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This is hilarious because his goals are to take a great chassis and provide it with a lightweight, powerful, reliable, efficient engine that will outperform the original in just about every measurable category. The worst thing some of you people can come up with to mock this guy is that researching the swap, mocking up and fabricating a bunch of custom components, and sharing the whole process here is taking a while. Seriously, that's the best you can do.
Let's ignore the technical prowess, the great fabrication skills, the creative solutions, the ability to look beyond brand snobbery and let's mock the amount of free time that a busy guy has.
I'm glad I didn't go with an RX-8 for my engine swap project, it wouldn't be worth sharing with this community. I'm glad kicker is sticking it out, and I look forward to updates, understanding that they'll come as he has time.
Thanks Laminar. It's you guys that understand the project as a whole that keeps me updating the thread, though it is slow going. My desire to drive it is 100x more then you guys would like to see it running. If I could move faster, believe me, I would.
I've logged 30,000 miles then blew up an engine, bought a new car, and am starting my rebuild again on the 8. You are still trying to fit a V6 into it.
I've logged 30,000 miles then blew up an engine, bought a new car, and am starting my rebuild again on the 8. You are still trying to fit a V6 into it.
Right. Because this is the only thing I have going on in my life, the only project I'm working on, the only expense I have to spend my limitless funds on, and everything is a bolt-in.
Since I started this project, I've opened a business, closed a business, built two other cars, built two other engines, designed two audio amplifiers that are going to market, and designed a MAF interface. Oh, my better half is also in there somewhere.
I found some time between doing nothing and doing nothing to start designing this intake. The video shows a rough mock-up just so I can export the plenum sheetmetal DXFs to have them cut. You can see how I'm feeding the plenum from both ends. Maybe it'll help, maybe not. The top isn't shown but will be a bolt-on cover. It will be powder-coated black with 20 or so stainless screws holding it on. Should look great.
I'm also struggling with the head flange design. Since I can't fabricate every single part to my own dimensions, I have to design some of my parts around off-the-shelf hardware. Like aluminum elbows. I can pay $60 a piece for parts found in catalogs that list dimensions, or $6~8 a piece for surplus parts but dimensions aren't listed and sellers don't know how to measure an elbow. "What's a centerline radius?" is the email I get back a week later.
I suggest this only because you seem to be a pretty creative guy willing to try new things for the name of being the pioneer. have you thought about 3d printing the manifold? for NA v6 application, it may not be so crazy of an idea. or try to make it out of heat resistant plastic and epoxy/glass over it.
Last edited by stickmantijuana; 08-25-2015 at 06:08 PM.
I suggest this only because you seem to be a pretty creative guy willing to try new things for the name of being the pioneer. have you thought about 3d printing the manifold? for NA v6 application, it may not be so crazy of an idea. or try to make it out of heat resistant plastic and epoxy/glass over it.
I'm not a huge fan of it and I don't know enough about the material used for printing. How's the heat resistance? Fuel resistance? Things like that.
The current manifold design is suitable for boost so I won't have to build another once the turbos are installed. I'm going to cut and reuse the head flanges off the old manifold just to get things moving along. The throttle body flange is already made. The rest of it is just sheetmetal and welding.
Heat resistance is no issue with the right material, Koenigsegg is using 3d printed turbos with all moving parts printed inside the closed turbo chamber. It could be however a cost issue.
That intake manifold looks awesome, I wonder how it'll sound. probably have a real loud roar to it, Sort of like ITBs.
Your probably right. I'll find out because it'll be NA for awhile. The stock manifold had 15" runners that puts the torque really low in the rpm. They had a butterfly that opened at 7" length about 3500rpm. Although long, they were only 1.38" ID. Mine are at 1.57" ID. They will flow better but loose any benefit from tuning.
Remember the awful looking accessory belt mock-up? (first pic)
It has been greatly improved. For one, I changed to all plastic pulleys. I was able also able to rotate the tensioner a bit lower. This allowed me to make a single bracket to hold both idler pulleys. The bracket has some finishing touches to be added but otherwise great. (Second pic) The top left idler is not mounted yet.
Here it is with the last idler mounted. Looks much better. I may move the bottom right idler about 1/2" to the right but it's fine for now. I do like how the heavy accessories are mounted low on the engine.
That does look neat, but... Wouldn't you end up with something very similar if you port away most of the "guts" out of factory manifold and leaving runners of roughly the same length?
That does look neat, but... Wouldn't you end up with something very similar if you port away most of the "guts" out of factory manifold and leaving runners of roughly the same length?
The factory manifold sits about 4-5" higher and I don't need or want long runners since it's for a boosted application.
Here's how it looks on the engine. I did wind up moving the bottom idler a bit to the right. There's a lot of force on that one and I wanted it closer to the mounting bolts. I really wish I weighed all the Isuzu parts before I modified them. I probably dropped 15-20 lbs of rotating mass off the engine between the flywheel and clutch mods, lighter pulleys, and elimination of the mechanical fan.
i looked into 3D printing a PP intake earlier this year, and most of the materials are either have marginal heat capacity, or don't like gasoline.
the OEM's use a nylon 6.
There are some 3d printers that print nylon. Or you can print in PLA or whatnot and do lost wax casting with aluminum. There are possibilities, but if you don't have the equipment in house it will probably be prohibitively expensive.
08-08-2015, 01:01 AM
