Actual interest in Aluminum Upper Intake?
 

We are getting the ball rolling on having a prototype cast aluminum 6 port upper intake manifold made tomorrow. We are looking to make one with actual performance improvements, in addition to just " show " appeal. The biggest concern as usual in price point, what are you guys willing to pay for one, and what are you looking for in the actual piece? I am thinking 1/8" pipe female ports for SS -AN vacuum/boost lines for starters, a bigger plenum, nice radii everywhere, bigger runners etc...

curious - what would a bigger plenum do for performance ?

I'd consider up to $US 400 a no brainer buy it now. Performance mods could be tricky so I care less about those. HOWEVER - please build in some kind of blanker or nipple on the top face / faces so we can easily get seafoam into the SSV valves etc - that alone would make it worth the buy!

Id buy one when my turbo build finally gets going. Id definetely buy for appeal.

$400 would be a steal but most upper intake manifold are $1200-1500 no matter what car it is. But I think from a marketing stand point I would say $1200

theres a guy out of Malaysia who has already done some and I don't think they were THAT expensive - the problem with him seems to be very ad hoc communication / production

Our manifolds are much smaller than say a flat 6 or a V6 platform. Anywhere below 1000 would be ideal to me. With the increase in manifold size wouldn't a bigger TB be needed too?

Very interested.

Price is not a question as long as it is worth it.

Dont make a crappy product because we.wouldn't pay more than $1000. If you build it, they will come$ :bigok: I'm sure everyone hates their plastic pos dust collecting upper intake

depends on how many you want to sell?
$500 seems right to me, but how will you handle the purge valve set up and the vacuum tank for the ssv' etc? If you required that to be modified, not a plug and play swap in other words, some people will not want that.
us Pettit guys already have an aluminum uim and the heat soak difference between ours and a composite one is real. Our design is a little better for that because it is raised off the engine a good bit.
Sounds great---wish you luck in developing and it would look GREAT.

I would be interested. I would want mounting points for the actuator solenoids I like the idea of tapping factory spots so we could choose what fittings to use. if we have to modify stuff I would say around 500 maybe less, plug and play with brackets and recessed for factory gaskets around 700 I know the Guy in Malaysia had a very plain one to where you could tap your own and was around 500+ shipping

We are going to make it as bolt in as possible, using oem TB. Well we will go ahead and try and get a prototype made and go from there.

For $1000 I would fabricate my own custom lightweight UIM from aluminum tubing .... it needs to be under $500 IMO ....

i would def be interested... but at 1k+ i would just do it myself

They sell theirs for exactly that much.

I like the effort put forth with the 8!

yea, i would say like $500 or less. It would be nice for a shorter one like the pettit or hymee one so you could more easily fit a super charger in.

thats a poor marketing strategy if you want to be able to develop a market for this product just because of the limited number of owners who can afford or be willing to shell out that kind of money. you want to make it affordable but competitive, [compared to other mods]

Well you have to consider the fact that the guy from Malaysia may not have the quality and proven reputation that Turblown has, let alone it is a different region/market.

That was a Singapore guy who produced. Alloy instead of aluminum. Looks heavy for me.

http://www.rx8clubsingapore.com/viewtopic.php?t=4975

all aluminums are alloy, it is aluminum

I might not always agree with Team, but he never fails to make me lawl with his one liners.

lol, i can attest to that it is in fact aluminum. aluminum alloy.

that aside, curious to see what turblown has up his sleeves here.

The Singapore one does look excessively heavy, those flanges must be at least 1" thick