patman

iTrader: (3)

Hi Guys,

I feel like I need to post this up here so people will know what they are getting.

First off, I like ebay Chinese stuff. For the most part, I find that it is similar quality to what I would get somewhere else for 3x the price. On another note, I am an engineer and certified weld inspector, so I do know what I am talking about. One more disclaimer, I emailed EMUSA after I noticed the fitment issue, and they did refund me $20, but after I looked closer and found all the other problems I am still far from satisfied.

As far as I can tell, all the ebay manifolds are the same regardless of what vendor they come from. The one I bought is from EMUSA. All of the ebay vendors list slightly different specs, but they tend to claim that it is direct bolt on, high quality stainless, fully TIG welded, etc.

The first picture at the bottom is the stock photo of what I bought. Right off the bat there were a couple problems: A) The so-called T4 flange is not even close the the right shape B)It didnt fit in my engine bay, because the wastegate flange interfered with the subframe.

I don't have a picture on this computer of the subframe issue, but the second picture shows the little bend I had to add the fix it. The 3rd picture shows the difference between this manifold and a proper T4 flange. Notice how much bigger their D-shaped ports are, meaning you will have a huge flow loss at the turbine flange. Surprisingly, they actually had to swell the tubing to form this shape, I have no idea why they would go to the trouble to do that for something that is such a bad idea performance wise, and the fact that they did it makes it near-impossible to replace their retarded flange with a real one.

After I noticed all this crap, I decided to inspect the manifold a little closer, and found that the flange surfaces for the engine and the turbo were both around .015" out of flatness. Then another stupid thing: these manifolds are NOT TIG welded. They are MIG welded, then someone runs a cover pass over them with a TIG to make them look nice. If you look at the next pictures, you can see the area in the center they couldnt reach with the TIG, and some other areas where the TIG pass didn't cover all the way, and where there is significant undercut.

For anyone unfamiliar, the reasons manifolds are usually TIG welded (aside from looks) are that TIG welds typically have a cleaner root, so there is less flow obstruction on the inside of the pipe, and because TIG welds are inherently more sound on thinner material because there is less chance for porosity and better fusion. This is not to say that manifolds cannot or should not be MIG welded, but covering it up with a TIG pass and advertising it as TIG welded doesn't inspire a lot of confidence for me.

One more thing is that due to the shape of this manifold, you are limited to a pretty small turbine housing without hitting the strut tower or LIM. My turbo is a Borg Warner S200SX, which is a smaller turbo than most people run, and it just barely fits. My 42R from my other car doesnt even come close to fitting.

I was planning to run this manifold permanently, and thought I might have to modify it a little bit to suit my purpose, but after seeing how bad it is, I will just use it for a while until I have time to fab a real one. I am tempted to do a back to back dyno run just to see how much power this thing costs me, but we will see once I have the new one made.

To sum this all up: If you're shopping for a manifold, DO NOT buy one of these ones with the D-shaped turbine flange.

PICTURES:

Here is the stock photo of what I bought:


Fixed wastegate flange:


Crazy ports:


A little glare on this one, but you can see the original weld underneath the 'decoration' pass:


Undercut:


Area they couldn't reach to cover up:


As installed (temporary until I have time to fab up a proper one):

zman600

iTrader: (5)

thanks for the review.
those ports are crazy looking.
i knew the manifolds off ebay would be not high quality but not that bad. lol

your brave for buying something like this from ebay.
i buy ebay stuff all the time but im scared to buy things of high importance like a manifold/turbos/bov/etc...

dyno testing isn't worth the money imo. just knowing that its not the best is good enough for me.
....actually u should. and after u get the legit one on. the difference would be interesting

myturbo88

iTrader: (8)

are u certain that thats not the mani for fc...

pito13b

iTrader: (3)

Odd that it didn't fit in your car. Mine was supposed to be temporary since I originally wanted the HKS cast iron manifold (price and delay issues with that one). I have been using mine for 2 years now, I will admit that my car is a weekend car. I have put about 5000 miles on it. Don't know how long this thing would last on a car that is driven harder. I will eventually upgrade if it fails or starts leaking.

I am also using a borg warner s200 (modified front wheel) with a 1.15 hot-side and it fits. On the dyno it made 357rwhp @ 12.5 lbs of boost (synapse wastegate).

