thecause17

Ok, a while back in general rotory tech forum, I posted up about the possibility of a new mod for us to use on our 7's. This includes all generations at this time, as I've posted this in all 3 gen specific forums. Those of you who have read my first post on this, this will be an update. As for the rest of you, listen up.

I'm teaming up with Outlaw Engineering in the hopes of have phenolic spacers produced for our cars. If you don't know what these are, I'm not surprised, currently, they're only made for 3 different engines, two mazda and one Honda. What are these you ask?

These are a replacement for your current intake manifold and throttle body gaskets. These gaskets are thicker, 1/4" is the thickness they use at Outlaw Engineering. What do they do you ask?

The Phenolic material is a heat resistant material, and when used as a gasket, prevents heat from getting from the engine to the intake manifold. What does this mean? Cooler intake temps. What does that mean? More horsepower for you.

More technical info can be found here:

http://www.outlawengineering.com/techframe.html

This is my latest e-mail from outlaw engineering.

"Aaron,
You are correct on that we do not currently offer an application for any generation of RX-7, but this is one of the applications that we have been considering. We generally request 20 firm commitments prior to the design, prototyping, and production of a new performance part. Pricing for a set, including intake manifold and throttle body insulators along with necessary hardware such as lengthened studs would be in the $100 range.
To prototype a new set, we generally prefer to have acces to a full vehicle. This will allow us to investigate fit-up issues and to do a before and after dyno test to asses performance increase. We are located in Indianapolis, so if there are any interested parties in the central Indiana area that would be interested in having their vehicle used as a test bed, please step up. This would include a short session to evaluate the vehicle and take measurement data, followed by another session a short time later to install and evaluate the prototype set. This, of course, would be done free of charge.
Many years ago, I owned a 1st gen RX-7. I had great fun in this car and was impressed with the level of engineering thought that went into it and the rev of the little rotary. Years later when the 2nd gen Probe came out, one of the deciding factors for me were memories of my Rex and the Probe's Mazda heritage and design. I wasn't disappointed. Please asses the interest for your group and let us know.

Best regards,
Sean Morgan
Outlaw Engineering"

What this means is, I need support for this. Not only support, but if you want to see these made for your gen car or 1st gen case, your specific engine, then I will need someone with each one of these cars to step up to the plate and get this testing done with Outlaw Engineering. Specifically someone within good driving distance of their location. This could be a great mod for our cars, and if you would like to become part of the process, then you need to do this. Read the tech section, does 7whp and 11wtq for about $100 sound good? If so, then show your support. Like the e-mail says, we need 20 firm committments, and one car per engine for testing/design.

DomFD3S

So, what you're telling me is that it is the rough equivalent of a silicone gasket.

I'm a skeptic (sp?). If heat REALLY was that much of a problem on the intake manifolds, don't you think that the OEMs would have already thought of ways to cool them? An easy way to remove heat from the intake manifolds, would be to have cooling fins formed on the intake manifolds, but you don't see that...do you?

I find their marketing of this product to be a little funny:

"Almost invisible modification, looks stock for the stealth factor"

Sorry, but I'm not biting the bait.

thecause17

that's cool, with that kind of attitude, you wouldn't buy them anyway.

In all honesty, they do work. I owned a KL series Mazda car for 3 years, I've seen these results, they DO work.

And no, I don't think manufacturers would have built it in from the factory. Nobody said it was a problem, not for daily driving anyway. Neither is a factory restrictive exhaust, but people make aftermarkets ones that are better don't they? There is nothing on your car that is a PROBLEM, but look at all the aftermarket parts for it. If car manufacturers made everthing perfect from the factory, then i guess there'd be no aftermarket right? Come on.

DomFD3S

Well, you're right. I wouldn't buy them. Why?

Because the theory of this spacer is based on the fact that you should isolate "cold intake temps". Correct me if I'm wrong, but unless you're using a truly isolated cold air intake, there isn't much use for this "phenolic spacer". And in case you haven't noticed, most of the intakes on the market, are not cold air intakes. They are still sucking warm air from inside the engine bay. So, in effect, you're sucking in warm air, not truly cold air. Which ultimately kills any sort of effect this $100 gasket will provide.

