Reflanging a manifold
 

Has anyone ever had any luck having a shop reflange a manifold...im thinking about getting a used pg mani and having a t3 flange put on as well as having it welded up for EWG. Anyway if anyone has done this or knows about how much it will be to have both done let me know. Thanks.

to be honest, save your money and get a real T3. if your gona stay stock flange just keep the PG. the PG mani has a horrible design anyway and it would be a waste to put it on a nice T3 turbine housing

anyone had any actuall experience with this?

theres a FS thread here that someone did the same thing. i think you posted in it too haha

no way hah

It can be done quite easily, but like skater said, just get a new manifold done for you. It's not that much more expensive and you have input on the design.

But if you are content, any fabricator worth his salt can do it, maybe even a machine shop too although I'm not totally sure there.

Yah, see im not wanting to spend a grand on a mani...my goal is to do a budget build to see if i can make the same power as ppl spending 3-6 grand on a turbo setup but do it with like 1000 to 1500...not because im cheap im definitly not that..

If it can be done and done right and still be more cost effective than having a new one made then i will do it. But i wont do it if i cant find a shop/person that has enough confidence in his skills to tell me it wont bust after a few hard runs.

Done right and done cheap usually don't go hand in hand. Cutting corners usually leads to half assed results.

To answer your original question yes it can be done very easily.

Well i guess we will see...if it costs me 100-150 to get it reflanged and converted to ewg it will still be cost effective...if its anymore i will most likely buy a ptp mani cuz its hot. lol

i looked through the fs section and cant find this..

I bought a dnp for like $300 and did my own ewg on it for <$30. To reflange wouldn't have been any harder IMO.

What is your power goal? If it's 350whp or less, you'll be fine with a pg mani. But if it's more than that, you better upgrade to a higher performing man.

And why do you say the PG exhaust mani is a horrible design? Any facts/proof, or just your opinion?

350-380 is what i want...for now...how do you know pf mani is limited to that?

I just don't think the collector is the best design for flow.

You could def push it past that (that's what i'm doing right now & hope to dyno tomorrow), but it's just not an efficient approach.

For that matter, why upgrade the exh mani at all? Just run 30psi.

i have a dnp manifold that is converted for ewg and it seems fine. so i dont see why you couldnt reflange it.

I've converted my manifold to a T2 (I think) flange. It wasn't very hard, I just cut the original flange off and welded the new one straight on. I'm a fabricator by trade. Weld it right and there will be no issue with cracking.

Before:

http://i363.photobucket.com/albums/o...ld/Finish4.jpg

After: It can be just visible where the weld is 10mm (3/8") above the flange.

http://i363.photobucket.com/albums/o...t/DSC00005.jpg

Hey wagon,

I've actually got a gob of shit laying around to make your own manifold. A tone of 2" U bends (all 304), a head flange and a stock turbo flange (steed speed). The steed turbo flange is oem, but may be big enough to just drill out with t3 hole pattern.

I'm prob never going to use it, and would let it go for pretty cheap, maybe like 250 - 300 or something like that. You could maybe look at just getting a custom one made all together.

Just a thought.

I have an EWG Medieval manifold with a warped head flange (came that way, I was one of those who got screwed.) If you are reflanging it anyways on the turbo side, reflanging on the head side probably wouldn't be too much more. If you are interested in the manifold, send me a PM and we can work out a price. John (PTPerformance) took a look at it when I go it and said the weld on the tubing looked great, so reflanging and cleaning it up (they also ceramic coated with out cleaning the manifold up first so the ceramic is flaking off on the inside along with the metal flakes trapped under the ceramic) should make it usable.

na if i do that i will never do anything with it lol

is that a T3 flange or is it stock?

Thank you for the encouragement...how much would you charge someone to weld that up?

Stock flange, you would have to reflange both the turbo side (to get it to T3) and the head side (to take care of the warped flange.) Was a $950 manifold, but I will sell it much much cheaper then that because of the work that needs to be done on it. Offered it up because the original topic of this thread was reflanging a manifold.