C. Ludwig

iTrader: (27)

Unfortunately, the poor quality is well documented and people just keep on buying them.

patman

iTrader: (3)

Most people complain about them failing/welds cracking. To me that is not an issue, I can weld it back together anytime, which is why I bought it. I was unprepared for it to be so poorly designed though.

myturbo88, I ordered a FD one, I guess it is possible they sent me the wrong one, it does look like the one in the picture though.

killahrx7

i recently installed one on a customer's car it made 378 hp at 12 psi. the problem that we had was the wastegate runner don't flow enough so the boost kept spiking. we had to add a second wastegate.

carolinacat

iTrader: (3)

Look inside at where the wastegate runners are welded on at. They dont cut the holes out large enough I spent about an hr enlarge the hole to flow better. My welds on my manifold look better than yours do in the photos.

GoodfellaFD3S

iTrader: (213)

Garbage in=Garbage out. Thanks for taking the time to write the review

Gorilla RE

iTrader: (1)

Am I missing something here... The ebay manifold (the same one a few venders sell with thier kits btw) are junk???

-J

smg944

iTrader: (34)

im not going to say that they are good manifolds. but on a budget build they can and will work. the biggest issue with them is that the flanges must be machined flat to actually make a decent seal. sometimes they do crack over time. but not one has a flat flange they are very U shaped which makes them leak. but with a new t4 flange and possibly a tial v-band for the wg they can be used for a good bit. oh and there bolt holes are usually off by a good amount.

got_hp

if you add up the cost of the ebay manifold, materials and machine shop labor and welding labor for making it actually usable.... dont you end up with a poorly flowing poorly designed manifold that costs about 75% of what a high quality manifold would cost?

not to mention the upcoming labor of dis assembly labor and repair costs when it inevitably cracks? (and hopefully doesnt take your turbo with it)


i've learned that if you are on a limited budget, you really cannot afford to cut corners.

vrx8

iTrader: (18)

Mine fits a T72 and a HKS 50mm WG no problem.

Hossler

iTrader: (3)

i bought the obx manifold, and i must say the welds are alot better looking there isnt any splatter

tom94RX-7

iTrader: (5)

The manifold I got with my used t04r is probably a cheap ebay like manifold. It looked decent, but then again I had nothing to compare it to. It came with a 50mm hks style replica wastegate, and there is only one runner going to the wastegate and alot of boost creep with lower boost, but that's not a problem for me. I'm Getting some boost flutter/oscillation with 23 to 24 psi in 4th gear, I need a different spring in there, or I was tthinking I could add a needle valve to the pressure line going to the side port to reduce the pressure a little that opens it, along with the ebc on the top port to fine tune boost control for high boost, might give that a try.

IRPerformance

iTrader: (41)

I will never install another one. Every single one that came my way had problems and the customers who insisted on using them ended up spending more money for me to make it fit than it would cost to get a proper manifold. Flanges almost always warped from excessive heat during the welding. Poor quality steel and poor weld penetration. Excessive weld slag inside the runners. Sometimes they try to gring this down. Poor wastegate placement. Manifold is almost always tapped for the wrong size hardware. You can't expect an m8 bolt to hold down a decent size turbo. Most turbine housings will hit the lower or be too close for a proper heat sheild. Overall they are junk. Save it for your honda civic.

RotaryEvolution

iTrader: (30)

i feel the same way about installing just about any chinese parts on a customer's car regardless of how much they beg me to. i just spent about an extra 8 hours of my life making one of the chinese knockoff Greddy M spec kits fit onto an FD. the brackets that were welded onto the intercooler were all off by a good inch in any direction, the core was dropped onto something and the core punctured, missing a bracket for the radiator, IC pipes a little long/short in every direction, etc, etc, etc. and this was bought from one of our vendors.

i have no problem installing the crappy fitting parts onto my own cars because it's MY time but i'm not eating cost anymore re-engineering this ****.

tom94RX-7

iTrader: (5)

Actually my manifold does have two runners going to the wastegate, I don't know why I thought it only had one haha. My manifold's t4 flange has the two bigger D shaped ports like the cheap ones on ebay, but my turbo has one large port so I guess it works okay, it's not divided like you see on many other turbos, see pic attached.

