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I've done a bit of searching and haven't found what I'm looking for. I have a hybrid turbo using a stock s5 exhaust side, and a t4 compressor side, I'm not completely opposed to using a stock manifold, I just can't find one that's cheap/in good condition.
long story short, I'm curious if anyone has found an aftermarket tubular manifold that keeps the turbo in the stock location, using a stock s5 flange. any input would help!
even the one chinese importer that made manifolds for the much broader and populous series 4 quit making them years ago. i doubt anyone wants to pay $600+ for a real quality one to be made for a hybrid or stocker either, let alone for the S5 which is more difficult to make due to it's shortness and the semi rarity of them to boot.
but stranger things have happened, i see people pay $800 for trashy looking stock rebuilt turbos on ebay... so who knows, i guess it's up to you to find out, no one ever offered me quantities of money for anything of the sort in the 13 years i did it.
Last edited by RotaryEvolution; 07-07-16 at 06:08 PM.
I personally don't see $800 in that manifold. I get that it's supposed to fit in the factory location, but I don't consider welding manifolds difficult, just time consuming.
Thanks for all the input guys. If I was made of money that reamemiya one would be pretty sweet. I do have a friend who's pretty amazing at tig welding. I figure if I show him those pictures he could make me a very similar setup!
I'm buying a rough stock manifold for the time being, but come winter I should have a custom one made.
I personally don't see $800 in that manifold. I get that it's supposed to fit in the factory location, but I don't consider welding manifolds difficult, just time consuming.
unfortunately alot of second gen stuff is one off or very low volume, so the price goes up because of that. FC owners are cheap, so quality parts cost more because mass production isn't in the cards.
turblowns manifolds for example, not bad craftsmanship, but i don't see $1k worth of time or materials there either. however in this case, no one is going to spend that kind of cheddar for a stock/hybrid turbo. not like there's any gains to be had with it over the stock manifold, just the stock manifolds are rather difficult to find for the s5.
I have to agree with you there. I'm very cheap with my car. I don't have a ton of money to throw around, so I take my time with my car.
I have a huge respect for the quality of Turblown's manifolds, but I do feel like they cost a bit too much. Their new investment cast unit, on the other hand is worth it based on the design and development. Even the Full Race units that are robot welded are a bit much, IMO. But the quality is there.
If the OP can find a factory manifold, that's the way to go. The flow plenty well for the size of the turbo and the manifolds are durable. If you can find one, that is.
plenty of people tend to chuck the stockers once they see cracks, even though that doesn't mean they are dead or even close to it. it's almost impossible to find one without a crack somewhere.
I just picked one up locally a few hours ago! It doesn't have a single crack in it, but it has been poorly "port matched" (someone with a dremel and a not so steady hand) Nothing I can't deal with
I'm calling (partial) shennanigans on this "FC owners are cheap" meme, which seems to define the generation.
Fact is, 2nd gens ain't worth ****, 'specially the NAs...so how much sense does it make to pour money on one?
Sure, it's a given that you never recoup your money from mods but the base platform has basically bottomed out price-wise and ain't gonna go back up.
The FC will never be a bona fide collectors vehicle and therefore, will never enjoy the aftermarket support that collector money makes possible.
Out of curiosity, Ben...
When you were in business in Vegas, had I rolled my 300k car into your shop for an engine rebuild (and apparently, all its hard parts were in pretty good shape), what might it have cost?
Well this FC owner isn't cheap..I'm more like just plain Stubborn and refuse to have a car that isn't workin sit in the damn driveway being an eyesore.
I just paid 370 bucks for windshield moldings,350 for a windshield and 200 for door weatherstripping..
Is that Cheap?..I don't think so..
I should have just bought another car for parts...but then I'd have 2 in the yard doing nothing!
Crazy thing is that the parts have nothing to do with the mechanics of the car but when you want to "do it right..because the rest of it is worthy of it" then it is gonna cost ya.
BUT in the long run you get a car that looks and feels worthy of your efforts.
heh...Shenanigans?...I picture a Leprachaun poppin out and sayin " Yer after me Lucky Charms"!
Last edited by misterstyx69; 07-09-16 at 07:27 AM.
I'm calling (partial) shennanigans on this "FC owners are cheap" meme, which seems to define the generation.
Fact is, 2nd gens ain't worth ****, 'specially the NAs...so how much sense does it make to pour money on one?
Sure, it's a given that you never recoup your money from mods but the base platform has basically bottomed out price-wise and ain't gonna go back up.
The FC will never be a bona fide collectors vehicle and therefore, will never enjoy the aftermarket support that collector money makes possible.
Out of curiosity, Ben...
When you were in business in Vegas, had I rolled my 300k car into your shop for an engine rebuild (and apparently, all its hard parts were in pretty good shape), what might it have cost?
