Mikester

Hello all,

I'm an old guy, so this will start with a riveting tale of a boy with a dream lol.

As some may know, a good, schedule steel manifold with a lifetime warranty is about as good as it gets... Hence why Full Race is at the top of the food chain... hands down the best manifolds out there; and their goodies are priced accordingly.

Those interested... Be advised that ANY typical, [non-cast] mandrel bent tubular turbine manifold has a service life due to design. If you visit the track regularly and get 4-5 good years out yours, you chose wisely. This is exactly why paying $500-600 or more for a tubular manifold is probably not the smartest choice for the average un-sponsored Joe like myself... because many tubular manifolds... even many of the 'brand name' products do not last that long before cracking. And those of you who don't use the support bracket that accompanies most standard SR tubulars will notice yours will crack even sooner yet.

Moving on- For non-moving parts, I am ALL ABOUT saving a few bucks in the name of similar performance with the same and/or easier form, fit and function. That being said- Forget all about those 'other' [eBay] substitutes (we all know who they are) when it comes to your SR20DET turbine manifold. I ran my XS Power tubular manifold for 9yrs before it finally gave out... Pretty sure that qualifies as 'getting my $120 worth' It was the standard 'OEM Replacement' that has very large, 48mm runners & 2.8mm thick walls... the welds were quite nice and the fitment was SPOT-ON. Here is a pic of it during my build... I had beaten on it for 4yrs in Okinawa at that point- and had it Jet-Hot'd prior to putting it back on the motor (why it looks new in the pic):




Installed:



Fast forward to recently...

Okay, so going back to the fact that the manifold pictured above finally died a couple weeks ago after a long, dutiful life... at a VERY inopportune time I might add lol... it seemed a no-brainer to go right back to ssautochrome.com and order another of the exact same one as it had served me very well.

First thing I will say about SS Autochrome is that their shipping is RIDICULOUSLY fast. I ordered on a Sunday- new manifold was at my door Tuesday when I got home from work.

This time around, there was a mixup in the shipping; and I got the wrong manifold by mistake. I sent them an email asking to return for the OEM replacement... Their email response was very prompt; and instead of a replacement of what I had ordered, they sent me something I would have NEVER expected from SS Autochrome/XS Power:



^^150 free ponies lol^^

...and this:










* Cast schedule steel, back purged, plug & play OEM replacement tubular manifold!!!

PRELIMINARY REVIEW

Knowing little/nothing about metallurgy... I immediately took it over to Andy (my builder/fabricator, whom I consider a qualified expert) for inspection.

According to Andy:

- Weld quality is very good. A couple tight spots missed, but still welded on the inside and will not fail anytime soon

- Surprised this came from XS Power!

- Should last quite a while- large runners, tube walls nearly 1/8" thick

- Although clearly not Full Race, it is definitely well- built

Upon further dialogue with XS, they informed me that this manifold has a lifetime warranty to boot (score!!!)! Quite excited, I hauled ass home to start piecing it together.

I did a test-fit to the manifold studs- Everything lined up nicely.

Went upstairs to clean everything up and start mating it to the turbine. The manifold came with new studs, but I chose to re-use the ones that came with my turbine and use a couple of them on the 5-bolt outlet side to replace some that were in rough shape. Along with some Permatex, the studs screwed in very securely with no play evident when tightened.

The kit also came with decent grafoil 4-bolt and manifold-to-head gaskets & 2 different kinds of nuts (self-locking and standard for those of us who use the locking plates). However, I still had brand new OEM Nissan metal gaskets and MLS manifold gasket, so I opted to use them instead.

The flange to flange support bracket was a very tight fit, and I feel the kit should have come with M8 lockwashers to accompany the M8 x 1.25 bolts. Without lockwashers, they will back out over time (ask me how I learned this lol)... Using High-Temp Permatex here as well, the bracket goes in extremely securely; and has a newer shape to accommodate getting your wrench to the bolt heads.

Here you can see the support bracket installed:





Once I got the support bracket in, I moved to the 4-bolt flange. Here I had a little bit of difficulty getting the gasket over the studs- one of them was a hair off. With some very light tapping, I was able to get the gasket planted to the mating surface.

Same thing when mating the turbine to the manifold- the turbine flange is already overbored to accommodate, but the fit was a little too tight IMO. Once I got the studs as lined up as could be, I was able to wrench them together using the nuts to pull everything together. It was BARELY off- no damage to the threads, bent studs or anything- more annoying than anything. At that point, it was typical clockwork- everything came together & seems to have sealed up nice & tightly. Stopped here & emailed XS to tell them they need to measure the 4-bolt stud holes a little more accurately.

Here is the tight spot (right under where #1 runner meets collector at flange) where a bit of the welding was missed:




Tough to get the camera in there lol... From the opposite side (about 3/4 of the way up the manifold side of the flange):





More pics:







So far, my preliminary comments are as follows:

PROS:

- Schedule 40 stainless steel
- Lifetime Warranty
- Good quality workmanship, back-purged welds
- Thick tube walls
- New support bracket much nicer than old
- Good fitment to cylinder head exhaust manifold studs
- Plugs & plays- no additional mods required
- Aesthetically pleasing

CONS:

- Minor fitment issue at flange
- Missed weld under #1 runner
- Support bracket holes need to be slightly larger diameter
- No lockwashers included for support bracket bolts

That's about all I can say for now- Going home to start the installation in about 4hrs. Very excited. Will continue review with installation, startup etc.

