded pix. You can see how it was made. The manifold isnt quite done yet. Coolant sensor bungs and discharge for thermostat housing. Bleeder can be added at this time.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v391/daywalker240/PKintakeinletradius.jpg
Inlets of runners.

[IvanAtSPRacing]

It looks nice and looks like it would support a larger volume of air, but have you thought about turbulence and design to reduce it?

From a post on NICO when the manifold wasnt even welded up yet.

A LOT of research and design went into this manifold. All variables were carefully considered in the design of this manifold to maximize the performance potential. Basically this manifold will be the highest flowing manifold ever created for the KA application.

Plenum volume and shape were carefully designed to maximize performance. Notice the lack of 90° edges on the manifold (with the exception of the plenum wall to floor) which promotes smooth air flow and distribution with no dead spots at the corners. Any time there is a hard corner it hurts manifold performance, not to mention what it will do to wet flow in those corners if your spraying a wet kit or using H2O / alchy injection. I am actually still considering machining the plenum floor to incorperate a radius to eliminate ALL the hard right angles.

The taper on the plenum accounts for the lack of volume needed as each runner consumes volume from the intake charge as it travels towards the back of the manifold (towards #4 runner) This promotes more even air distribution to all the runners. On the flow bench with our similarly designed MKIV Supra intake, we had less then .1% difference between ports

Runner placement in the plenum is critical for performance. Helmholtz tuning shows that if a runner is placed too close to the ends of the plenum, those runners will end up acting like they are actually longer then they are. The sonic waves traveling back and forth in the runners chage the power band and having mismatched runners is a no no. The rule of thumb is the plenum should extend 1/2 the runner diameter and spacing past the end runners.

The runner inlets are round which is the ideal shape for the best flow into the runners. The plenum floor is also machined with the IIR (ideal inlet radius) which basically creates velocity stacks built into the plenum floor.

The runners are effectivly tapered by changing the shape from round to oval to match the intake port on the head. By tapering the runners this will speed the velocity of the intake charge as it enters the head producing more power.

Runner length was chosen for the displacement of the motor and the power band we are shooting for (keeping helmholtz tuning in mind)

There is alot more to building an intake manifold than a large plenum and some tubes.

[Hikarispeed]

Awesome job! reading you're post you did some extensive work and that is extensive. I've designed some intakes and exhaust systems and yours looks great. I believe intake is where you can get some of the biggest power gains, I've only had experience with the NA engines though.

I'm thinking of running some numbers on a software at school, do you think you can give me the plenum volume and runner lengths?

[nismo2491]

just a suggestion, ever thought about offering bungs already on the runners for direct port kits? from past DSM experience as well as a buddies honda that helps to sell sometimes over a similarily priced competitor.
KEvin

[Phlip]

Relationship of Intake Port to Torque Peak
For a given intake port design, the cross-sectional area of the runner affects the location of an engine's torque peak in the RPM band. The runner length and shape is also very important, but the cross-sectional area will be the strongest determining factor.
Basically, the smaller the runner diameter, the less air potential there is. As the runner gets longer, inertia in the column of air will increase the flow at lower rpms and will tend to decrease the flow at higher rpms. Once again, inlet port cross-sectional area will be the main determinant of total airflow potential.

... my "why" relates itself to my own thoughts that the KA intake runner design/length was just fine before and my assumption would be that shortening them would cost someone torque unless it was some wildly presented race application...

[IvanAtSPRacing]

... my "why" relates itself to my own thoughts that the KA intake runner design/length was just fine before and my assumption would be that shortening them would cost someone torque unless it was some wildly presented race application...

Cross section of the runners was pretty much dictated by the port design of the KA head. Changing the cross section would not be possible without changing the ports in the head. Runner lenght was chosen with a higher RPM in mind. If you have studied many KA-T dyno graphs, you would see that TQ takes a HUGE dive right after peak TQ. Thats what we are trying to get away from. Shorten up the runners, keep them as fat as possible, and shoot for some upper end power.

[IvanAtSPRacing]

just a suggestion, ever thought about offering bungs already on the runners for direct port kits? from past DSM experience as well as a buddies honda that helps to sell sometimes over a similarily priced competitor.
KEvin

Honestly, I am not really planning on selling these. Just made a couple up for me and one of my customers. I will have NOS bungs on my intake tho as I will be running a direct port spool up kit.. maybe even spray it the whole way down the track... who knows...

