What do you think of chinese turbo manifolds?
 

I've been looking around on eBay and it is very apparent that some of these new headers are undercutting the price of other brands very heavily. Do they work, crack? Is it cheap steel or good steel? What about the wall thickness on these things?

The reason I'm asking is to get a feel on what works and what doesn't because I would like to start making some high quality manifolds with American metal. The only problem is I cannot make them for 100 dollars that are rampant on eBay. I work for a sand rail manufacture and we know our way around pipes, metal, and welding. We are wondering if something like this is worth our time if people want a high quality manifold for a bit more money, or if you know something else that we could make that would be worth it for the community.

Thanks.

The main problem with the chinese manifolds are these:

- The grade of steel is many times questionable. I have seen many Stainless steel chinese made parts rust.

- Welds are a hit or miss. Sometimes they can maybe hold up, sometimes they take a shit.

- Design probably was copied with 0 R&D put into it.

- 0 customer service and warranty.

The chinese are hard at work trying to copy the Full Race manifolds but most have found the copies do suck. Main thing is, they really don't care where there products end up due to the fact that it's all mass production and there is no customer service or warranty.

If you are really interested in making a quality manifold, you should buy a full race or equivalent quality manifold, and make something like that with quality welds, materials, and some design behind it. Even if you spend a lot buying the original, you can sell it or use it on a side project.

There would be a demand for reasonably priced manifolds and exhausts with:

Quality welds, Certified Grade S/S or maybe even exotic materials like Titanium (this is getting big in the GT-R community), tested performance. Stuff like this always makes this industry stronger. As long as the product is good, regardless of the price, people will pay it.

I always say, if you are absolutely gonna copy, might as well copy the good stuff and copy it RIGHT.

Look.
My pups owns quite a few manufacturing plants in china, he also lives their and i go their often.

The factorys that make the manifolds can make good quality gear, but unfortuantely the smart cookie who brought them the original sample did not bring a good sample to begin with. So they copied a shit manifold and started selling it.
Its using stainless that is too thin, flanges that are too thin etc.

So no they are no great and their are loosers selling them simply cause they dont care and are trying to make a quick buck.
I make manifolds for any car or application/turbo and i sell them for around $210 USD and i think thats fucken cheap. But thats no in stainless.
Thats in 3mm Steam Pipe with 16mm flanges etc proper stuff.

Do you have any pictures of the manifolds you make?

spend a few extra and go with a a-spec manifold

Hrm, this seems to be promising news. Especially with the GTR titanium stuff. My main concern is if I do end up getting to making this work, I have to do a rather large quantity since my laser cutter charges a setup fee and it is only worth it if I make a ton of flanges at a time. I'd really like to see something come from this.
Our company is hurting bad, nobody can buy a 50,000 dollar toy to play with in the sand, and if they want to buy they can't get financed. And then if they can in fact afford one and get financed they don't want a CARB/EPA approved engine that we must sell by law since last year. Too many things crashing down at once.

If you want any help, i can try to help out.

Advice or sourcing w/e.

i guess you never made them?

stuff like this doesn't happen over night. I've been talking to the owner of the company where I work and he seems interested in the high end titanium stuff. But titanium isn't a metal you can learn to weld on a weekend.

it not that hard the weldding is much like TIGing SS but you just need to flush the whole weld in argon front and back. looks like mecury when done then you did it right if it looks hippy tiedie it is wrong.

yeah we've done the research, interesting stuff. The boss man is kind of loosing his mind right now as far as the company survival and almost has no interest in doing this now. He wants to stick with what he knows, but that isn't working to well.

I've owned lots of SSautochrome parts for various cars. My experience is that the metal is plenty strong and does hold up. Also, the welds are generally good. WAY better than the Megan racing mani that came with my rx7store kit.

The Issue with the XSpower manifolds for the FD is not so much the welds, nor the thickness of the metal, it is the overlap of the main runners that blocks the wastegate runners. This often leads to boost creep. BAD!

