Review: Chips Motorsports Water Manifold
 

(pictures below)
Recently I purchased the water manifold from Chips Motorsports. This part is to replace the water pump housing for those running an Electronic Water Pump (EWP). It is $240 from their website. It is a very well built part. Billet aluminum, with a 1/8 NPT port for a temp sensor already tapped in. Looks very nice too. On the backside, where it seals against the front iron, there is a groove CnC'd in for a custom O-ring to be placed to not need a gasket.

However, upon it's arrival I was a little confused at first. It came in another part's box, looks to be a box for a random tie rod end. Okay, recycling and what-not, I can get behind that, it did fit the part really well. As for padding inside the box, not newspaper or packing paper or peanuts...shop towels. The blue paper towel type things. Those were used to pad the part. There was also no invoice included in the box.

Once I opened the box and looked at the part I liked what I saw. Shiny, smooth, solid. Then I look at the hardware, only 3 bolts? There's 4 holes in the manifold to connect to the iron, odd. So I look for the o-ring, not in there. Not in a different bag or stuffed in the shop towels. This happened to me from Full Function Engineering with my trigger wheel - they forgot the sensor - in which I let them know and they sent it out free of charge. So I email chips motorsports. They replied in a couple hours.

Their reply was that they no longer send the o-ring and that I should use a regular gasket, and they will send out the 4th bolt in a day or two. I'm sorry what? You don't include the part that sets you apart from the competition? I told them to please include a gasket with my bolt and that would be fine, or I will just return the whole thing. To which they said to return for refund.

There are other parts like this Xtreme Rotaries, Meziere, and Jay-tech all have similar water manifolds with -16 fittings. The Jay-tech one even has the port for a 3/8 NPT temp sensor. Chips is the only one that advertises the machined groove for their custom o-ring to eliminate need for a gasket. I figured that was worth the extra $140 from the competition. I'm sure the part is still perfectly fine while using a gasket, but the only reason I chose it was because of the o-ring. Chips stated in email that their o-rings have been failing, so good on them for acknowledging it and not giving faulty o-rings anymore, but they need to update the website to explain that that feature is no longer used, and stop machining grooves for it which drives up the price.

Again, quality part, does its job, but overpriced considering a defining feature has been discontinued.

I will be returning the manifold and purchasing a Jay-Tech one, as it is only around $100 and has the coolant sensor port, as well as buying a gasket from somewhere.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx7...5a4e0dd892.jpg
Manifold and 3 bolts
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx7...93f4aa4825.jpg
O-ring groove in back of manifold
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx7...94be4cfbe7.jpg
Box, manifold, screws, and shop towels

Great review of part and customer experience. I agree that since the design didn't work out how he intended, he should redesign it. Price and value are highly misaligned as is.

Man that’s disappointing to hear.

I have the pro-jay one, and I am using summit racing NPT to AN fitting/adapters. For some reason, coolant was leaking through the threads of the fittings/pro jay part. I contacted pro-jay, explained the issue, and their response was to take a pic and send it over. Took me a couple of days to get the pic, since the part was installed, and the car is a daily driver. Never heard back from Jay...

Now, my case might be an isolated one, but given the price of the part, plus the fitting/adapters, the E&J with the built-in -AN fittings seems to be a better option!

https://www.enjautoworks.com/product...-inlet-flange/

Since I already had the pro-jay and the adapter fittings before E&J came out with theirs, I resolved the leak issue by welding the adapter fittings to the pro-jay flange.

VERY, IMO that was the ONLY thing making that flange stand out of all of the other ones!

That E&J one looks good, I'll get that instead of the Jay, just need to reverse all the -16 fittings I have.

Honestly, watching Chips' insta-feed everything looks immaculate and you automatically assume all the other business aspects are dealt with in the same manner but.. well, this is a valuable review 😯

Got the EnJ manifold. It's not AS pretty as the Chips one but does have the 3/8 NPT port for a sensor and is already male threaded for -16, standard gasket applies and is sold separately. Also it does not come with bolts to mount it, Chips did come with that.

Is this company still in business? I ordered some small parts off the website 4 weeks ago. Received an order confirmation email and since then nothing. Sort of forgot. Two emails this week to two different email addresses unanswered. Phone calls going to voicemail. No indication on website, FB, voicemail about being out on vacation.

Disappointing ...

Yes, he's in business. He essentially lives on his instagram so I would suggest sending him a direct message on there.

Even better; paid thru paypal. Just going to file a claim rather than put up with any nonsense. It wasn’t any big deal, so it’s not worth any more of my time trying to track down someone who can’t be bothered with it.

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I don't blame you. He's garbage with communication and should really hire someone to be front of house.

Got an immediate refund. I get that he has bigger fish to fry and again it wasn’t really a bfd for me either, but not responding to either email address or even communicating at all 4 weeks later is not very excusable these days.

and what kind of goofball paints an FD3 in pimp-mobile gold??? :uhh: :lol:

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