I'm wondering what the flanges look like on the Megan Racing manifolds, also sold on ebay but for about $200 - http://www.meganracing.com/product_d...id=374&catid=7. They would be better if they looked like the manifolds sold at http://www.rx7store.net/RX_7_Turbo_M...20manifold.htm

Iwan

As this discussion has been extended for intercoolers as well, I need to say that there is one good thing about it. The good thing is, Greddy felt to offer a cheaper version of there intercoolers where everything fits perfectly with no need for any modifications for a price which is more than good.

The only thing I do not get is, why do ppl. keep buying this cheap stuff from CN when them can have a top product for let us say 100USD more? Ppl tend to spend 200USD more to get the crappy stuff installed instead of getting a good product.....

As the CN stuff seems to put some pressure to manufacturers one more example to share. HKS has lowered the price for there GT series wastegates more than 40% last year! You will get a very good stuff with any support. For example you need a different spring as you now able to run more boost, no problem. You can get it within few days and this spring will fit 100%. When I read here, that some of you are running a CN made wastegate, I really do not understand why you are doing this..... You mean it was 200USD less than the HKS unit... OK, but you spend 600USD to get the boost spikes fixed?

indio84

iTrader: (7)

hey good review, I have one of these chinese manifold. I wonder how much hp I'm loosing with this manifold.

RotaryEvolution

iTrader: (30)

i'll correct those figures for you, a knockoff intercooler kit is ~$320-400 compared to the genuine at $1400-2000.

http://www.greddy.com/products/ic-oi...ter:model:RX7/
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/MK1-M...item25676daabc

a knockoff wastegate is $100 compared to the namebrand at $800.

you're saving more than a few hundred dollars in both of those examples. and the kicker is that they work, with a little bit to quite a bit of tweaking but some people have the skill and tools to fix them to work properly.

the reason people have been opting out in some cases is because the name brand stuff is mainly just for the name. and in many cases the parts aren't even made by the companies like HKS and Greddy, like their turbos.

building a car with all namebrand parts you can be taking it in the rear when if you have the ability to do it for much less with a slight hit to performance redesign parts to be as efficient while pocketing the money and putting it towards other things. i have yet to see anyone get hassled when they popped their hood and saw those parts. sure fitment is better on the true greddy kit versus the cheapo china crap kit but the china core is fine, the piping is fine, the quad layered silicone couplers are fine, even the cheapo stainless hose clamps are as good as the cheap ones the greddy kit comes with. the greddy kit requires cutting and modifying the car anyways, so there is already a competent skill required to install even the namebrand parts. as i mentioned though, if it was for my car i'd spend the extra 8 hours fitting the china kit to save over $1000 to buy a nice ball bearing turbo with that money, the performance difference between the 2 is likely almost unnoticable as the core and piping dimensions are the same.

as for me, i usually attempt to work around the cheap fitment and quality issues but it gets old real quick and i won't be aiding in the money savings while losing my own time anymore. don't take my previous annoyed attitude as a point that all of these knockoffs aren't worth anything, they are, while i do agree that it sucks that the companies that did design the kit in the first place are taking the hit, they are overpriced to begin with which is why they are being replaced.

can you tell me that the greddy intercoolers really cost over $1k more to produce than the knockoffs with the same exact materials? sure it's communist china working for nothing but i can tell you that there are plenty of people who have already passed hands with these kits to inflate them to even their $350-400 price tags. the name brand parts are just quite simply overpriced, even USA made products cost less to purchase then the japanese made products with the hefty price tags aimed at the street market in japan kids with rich parents.

vrx8

iTrader: (18)

I stay away from parts that can harm my engine if they fail like WG, BOV, Turbos and Boost Controllers. Ebay pulleys are fine, manifolds they just crack, intercoolers and stuff like that with no mechanism.

Ball joint

iTrader: (6)

I can't speak for all of the China manifolds but I do know that the OBX manifolds are pretty good. They have the same runner design but they have real T4 flanges and I have yet to see one crack.

thewird

iTrader: (8)

A properly tuned car will never receive engine damage from any of those listed parts failing. It's just a pain in the butt when you have to fix/replace them.

thewird

RotaryEvolution

iTrader: (30)

boost cut or a pop off valve is a good safety measure to utilize. even the best name brand parts still fail.