It is VERY difficult to modify these after you buy them, trust me, my shop is trying. If you can afford it, then buy ASPEC or have a custom one made. If not, risk boost creep.

Here is a picture of what I'm talking about.

http://img158.imageshack.us/img158/9099/xspowerjg7.jpg

I've owned 3 SSauto Chrome manifolds, one was a learning experience. It was cheap, I needed a manifold, so I bought it. It warped within the first 2 weeks. Second one, came on my car, it had an exhaust leak that the old owner couldn't figure out. I immedietly suspected the manifold. Took it off and it was warped. I recieved the 3rd one in a box of parts with a stock TII engine I bought from someone locally. The manifold was probably brand new, but it went straight into the garbage can. I refuse to pass on one of those manifolds to anyone else, whether I sold it or gave it away.

One of our local guys here went against my opinion of them being shit and bought one because it was cheap. Within a month, it was warped.

I'm running an XS manifold on my FD, it's been going strong for well over a year. No boost leaks, no warped flanges, no boost creep, no cracks. Maybe I got lucky.

The only problem i had was a slight misalignment with the wastegate bolting up which required me to drill and tap it a little differently on one of the holes. Wasn't a huge issue for me as i do this kinda stuff on a regular basis. For someone with limited mechanical abilities, or tools you might want to spend a little more on something that will have a higher success of being direct bolt on.

i was not aware that china even made turbo manifolds. lol

china makes everything!!! 90% of thestuff you buy is made in china lol

Most of these manifolds I've seen had pretty bad welds and the transitions between the sections of tube they welded together weren't smooth. Looking inside the runners I've seen sharp edges of metal left where they ground away the excess weld splatter. The inside also usually have poor weld penetration. I'd be worried about cracking or some of the sharp edges breaking off and going through the turbo.

As someone , who has made many manifolds , and seen many of these "china" manifolds , i believe them to be absolute crap , usually they crack or warp , and like someone said before me in this thread they rust ...wtf is up with that , thats not decent quality SS
for some people it might work , but i believe when i am buying a manifold (doesnt matter the price) it should be a russian roulette ...oh maybe it will hold ....wtf , are you guys serious
when i am going down the road @ 28psi of boost the last thing i want on my mind is ..."ooh shit will the manifold hold?" ...fuck that ,
i can understand that maybe the design isnt that well , because it was poorly designed (which they dont do , they just copy) but if the quality sucks , thats just bad news regardless

i hate having to replace something twice , especially if it fails plainly for being crap

but then again ...thats just my opinion

Did you have problems with the Megan manifold in your kit? I have been trying to get some feedback, but the customers i have contacted said they havent had any issues with them and couldnt give me any feedback really. We have installed a few of them here and havent had a problem, but want to know if someone has.

Of all the "ebay" style manifolds I have seen I prefer the OBX because the inlet flange matched the inlet on the turbo, but the problem is most of the turbo housings hit the LIM on the RX-7 and require some modification.

From our experience with the cheaper manifolds they do work well. I know some may not like them, but we havent had any issues.

Jason

just wondering, why not just purchase a cast manifold and call it a day? HKS makes a nice one for the t04... you dont gotta worry about it cracking for along time...

HKS doesnt make wastegates for that manifold anymore. You would need to fabricate a flange for a different wastegate.

Cast manifolds also retain more heat and weigh more.

First of all I'm not bumping this thread to stir $#!+ or question Jason's posts. Obviously products change, some improve over the years and some don't, also experiences and customer feedbacks change. First quote was made in 09 and the second was in 08.

So what i'm wondering is which one is the better product between ssautochrome and obx right now, taking into account welds, flanges, fitment etc.? And which is replica of which (feed, knight, amemiya, greddy)?

It'll be connected to a GT35R (1.06) and I'd prefer one without hitting LIM issues if possible.

I think at some point it was mentioned that the ssautochrome manifold was typically better quality then the obx.. but idk

My SSAC manifold for my FC with a BNR stage 3 on it lasted 2k miles before tons of hairline cracks started forming and I started feeling a loss in power due to exhaust leaks :(