FCs are rising in value and have been for some time.
some people(but still rarely) spend $20k, 30k and even upwards of 40k into their cars but they generally do all the work themselves. with that kind of investment, that is probably a wise choice considering how many bad shops have come and gone after ripping people off while promising the moon and stars. most owners know that an engine rebuild costs as much as the car is worth, so when something breaks during the engine R+R and you try to get more money to fix it then you usually just wind up eating it, because selling the initial cost was already like pulling teeth.
on one occasion i held onto an engine for a year, only $700 was owed on it to be picked up. (500 had been paid)
on one occasion i had a car sit at my shop for over a year, less than $500 was owed on it. (2500 had been paid)
on another occasion a car sat at my shop for over a year with $1000 owed on it and never was paid for. (2000 had been paid)
if i was working on $300k cars, you wouldn't see me in this thread.
i've spent about $25k on my car since i got it and that was mostly when they had really bottomed out in value, i paid $1000 for the complete running T2. the car has given me enough enjoyment that i still can't complain about how much money i put into it.
i don't know how some of the other shops manage, i almost never got a customer in who didn't try to lowball me or get things done as cheaply as humanly possible. but i do know why now, because the money is in the parts not the labor. being almost solely a labor shop i was fighting an uphill battle.
but yes, when it comes to the actual work of fixing the car before adding in the cost of the parts involved, FC owners are extremely cheap. but FB owners are worse, except they know the value of their car and choose to just avoid even going to the shop in the first place and learn to fix their cars on their own.
FD owners are the best target audience, because most look at the engine bay and faint with their soft untainted hands, to let someone else do the messy stuff. ok not really, it is mainly because they have the highest resale value so more owners are prone to just allowing an experienced shop do the work instead of screwing up the car while trying to learn the DIYer ways.
RX8 owners were once a good target, but their market value is the one that is still on the downswing and trying to get them to spend $3500 on a car that is blue booked at that cost is like pulling teeth, to the point i didn't even want to bother going through the effort to keep quoting or explaining costs to the 8 owners anymore(1 in 20 actually winds up doing any work, my prices are probably still the lowest too).
here is how the market will look in the next few years, resalewise:
FD
restored old schooler REPU/RX2,3,4/R100/cosmo(this and FD can be swapped depending on the examples of each)
RX8 S2
FC T2
SA22(perhaps not ahead of any clean turbo 2, examples of each could swap places on the list)
FC n/a
RX8 S1
FB(generic models with no historic value)
so arguing that the FC isn't worth spending a few dollars on, well i guess to each their own, since i already view a clean FC non turbo as worth the same as a more modern RX8 that is 1/3 its age. a clean turbo is worth the same as an S2 late model RX8 less than 10 years old. you might even see some clean FCs sell for over $10k in the near future(some already have and i had someone lined up to buy mine for that but it fell through).
Last edited by RotaryEvolution; 07-09-16 at 10:57 AM.
I do think there is a difference in being cheap vs not doing the job correctly.
I have had my car for over two years and have not put more than $2000 into it in that time. I have gotten a significant amount of work done to it and I'm taking my time so that I can enjoy the fruits of my labor later on down the road.
I personally do not find myself dumping money into frivolous things on the car, like I see many other FC projects start out as. I see some builds where a guy will have a roach of a car and immediately toss in some expensive seats, a big stereo, and a overpriced hydraulic e-brake into an NA car, for that sick drifts bro.
Then the builds usually fail and get parted out, or never finished because the owner did not take the time to fix the base issues, like a water pump about to explode.
I guess instead of being cheap, I'm more frugal with my car. It's still going to be there tomorrow and I do not feel like dumping crazy money into it when it's still going to be there. It does drive me crazy how these cars are not worth that much, but parts for them are stupidly over priced. That is just my opinion, however. I guess if I wanted to play the game on easy mode, I should have bought a Honda or a Subaru, but I like my car and the restoration will continue. Albeit, at a snail's pace.
I think Clokker was referring to 300k miles, not dollarydoos.
ahh ok, the value thing kinda threw me.
300k miles is hard to say and really depends on how the car was maintained. i see plenty of hard parts that are worn out at less miles than that. if the parts truly were in spec then it'd be a basic $1400 for the engine and $750 for the engine R+R, which is still less than the RX8 owners get away with.
generally the non turbos you can get away with the work without breaking anything significant. flushing the injectors and other maintenance items also not included and what i generally offer on an as needed basis.
on the turbo cars, something ALWAYS breaks that you need to fix. no matter how careful you are or how much experience you have.
Last edited by RotaryEvolution; 07-09-16 at 11:15 AM.
07-07-16, 05:28 PM