Edit to add some pictures of the manifold:
http://schullers11.home.comcast.net/...azda/manif.JPG

Showing how bad the head flange is... don't think it can be machined.
http://schullers11.home.comcast.net/...zda/mani/1.JPG
http://schullers11.home.comcast.net/...zda/mani/2.JPG

I understand what you meen after looking at it next to the ptp mani...i wish i could just use the stocker...because i would for a while.

Erich,
that thing is really fucking warped man, lol.

I'm just gonna throw this out there. I know it's crazy, but have you tried to run that manifold? I don't have much experience with warped flanges, but i do know they often will flatten out some after a few heat / torque cycles. You'd have to clean up all that flake mess of course, but honestly if i was you, i'd try.

That thing looks rough...

why didnt you send that thing back

Ha, if he sent it back he'd lose his money and his manifold. At least now he has something he can kinda salvage.

If I wasn't transporting my daughter in the car I would have done something like that or had it reflanged. Since my daughter does ride in my car, I am a little more careful about what goes on there. I'm pretty sure it would be ok, but I just don't take chances with my kid.


What he said. A lot of people just lost their money and didn't get anything at all. Also, outside of the crappy ceramic and bad flange it is really pretty nice work.

fagwagon,

heres the thread
http://www.mazdaspeedforums.org/foru...ta-44-a-45197/

post 11

shit i didnt realize medival was that bad im assuming they went under...i showed up a little late to see the damage they did i guess.

btw like dustin said the PG just has a horrible collector. runner 4 basically comes in at a 90 deg angle and its certainly not equal length. the best collector design is when all of the runners come in basically straight down and as close to parallel to eachother as possible.

this is not to say its a bad manifold but its just going to hamper power when you start breaching the 350 mark which MANY people will be routinely doing in the next few months.

hows the dnp design to reflange????

Oh no this is one that was made with a t3 flange

i would say the DNP is slightly better then the PG but its still no where near the design quality of the PTP or DCR or RR.

yea i know but i already spent $$$ on this and it already has ewg so why try sell it and spend like 300 more??? is it really worth it???

for your built engine i would have the best of everything cause thats the only thing holding you back. i would have a T3 PTP mani with a T3 82 housing GT3076 and custom downpipe. you've clearly already invested in the engine so whats a couple more bucks for the best setup you can buy?

I'm in Australia, so I won't bother with a price, just an estimate on time.

Are you fitting a completely different turbo? If so, you'll need a new DP. It'll take longer to do.

It would only take about an hour to do , for just the flange, once it is off the car. Budget for 1-2 hrs total I think.

Yah i know ill need a new dp...im going to have a shop fab me one around here

the shop that does your dp should weld the flange.. hell it will be lots cheaper than shipping it to australia. lol

I've seen this argument in other threads also, regarding the collector on the PG mani not being perfect, runner length, etc...

HOWEVER, what I have NOT seen is any hard proof that the PG design is inferior to the DCR, RR or new PTP manifolds.

RR does a side-by-side PICTURE comparison, but AFAIK, there was no side-by-side Dyno comparison to show that their design was superior to the PG design (at least they also didn't come out and say how much better theirs was)

I think even PTP John is only doing a side-by-side with the stock mani and not any of the aftermarket manifolds.

So until someone (either manufacturer or individual) can back up their claims of superiority with hard numbers, proof, dynos, etc, then all you have is opinion, which doesn't justify the almost double, and in some cases more than double, cost of these so-called superior designs.

I would love to be able to afford an extra $400-600 for a PTP, RR, DCR manifold, but if all they are going to net me is another 5 (or even 10) HP over the PG design, then IMO, it's not worth it.

Proof >>>>> Opinion

All your hnda etr are belong to me too.

NO LOL i was asking him what he would charge someone do do that--being that he is a fabricator ha i wouldnt be shippping it to australia...


I agree totally you cant always base everything off looks...I learned this quickly after going after cheerleaders in high school...whores...

And I'll give you the courtesy of a reach around too! ;-)

I think someone on here was fully bolted minus manifold with stock turbo and the PG gave them +8whp IIRC..

You can def notice it pulls slightly harder 4500 +