ProjectGS: My GS-F Build Thread
Update 12/20/2012
Ok, so didn't really have much time to take pictures. I was busy pulling my hair out, as stated in the previous post lol. To get all this mocked up took me like 2 whole nights! I don't start working on this until the evenings. The pipe fitment was a nightmare. I'm building a true divided twin scroll manifold setup. So the size of this thing is rather large. Had to do some serious finessing to make this fit in the car.
This pictures is with everything tacked up for the most part.
One side of the runners completed welding. Because there are so many joints in this thing, there is bound go be some warpage. I noticed that #2 runner no longer lines up with the collector lol! Much inventing of new curse words ensued. So, when that happens, you just have to chop the section in the middle and add a small pie cut piece to it. This actually happened on 3 or 4 of the runners. I just had to suck it up and re-angle the cuts.
A picture of my custom backpurge solution haha. Plug both ends with a ball of aluminum foil and turn the regulator on atround 10-15cf/h. When you begin the piece, turn it higher because there are so many gaps in the pipe. Once you weld up more gaps, you can start to turn the flow rate down. I have 3 big tanks of argon, I'm used to LONG welding sessions lol.
I haven't welded stainless steel in forever. Just a shot of my mediocre skills
My heat control isn't 100% perfect yet, but I'm still practicing.
One section completed.
Now it's time to weld the individual runners to the main flange. I'm using a junk GE head to act as a torque plate of sorts. With all the exhaust flange bolts fastened, it will minimize warping in the exhaust flange. If you don't do this, you will end up with a exhaust manifold flange that is warped like a banana. Remember stainless is very sensitive to heat warping!
Oh yeah, here are some pix of the destroyed head that I used as my mockup. It's from someone elses car. Do your timing belt people! This is what happens to the engine if you don't!
Yes, there were broken pieces of valve stuck into the head!
Mangled intake and exhaust valves!
Ok, so didn't really have much time to take pictures. I was busy pulling my hair out, as stated in the previous post lol. To get all this mocked up took me like 2 whole nights! I don't start working on this until the evenings. The pipe fitment was a nightmare. I'm building a true divided twin scroll manifold setup. So the size of this thing is rather large. Had to do some serious finessing to make this fit in the car.
This pictures is with everything tacked up for the most part.
One side of the runners completed welding. Because there are so many joints in this thing, there is bound go be some warpage. I noticed that #2 runner no longer lines up with the collector lol! Much inventing of new curse words ensued. So, when that happens, you just have to chop the section in the middle and add a small pie cut piece to it. This actually happened on 3 or 4 of the runners. I just had to suck it up and re-angle the cuts.
A picture of my custom backpurge solution haha. Plug both ends with a ball of aluminum foil and turn the regulator on atround 10-15cf/h. When you begin the piece, turn it higher because there are so many gaps in the pipe. Once you weld up more gaps, you can start to turn the flow rate down. I have 3 big tanks of argon, I'm used to LONG welding sessions lol.
I haven't welded stainless steel in forever. Just a shot of my mediocre skills
My heat control isn't 100% perfect yet, but I'm still practicing.
One section completed.
Now it's time to weld the individual runners to the main flange. I'm using a junk GE head to act as a torque plate of sorts. With all the exhaust flange bolts fastened, it will minimize warping in the exhaust flange. If you don't do this, you will end up with a exhaust manifold flange that is warped like a banana. Remember stainless is very sensitive to heat warping!
Oh yeah, here are some pix of the destroyed head that I used as my mockup. It's from someone elses car. Do your timing belt people! This is what happens to the engine if you don't!
Yes, there were broken pieces of valve stuck into the head!
Mangled intake and exhaust valves!
Update 12/21/2012
After I took a break, I finally finished up this bad boy. I was so tempted to give up so many times during building this thing and just go and buy a FullRace manifold lol. So many times the heat would warp the stainless to the point where I would have to rebuild several sections of the runners. I pushed on and endured, and was finally able to finish!
Ok, 4 of 6 runners completed. Two left. This was an incredibly difficult process because I really didn't have much room to work the TIG torch in the tight spots.
Finished welding all of the runners. Using my Plasma cutter to make the hole for the wastegates.
Rough shape done, needs some smoothing out and then I will weld on the WG pipe.
The rear WG hole.
Ok, the manifold is FINALLY FINISHED!!!
Several pictures below to show the manifold in all it's glory!
I had my white car in the garage. Just putting it in here for mock-up, and it was much closer to my welding table. I threw an extra GE head on here to check clearances against the frame and shock tower. My grey car was parked outside. This manifold however is for the grey car though.
After I took a break, I finally finished up this bad boy. I was so tempted to give up so many times during building this thing and just go and buy a FullRace manifold lol. So many times the heat would warp the stainless to the point where I would have to rebuild several sections of the runners. I pushed on and endured, and was finally able to finish!
Ok, 4 of 6 runners completed. Two left. This was an incredibly difficult process because I really didn't have much room to work the TIG torch in the tight spots.
Finished welding all of the runners. Using my Plasma cutter to make the hole for the wastegates.
Rough shape done, needs some smoothing out and then I will weld on the WG pipe.
The rear WG hole.
Ok, the manifold is FINALLY FINISHED!!!
Several pictures below to show the manifold in all it's glory!
I had my white car in the garage. Just putting it in here for mock-up, and it was much closer to my welding table. I threw an extra GE head on here to check clearances against the frame and shock tower. My grey car was parked outside. This manifold however is for the grey car though.
Update 1/22/2013
So the car has been running pretty awesome since the completion of the new manifold. The sound is just truly awesome now. It sounds like a full out race built Supra due to the new manifold design. I had originally modified the old 3" downpipe and midpipe to fit up to the turbo, but it proved to be causing too much exhaust restriction. I upgraded the turbo to a 71mm Billet and the 3" exhaust wasn't allowing me to boost over 23-24psi. Just too much backpressure.