[Jeff240sx]

What happened to the customer-oriented manifold you planned on selling? Did that idea take a crap? Because I'd buy a manifold from you three times before I bought another companies' square sheetmetal mani.
-Jeff

[nismo2491]

yeah I'm with jeff on that one. I'm definitely interested in buying one for my drag car n2o bungs and all :)
KEvin

[IvanAtSPRacing]

Jeff, still working on that. I have been quite busy trying to get this mani done and have about 5 KA motors to build and ship out right now. Its actually quite busy for this time of year for us. I will be getting back on that as soon as time permits. Right now I am really trying to get my car ready for this season of racing.

[Phlip]

Cross section of the runners was pretty much dictated by the port design of the KA head. Changing the cross section would not be possible without changing the ports in the head. Runner lenght was chosen with a higher RPM in mind. If you have studied many KA-T dyno graphs, you would see that TQ takes a HUGE dive right after peak TQ. Thats what we are trying to get away from. Shorten up the runners, keep them as fat as possible, and shoot for some upper end power.
Fair enough, you have answered my "why" now, and I will now question what was on your mind to be able to get that KA to actually rev to that level, because they are usually just about winded when they get to their peak anyway...

[Jeff240sx]

Phlip. You're thinking stock powerband. You can do anything with a KA's powerband. And hypothetically get it to rev to 15k, mainly due to the fact our limit is rod/crank stress, not valvetrain. We have motorcycle valvetrain, essentially.
But, I take my car to 7500, where it slams into the rev limiter. With cams and a turbo, my powerband is 3500-6500. It tapers off at 6500, but I assure you it's still making 200+whp at 7500rpm, while I'm probably making [email protected] Nothing like the stock curve. JWT cams made the motor feel like a different beast. And with an intake manifold, it'll get rid of alot of that tapering off I mentioned. And bigger cams than JWT shift the power band further up. Provided the rods and crank can take it, there's no issues.
-Jeff

[FRpilot]

is that polished? looks good! polish the whole thing! will look even sweeter

[90RS13]

And hypothetically get it to rev to 15k,

You're gettin a little cray here. At 15k rpms that KA24DE would have a piston speed of 9,410 fpm. That's insanely fast. Most people don't like going over 5k fpm. 7.5k I can see, since that's a much lower speed (4,705 fpm). But 15k is out there. Consider the Honda s2000 (first version) revved higher than any production car had before it, with a piston speed of 4940 fpm. Also look at the Yamaha R6 motor, which is the highest revving production engine ever, with bearing design, harmonics, etc, planned for ultra high revs, and it climaxes at 16k rpms with a piston speed of 4,666 fpm. Still, 4,744 fpm away from what the KA24DE would be doing. I don't know if you were being sarcastic but that just sounded rediculas to me.
btw, feel free to correct me, if I got my numbers crossed.

-matt

[Jeff240sx]

Hypothetically means it's possible. Not probably, likely, or even useful to do.
However, there's a lot of talk about destroking the KA to a 2.2L and reving to 10k.
But, hypothetically, if I had the necessary oiling, custom badass nasa-spec rods, pistons, and bearings that can handle the opposing stresses of that piston speed, you can rev there. Give these same bottom-end modifications to nearly any other motor, and the valvetrain flys apart. This isn't an issue with the KA, due to the shim under bucket valvetrain. Like F1 cars, and motorcycles use.
So yes. It's essentially sarcasm, but also to inferr that the issue was rod and crank stress, not valvetrain. As I stated.
-Jeff

[RBS14]

With a destroked hybrid ka, getting 9-10k rpm's should be quite doable.

[daywalker]

PHLIP the shorter runners on the KA plus a proper Cam setup will change the powerband alot IMO. The head flows very well for a stock offering , but the OEM mani was designed for midrange power and thats it. Its a bottle neck plain and simple. I will be revving closer to 8k because of the this intake mani and my cams and Ill bet my left nut that I wont lose that much TQ in the mids and pick up alot of ponies up on top.
The runners might be fine for a NA car, but with a turbo you need them short and fat like Ivan mentioned and a bigger plenum.
Also my head was ported to the max so why starve it????

How come the 4g63 pics up 30+whp and does not lose much TQ with aftermarket manifolds with shorter and fatter runners than the stock?? And the stock runners are not that long in the first place.
Now take the KA runners which are close to 20" long as far as I remember. You honestly dont think that a boosted KA application could take advantage of a mani like this??? Cmon!

