Sneak

I've noticed that ebay sells hardpipes for the intake, do they do all to much? AS of now I got the Apexi intakes, just dont see the point of putting hardpipes on if not all to many intake manufaures made them for the FD has to be a flaw some where... Whats the deal? more power? louder intake or what? let me know

Brent Dalton

iTrader: (31)

In a nut shell, it makes your engine bay look better and it makes the turbo's a litle louder(ie you can hear them spool more). No performance gain.

Sneak

joy to the world... I'll put that money in my gas tank...

DMoneyRX-7

iTrader: (2)

People say you have no performance gain but it depends on what you call performance. When you refer to performance in measure of hp then it doesnt add any. My personal experience from these are...nice look, nice sound, and better reaction.

carbon man

If you run large boost the standard rubber intake hoses suck flat and you drop boost.

~Ian.

DMoneyRX-7

iTrader: (2)

carbon man, what are those? Im guessin carbon hardpipes

carbon man

Yes, we made these for Mazda Australia for the RX7-SP back in 94/95
they fitted the standard air box and the Carbon Fibre SP box.
The litle muffler in the photo is used for the Air Pump return and we ran the return air out through that and under the car instead of putting the hot air back into the air box.

~Ian.

Sneak

I want some of those how can I get them...

BobfisH

with great difficulty.

Brent Dalton

iTrader: (31)

Yeah, you can say that again. Carbon Man is pretty much a legend in the Carbon Fiber Industry for Cars. There is a thread with all kinds of his work in the int./ext. forum a couple of months back. Incredible work Ian!!!

Montego

iTrader: (1)

awsome! hence the name carbon man lol




^^^well you can't have any! what the F happened to:

carbon man

Thanks, I am very proud of what we were able to achieve back then with a very small development buget and with a very short development time when we built the RX7-SP.

How I came up with the need for the hoses was at TARGA TASMANIA race in the year before we built the SP we were running a factory race ECU with plug in chips and Mazda Japan sent us some chips to up the boost because we were not as competetive as we would like and after the chips were installed when we got up in boost we lost all boost, we diagnosed that the rubber converlutted hoses were sucking flat. We asked Mazda Japan about the problem and their resonce was that we should have hard alloy hoses. When we came to develop the SP we looked at alloy hoses but alloy is a conductor of heat and carbon is not, the rubber hoses were rough on the insde and so we made the carbon hoses to be smooth on the inside to help air flow and because Mazda wanted to sell these cars we made the outer skin shiny as well. The tooling to make them back then was difficult and still impresses people in the composite industry.

Sneak

well ummm....crap you got me there....

a3dcadman

iTrader: (1)

Looks like you used a compression mold over a multi piece shaping core or an inflatable bladder. Lots of clear glossy resin, very smooth mold and is it mutilayer carbon layup or is there some type of core that the carbon is laminated to and around? Nicely done. How are the insulating properties of the piping?
chuck

carbon man

these moulds were done with the internal being made off a pair of MALE moulds, those parts were vacuumed up as two pieces then de-moulded and joined to make a tube smooth on the inside. then a pair of FEMALE moulds with the join line at 90 degrees to the inturnal were used to vacuum up the outer skin and then they were bonded over the internal tube. This was done for each hose.
The termal properties of these hoses were far better than standard and measurably better than alloy pipes. We use a clear Vinylester gelcoat at about 0.05mm to 0.1mm on a highly polished mould then infuse the resin through dry carbon cloth. (gelcoat does not add strength and increases the conductivity of heat)

I must add that there in nothing wrong with the standard Mazda inlet hoses on a standard FD and on a higher boost FD then the alloy pipe will be better than the rubber ones but if you are chasing every little bit (as we were when we built the RX7-SP) and you can afford or you can make carbon fibre pipes then I would recomend using Carbon Fibre.

rynberg

Ok, I'm not much of a carbon fiber fan, but those intake pipes are a work of art!

carbon man

Thanks, I might be a bit bias but I still think they look great over 10 years later.

~Ian.

jeff p

can we still buy these? if so how much. these will look great with the stock airbox.

carbon man

Yes I do still make them but I sell them through PAC Performance as I only manufacture and I don't do retail.

you can get their contact details from.

pacperformance.com.au

~Ian.

jeff p

Thanks I'll check them out
Jeff

t-von

iTrader: (8)

I especially agree with the "better reaction" part. The hard pipes eliminate the flex ribbing that's found in the stock pipes. This all by itself will smooth out the air flow making it less turbulent and increase throttle response because the air reaches the TB faster.

DMoneyRX-7

iTrader: (2)

Thats what im talkin about! Thanks for agreeing with me.