I had a few races to tend to, so I decided to just pull off the midpipe and fab up a new 4" downpipe. I didn't have time to finish the mid pipe so I left it as an open downpipe for like 3 weeks. It was extremely loud, I couldn't stand it anymore after 3 weeks so I forced myself to complete the rest of the exhaust. This is my daily driver, so while it may of been cool to be so loud in a dedicated race car. It was just wayyy to much in the early morning and going through rush hour.
Some footage of how loud it was with the open downpipe!
I didn't have any pictures of the build process, but basically I made my own oval exhaust piping. This was the only way I was going to be able to fit 4" downpipe under the car. If it was left as round pipe, I would have less than 1" of ground clearance before the exhaust would drag the ground!
As you can see, with the custom made oval 4" piping, the height is really not much more than the old 3" piping setup.
Now I need to cut off the old Y-pipe of the catback exhaust and modify it into a 4" transition. I calculated the surface area and two 3" pipes offer more surface area than a single 4". So going from 4" into dual 3" shouldn't cause too much extra back pressure.
It will be chopped here and this custom piece will be fitted.
Chopping the catback y-pipe on the saw.
New merge collector piece completed. I tried to keep the transition as smooth as possible.
Here it is welded onto the y-pipe. Fitment was pretty good.
A couple full shots of the whole thing.
This is showing how the merge collector necks down.
Also since I run E85, there is quite a bit of water vapor coming out of the PCV vents. So I decided to build a catch tank. Here are the necessary parts.
Welded on the top and I forgot to clean the tube first. I think it's anodized, so that's why there's that darker color under the weld.. I'll just have to go back and polish it later.
Drill out the holes for the fittings. I didn't have a bit large enough, so I ended up finishing the hole with a carbide burr that I used for head porting.
Bungs welded on.
Made a baffle plate so the water vapors are forced downwards to collect at the bottom of the tank instead of being sucked back into the intake. It actually works really well. Much better than I originally anticipated.
Completed. I added a bottom section to increase overall capacity. I also fabricated the bracket to bolt the catch tank to the frame. Now it just needs a good polish and it will be good to go.
Some more updates to come later on. I have a few more sets of photos of the custom surge tank fuel system in the car. I'll post them when I get a chance.
So the car has been running pretty awesome since the completion of the new manifold. The sound is just truly awesome now. It sounds like a full out race built Supra due to the new manifold design. I had originally modified the old 3" downpipe and midpipe to fit up to the turbo, but it proved to be causing too much exhaust restriction. I upgraded the turbo to a 71mm Billet and the 3" exhaust wasn't allowing me to boost over 23-24psi. Just too much backpressure.
I had a few races to tend to, so I decided to just pull off the midpipe and fab up a new 4" downpipe. I didn't have time to finish the mid pipe so I left it as an open downpipe for like 3 weeks. It was extremely loud, I couldn't stand it anymore after 3 weeks so I forced myself to complete the rest of the exhaust. This is my daily driver, so while it may of been cool to be so loud in a dedicated race car. It was just wayyy to much in the early morning and going through rush hour.
Some footage of how loud it was with the open downpipe!
I didn't have any pictures of the build process, but basically I made my own oval exhaust piping. This was the only way I was going to be able to fit 4" downpipe under the car. If it was left as round pipe, I would have less than 1" of ground clearance before the exhaust would drag the ground!
As you can see, with the custom made oval 4" piping, the height is really not much more than the old 3" piping setup.
Now I need to cut off the old Y-pipe of the catback exhaust and modify it into a 4" transition. I calculated the surface area and two 3" pipes offer more surface area than a single 4". So going from 4" into dual 3" shouldn't cause too much extra back pressure.
It will be chopped here and this custom piece will be fitted.
Chopping the catback y-pipe on the saw.
New merge collector piece completed. I tried to keep the transition as smooth as possible.
Here it is welded onto the y-pipe. Fitment was pretty good.
A couple full shots of the whole thing.
This is showing how the merge collector necks down.
Also since I run E85, there is quite a bit of water vapor coming out of the PCV vents. So I decided to build a catch tank. Here are the necessary parts.
Welded on the top and I forgot to clean the tube first. I think it's anodized, so that's why there's that darker color under the weld.. I'll just have to go back and polish it later.
Drill out the holes for the fittings. I didn't have a bit large enough, so I ended up finishing the hole with a carbide burr that I used for head porting.
Bungs welded on.
Made a baffle plate so the water vapors are forced downwards to collect at the bottom of the tank instead of being sucked back into the intake. It actually works really well. Much better than I originally anticipated.
Completed. I added a bottom section to increase overall capacity. I also fabricated the bracket to bolt the catch tank to the frame. Now it just needs a good polish and it will be good to go.
Some more updates to come later on. I have a few more sets of photos of the custom surge tank fuel system in the car. I'll post them when I get a chance.
I just read all 13 pages of your build. And I thought mine was impressive. I have to give props when props are due. You sure have a nice car, and mad motor skills.
Update 1/22/2013
Some footage of how loud it was with the open downpipe!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjSqu...cq_R_jZiGndPOA
Some footage of how loud it was with the open downpipe!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjSqu...cq_R_jZiGndPOA
Rookie
Joined: May 2011
Posts: 70
Likes: 0
From: WA
Love all the custom fab man, keep up the good work. I'm working on getting familiarized with some cool equipment at work. 4 Axis CNC machine, CNC Lathe, TIG...etc. I want to build myself a manifold one of these days, yours looks great!