So far, I really like it! SS Autochrome/XS Power has definitely stepped up their game with this thing!


Again, XS was very responsive when I brought up the missed weld, lack of M8 lockwashers & flange stud measurements- Niether of which appear to anything more than annoyances so foar. Be that as it may, the proof is in the pudding- More to come~

--Mike

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JBB

sweet deal, looks good Mikey!

EJ8 944

Their quality seems to be much improved over what they had 5 years ago.

Mikester

Dunno. All I can say is that my OG mani from 2005 lasted till just a couple weeks ago bolted 350-400whp setups & daily driven most of its life... a lot longer than many $500-600 manifolds ever would've under the same circumstances. Don't get me wrong, I ONLY have experience with their FMIC kits (had mine since 2005 as well) and SR OEM replacement turbo manifolds; and cannot speak to anything else. Everyone I've ever referred to SS for good quality FMIC or manifold at very good price has yet to be disappointed... Again, I stress I can only speak to two distinct products... 3 when this thread comes to an end

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EJ8 944

I had one of their manifolds on my Honda a few years back, I'd have to dig up the pictures but the tubing on one of my runners cracked, and little pieces look like they fractured and fell off right above the weld area (but not on the weld). Not bad considering the manifold was close to 4 years old, and was on 3 different cars in that time frame.

Mikester

^^Yup, and I'd also be interested to see where the AFR's were on those setups. High AFR = cracked manifold... Also, I can't say enough about using the flange bracket... It's definitely an essential. 15min to get the hell back to St. Louis & put car together time

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derass

9 years out of a cheap tubular manifold is incredible! Great review on the SCH.40, I hope it lasts you even longer!

Livinstrong

Looks exactly like Isis' updated bottom mount. Great to hear that it's tougher than it's predecessor!

http://www.enjukuracing.com/products...n-3-SCH40.html

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Gone to the darkside... E36 on Rezax/FN01RC combo

economix

It's IDENTICAL to the ISIS manifold because I got my ISIS one just 2 weeks ago and it's spot on to these pics posted herein minus the ISIS tag plate. Soooo, wondering who builds it for who then?

ISIS unit was $389...how much was the XS version?

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89 240SX w S14 SR20; 95 JDM 180SX S13 SR20; 09 Acura TL SH; 18 Jaguar XE S

Mikester

Couldn't tell ya- the ISIS one requires reclocking due to large runners??? Maybe because T25 & 28 are so small?

XS version is $275 shipped. Also has lifetime warranty, which I didn't see advertised for ISIS. not saying there isn't, just didn't see.

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Malik

what did you do with the missing weld, did you tack it?

Kaifd3s

I was waiting for this review. I had my eye on the manifold, but was guessing it was "too good to be true".

Looks like im picking one up.

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Mikester

No. My fabricator said it's still welded on the inside and quite secure as-is... Just another reason why it's not the same caliber as the Full Race version. However, for $275 shipped w/lifetime warranty, you can't beat it!

PM me if you do.

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INSTALLATION REVIEW

Installation went like a typical SR manifold installation. Tedious due to the other stuff I had to pull out of the way (typical FOM crap), but everything as far as this manifold is concerned went exactly how it should have.

Install Pics:

Dropped in:




For those of you with large outlet elbows, like my ginormous Tomei outlet... Everthing clears nicely; including clearance to Z32 tranny:



All in & torqued down:



All back together... I like this one better in that A it matches my valve cover better (lol), and B it is a bit more compact and takes up less space:





Here you can kinda make out the XS Power logo stamped on the #1 runner:







First start:





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PROS:

- Plugged and played- Flange mated perfectly to cyl head
- Component positions changed about 1-2mm from previous version... actually an improvement in my case. No drilling, cutting etc. needed!
- Clears AC and PS lines, steering shaft and Z32 tranny nicely; even with large turbine and oversized outlet pipe
- Frees up precious engine bay space

CONS:

- None noted

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So far, I've put about 150mi on this thing with quite a few hard pulls... holding up nicely!

Will update this review as time goes on., If any of you have any questions, please ask on this thread so everyone can see. If I can't answer, I will get you the answer.

Again, if any of you decide to buy one based on this review, please PM me prior to ordering.

Will continue to update as time goes on.

--Mike

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Mikester

Going on a year later...

Many drag runs, hard pulls, backroading excursions & trips to the track- No issues so far!

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McRussellPants

mandrel bent and cast weld els are two entirely different things.
You won't find a single "name brand made in USA manifold" that is mandrel bent
XS and ebay are currently the purveyors of mandrel bent manifolds
A Full Race or similar manifold will outlast a S-chassis.
Support brackets can cause their own failures. which is why you typically don't see hand built manifolds with bracketing.

That XS power manifold is actually mig welded. you can see it on the collector welds pretty easily. most chinese manifolds are migged and then passed over with a tig and a high chrome/nickel rod to looked tig. you can tell the tig cap pass was cold and high chrome rod since its held its color way better than the typical crap china 304 SS.

I'd probably eat my hat if that manifold was backpurged. the collector seems to be welded inside and out and the runner welds seem to have sugaring.

these two photos show the not so hidden MIG pretty well.
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7373/...46cc51_c_d.jpg
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7350/...b5c00b_c_d.jpg



fabrication has come a long way since people came up with their opinions of hand built manifolds, mainly on the back of full race bringing everyone out of the dark ages. Cool that this is working out for you, but far from what you get from established companies.