[infinitexsound]

dope, intake manifold....... destrokin a KA sounds expensive...

[Jeff240sx]

Also my head was ported to the max so why starve it????


I too had my head ported. Lightly. I'm sure you are aware of this, but other people won't be. When porting your head, overheating becomes a catastrophic event, rather than a PITA. So keep tabs on your cooling system, or warp your expensive-ass head.
-Jeff

[nismo2491]

4g63 benefits so much because mitsu did a bad design on the intake manifold from the factory.
KEvin

[RBS14]

and so did nissan on ka24de intake manis. 21" long runners are the suck, whichever way you look at it.

[daywalker]

4g63 benefits so much because mitsu did a bad design on the intake manifold from the factory.
KEvin



I beg to differ. 2G manifolds were thought to be pretty restrictive and everyone was swapping to 1G heads and manifolds.
A very good friend of mine dynoed his completely stock 7 bolt @ SP not too long ago to a whopping 551WHP and 506LBS of TQ. No spray and all boost with 272HKS cams so I dont think Mitsu did such a bad job with the design.
It actually proved to be fairly efficient. He would of pushed it further, but the clutch decided it didnt like that idea.
Ivan was right there helping Jeff tune to a record for a stock 7bolt 4g63. Man come to think of it, SP broke alot of records lately. Next are the KA records on the list.

[RBS14]

Jesus Christ, Ivan, you are a Maniac!

[IvanAtSPRacing]

Hahahaha.. That was an interesting night with Jeff's car. I was pretty shocked that motor held up. That was some big ass power for a stock bottom end, stock head, stock intake 2nd gen.

Yes, the dyno has been getting a HUGE workout recently. A couple weekends ago we broke the record stock bottom end 2JZ record with Tim,s 1017 whp and then the next day we shattered the 2JZ on gasolene world record with 1520 whp with Marko's car.

I think we have the record for 100% bone stock long block KA at 404whp. And as soon as the clutch comes in we will shoot for the most HP ever out of a KA.

[daywalker]

I too had my head ported. Lightly. I'm sure you are aware of this, but other people won't be. When porting your head, overheating becomes a catastrophic event, rather than a PITA. So keep tabs on your cooling system, or warp your expensive-ass head.
-Jeff

My head was ported by BCE way back in 99 and I never had overheating issues. And this was after some 170MPH runs too. After a couple of seasons I needed to take some time off and away from my car and live a little.
My engine builder recently checked my head for straightness and all was well.So I think, either people are getting too aggressive with the porting or someone is doing something wrong.

[IvanAtSPRacing]

Norbert, I read Jeff's post and initally had the same thoughts. So I re-read it and cam to another conclusion. I could be wrong but I dont think he was implying that porting would cause the head to overheat, I think what he meant to say was that if you ever do over heat , all that money goes to waste if you warp the head.

[Jeff240sx]

Norbert, I read Jeff's post and initally had the same thoughts. So I re-read it and cam to another conclusion. I could be wrong but I dont think he was implying that porting would cause the head to overheat, I think what he meant to say was that if you ever do over heat , all that money goes to waste if you warp the head.

If I wasn't clear enough.. this is what I was going for. Our heads are.. finnicky. Too much porting and you'll hit a water jacket. The lack of metal overall allows for warping fairly easily. Removing more of that metal just makes warpage that much easier.
-Jeff

[Jeff240sx]

Back on topic. Ivan, when/if you get to the consumer version.. what changes would be made? Would it still be the correct "football" shape, or another mf'in square tube with runners welded poorly to it? Because I want to get signed up on the "Hurry up and make these and I'll buy one" list.
-Jeff

[IvanAtSPRacing]

Jeff, at this point, I am exploring the possibilities of using the factory upper as a base for making street style manifold. This would really reduce the cost. The damn coolant passage being part of the manifold makes for a very difficult build from scratch. Most of the upper can be machined away which would leave me a decent chunk to attach shorter runners and a well designed plenum.

Square boxes just dont work for me either.