If you think I'm against the aftermarket, you are truly mistaken (certain people know what I'm talking about).

r0t0r-rooter

What I want to know is....
when will they make couplers with this amazing space-age technology?
That's where the real power gains are

airborne

I read through it all and I follow how its supposed to work and all that. But how could you tell how much heat is absorbed by the intake manifolds and throttle body from the engine, and how much is absorbed from the air outside those parts? I recently measured the air on the rad side of my intake's heat shield and it quickly went off the chart on my sensor which only reads to 160F. So are these parts heated more by the engine or the 160deg plus air around them? Plus the close proximity of some very hot turbos probably contributes a lot...

Street King

Who cares, if it works it works but there needs to be proof of some sort before I spend $100.00 on magical gaskets.

thecause17

OK, so I see that dyno plots and such arent' enough.



So should I just scratch FD's off the list. That's fine, I dont' own one, and it'll be less work for me when working with OE. *shrug*

paw140

I think this could be a good mod. Consider how hot the rotor housings get... I'm sure there is a lot of conduction across the metal LIM gasket to the intake manifold. The phenolic insulator would eliminate this.

There are other contributing factors, of course, like the close proximity of the turbos. Maybe a good mod combo would be a ceramic coating of the LIM and phenolic spacers.

But installing these spacers on an FD would be a major PITA since you'd have to remove the turbos.

Dom: You talk like reducing intake temps is not a worthwhile mod. Isn't this why so many people install aftermarket IC's? And install cold air intakes? The fact that a majority of the intakes on the market suck in hot engine bay air just means they were not very well engineered.

DomFD3S

paw140: I'm not saying that isolating cold intake temps isn't important. Please don't take my words out of context. What I'm saying is that due to the location of most of the aftermarket intakes (especially for the RX-7), the benefit of this "phenolic spacer" wouldn't be very significant. I did not mention anything in regards to aftermarket intercoolers. I ONLY mentioned intakes and this "spacer".

Shinobi-X

To be honest, you can expect some skepticism with any new product such as this. However, the technology does look rather interesting, and the logic behind it makes sense. As someone said though, installation would not be fun, but in the pursuit of something that would ultimately help our cars efficiency, I wouldn't say "no" to testing the product out. There is nothing to loose by doing so, so I support the cause. However, I will only be sold once I see results, preferably on more than one application.

tmiked

Phenolic spacers were of some use for NA carbureted engines where the manifold contained water or exhaust passages to warm up the gas to help it vaporize better, specifically on cold starts. Tuners sacrificed cold start ability for a tiny bit of HP in a street drag race.

With FI a phenolic spacer is virtually useless as the gasoline isnt sitting around getting heated.
With a Turbo motor a phenolic spacer is almost useless as the intake air even after the IC is already warmed.
With a Turbo FI motor,..... well you can figure it out.

paw140

Although I agree that the slight reduction in intake manifold temperature may not yield significant horsepower gains, I think it could be a good mod when combined with other intake cooling mods. It's at least worth testing out. It seems to work well in other applications.

And it's not new technology. It's been around for a while.

adam c

iTrader: (2)

I think it's good that people spend time to try to find new ways to improve performance. That being said, I don't believe that this product will provide ANY measurable HP gain for our application. 7 rwph, I don't think so!!

meddle

Adding a 1/4 inch spacer to the lower intake manifold form the motor could cause fitment issues with some 3rd gne guys who have gone single.

spurvo

Christ, adding 1/4 inch to the LIM would screw the fitment of the stock system as well. REALLY tight in there...

Anyone guess how much heat is transferred metal to metal versus soaked from sitting right on top of the entire engine? Then passing right next to the turbos? Direct transfer versus radiative transfer. Gross thermodynamics problem...

thecause17

These things you are all pointing out are exactly why R&D needs to be done, and why they need to get a few cars to do it. Nobody is asking for you to buy them without knowing they will fit. These won't actually be for sale until they are designed, fitted, tested, etc....