[daywalker]

Well back off the subject. I remember Chris May I think had that issue. I know the water jackets are really close (Per Asad's pics on FA) so if you port a bit on the agressive side its prone to warping IF it overheats just like anything else thats made out of aluminum. As far as I remember Chris May's car never really ran on the hot side, but the head warped and even cracked. He blamed it on the aggressive port job, but who knows. I read a bunch of posts about it and people blamed it more on a bad head design than inadequate cooling so I thought Jeff was talking about that incident.

Any head that overheats is prone to warping ....some more than others if something goes wrong. I ran some pretty high coolant temps and my head is still fine so thats what I meant by saying "someone is doing something wrong"

Ok , back on the subject.

[90RS13]

Jeff, I thought you were talking about things that normal people could do. I see what you're saying about the valvetrain though.

Also, I accidentaly posted those numbers as fps (feet per second). They're fpm (feet per minute). It was late, and I wasn't paying attention that close. Also, I used the R6's bore, not stroke in the equation. It's corrected now. (like I said, really tired) Also, I didn't mention that those numbers are mean piston speed, not peak (as science hasn't even agreed on how to measure peak piston speed yet). I'm sure most of you knew that I was talkin mean, I just didn't want to mislead or mis-inform anyone.

Also, thought it would be interesting to note f1 cars. Most f1 3L v-10's have around 41mm stroke, which at 18,000 rpms, (where f1 engines like to peak at) the piston speed is only 4872 fpm.

-matt

[Gladman]

Did you order the intake manifold flange, or did you draw it up in CAD and have it CNC'd...

That flange is the only thing between me and a sheetmetal intake mani.

[IvanAtSPRacing]

The flange was a group effort. I did a hand drawing of what I wanted and provided that to the machine shop I use. They are CNC limited as they only have a Bridgeport Easy Track (2D CNC) The flange I got back from them had just the openings for the intake ports and the holes for mounting the flange. After figuring out what I wanted to do with the runners, I had them build me a fixture to form them into shape. After that, I drew up what I wanted to do with the fuel rail and injectors and had the flange machined again. I drew up the plenum and had them work on that. Then it was on to the coolant discharge portion. Once everything was figured out, I had Norbert take the flange to work and lighten it up by machining the profile of the flange. It was time consuming and expensive. Hopefully its all worth it in the end.

[EvaPrototype]

Well done...that's a great looking IM. Good luck with it. :)

[nismo2491]

I beg to differ. 2G manifolds were thought to be pretty restrictive and everyone was swapping to 1G heads and manifolds.
A very good friend of mine dynoed his completely stock 7 bolt @ SP not too long ago to a whopping 551WHP and 506LBS of TQ. No spray and all boost with 272HKS cams so I dont think Mitsu did such a bad job with the design.
It actually proved to be fairly efficient. He would of pushed it further, but the clutch decided it didnt like that idea.
Ivan was right there helping Jeff tune to a record for a stock 7bolt 4g63. Man come to think of it, SP broke alot of records lately. Next are the KA records on the list.
thing is though that the majority of the fast guys are running 2g heads and manifolds now because the smaller ports keep up velocity actually giving them more hp and making them run faster. Now I never said anything about the 4g63 being a bad motor or anything like that (if I thought that I probably wouldn't have built 3 of my own and helped several friends in building theirs) but the factory intake manifold (1g and 2g for that matter) wasn't the best design they could have used. thats why the 4g63 gains so much from an intake manifold swap (.2 second drop after installing forrester intake mani on buddies built 95 tsi awd)
551/506 on stock 7 bolt bottom end is fucking impressive. thats crazy man. I come from back in the day DSM when 400 whp on a built motor was something to brag about for anything other than a purpose built car.
KEvin

[Gladman]

The flange was a group effort. I did a hand drawing of what I wanted and provided that to the machine shop I use. They are CNC limited as they only have a Bridgeport Easy Track (2D CNC) The flange I got back from them had just the openings for the intake ports and the holes for mounting the flange. After figuring out what I wanted to do with the runners, I had them build me a fixture to form them into shape. After that, I drew up what I wanted to do with the fuel rail and injectors and had the flange machined again. I drew up the plenum and had them work on that. Then it was on to the coolant discharge portion. Once everything was figured out, I had Norbert take the flange to work and lighten it up by machining the profile of the flange. It was time consuming and expensive. Hopefully its all worth it in the end.


I guess lucky for you aluminum is soft to work with :D

I should get some done on the 3D CNC at my work. :rawk:

Good job though, i like how you grind/sanded/polished all the welds on the plenum.