How do you know its thin?

It's not the runners that are thin, but the plenum itself. I'll bring it by something this weekend so we can talk business face to face.

Wow what a sad story for you....

Here's the latest dyno, 17.5#, 92 octane pump gas and no meth. I will probably dumb it down quite a bit to make my first few track days in her a little easier.

Attachment 200287

Looks great, seems very usuable with the correct tires. Is this your "official" street tune?

Sorry if I missed an update elsewhere but, what happened to the FlipSide manifold? I hope you sent it back and had it fixed to your liking.

I'm going to take 3 degrees of timing out of all boosted cells and use it as a low boost tune for lapping days and stuff. For street/drag strip use I will run the Mickey Thompsons, about 23-28 pounds of boost and the meth.

As for the manifold, I'm running it with a few tweaks. It will continue to be developed through a different fabricator.

That dyno graph gives me a boner. Can't wait to see this thing on slicks. Think you'll hit 10's?

Probably not to be honest. I'm going to try and get it to run 11.5s consistently for this year at the drag strip. Most of this year is going to be spent doing more regular driving, some schools and a few lapping days. Might be an addition to the family this year, so I'm starting to plan for that.

Just to clarify something I said earlier. When I previously said I might be adding an addition to the family this year I was talking about either an Acura NSX or a Porsche 911.

Hehe, I was wondering. I almost called you to clarify :P.

Yeah, Ben said something to me this morning so I wanted to clarify.

Street car or race car?

Could almost go two different directions:

Road racer NSX and leave the Miata for the street/strip

Drag racer 911 with a dual purpose Miata for street and HPDEs

Models and plans?

It would purely be a street car that I used as a daily driver.

Ok...hence the luxo-touring choices.

Just had grand visions of what a JayL flat six turbo build would look like for a second.

I'm too cheap to go crazy on any platform other than a Miata. This will be my last slow car I mod to make fast. In the future, when I buy a toy it will be fast in its stock form (power wise). Then when I do outgrow it and want something faster, I will just sell it and buy something else instead of modding it to make more power.

Given all the comments on short runners killing low end power, your dyno sheet shows the contrary. Torque is hanging there all the way to 6500. What was your IGN on the top end for that dyno run? at peak torque? and when did it hit boost target?

20 degrees on the top end, 16 degrees between 4600-5400 rpm and it hit my boost target at 4050 rpm.

What's going on at 6800RPM?

Also, I guess this should be directed at all you Seattle people but Jay do you work in tech?

I was about to say: ummm, is she preggers??:D

Yeah, the knock threshold was a little too low so it pulled timing. Didn't realize this was what was happening until the car was off the dyno. Although it's smoother, the built engine is much noisier than my stock engine.

Nope, I flip burgers and sell my organs to get cash.

It's been awhile since I have done an update on all the changes. Recently decided to make the car quieter so I can get under the limit at a few tracks that I run. The dump tube is now routed back into the exhaust and it's extremely quiet now. The brakes needed to be upgraded so I went with the Trackspeed BBK, thanks Savington. So far getting bit by the track bug has been one of the best things to ever happen to me. It's really changing the way I want to mod the car.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to make a single event in the Miata and today wasn't any different, had to fall back on the SLK again. Last night after finishing up the exhaust I made a few pulls and the intake manifold burst under 17.4# of boost. I'm planning on pulling it this week and will post some pictures when I do. For now, here's a picture of the from when I was test fitting the calipers.

Attachment 199170

I hope nothing major happened when the intake bursted. How did the SLK do at the track?

Whoa whoa, wait....The intake manifold that Flipside made for you "Bursted" open?

http://s119.photobucket.com/albums/o...20manifold.jpg

Your car is sick!

How did the school go? Sucks to hear about the manifold. In for pics.

I told you. You're going to blow the welds.

http://www.filmofilia.com/wp-content...furious__m.jpg

Maybe that engine bay could use some more uplighting :facepalm:

So do I, I'll find out more when I pull it apart. The SLK was fun out there, but I should have bought her a Boxster.

Yes, this is the Flipside manifold and the planned changes to prevent something like this from happening had NOT been done yet. From what I can see it came apart across the entire top seam where the plenum is welded to the runners. I left a message for him this weekend, but I haven't heard back yet. Even though I don't think he wants to continue working with me on this project, I would think he'd be interested in seeing this. That's all I can really say at this point until I get the manifold off and get some trained eyes on it. It's all part of the development process and as disappointed as I am, I was more upset about not having the car for the track yesterday.

Thank you.

It was awesome, it's been over 12 years since I've driven on the track. I'm learning so much right now and driving on the track is better than crack. Here's a pic from the yesterday.
Attachment 199155

That is really upsetting. I expected more out of FlipSide. Perhaps you could send the manifold to Begi and they might rework it for you.

Do you still have your factory manifold for the time being?

A factory manifold isn't an option. This wasn't a bolt on part so it's setup for this now and would be costly to revert back.

Good to see you turning some corners! That 1/4 mile stuff is a kick in the behind but 1/2 a dozen 11 second runs is not the same rush as several 20-30 minute sessions of flat out driving on a road course.

I'm sure they'll get that Mani buttoned back up and reinforced.

Always post pics of destroyed parts. It's more fun and you already paid for them.

Log laps on that Merc...a 250whp miata is a challenge to maximize. Its like a Chinese puzzle for me from time to time.

I'm hoping to have it off tomorrow morning and I will post a pic of where it split. At the latest it will be sometime on Friday because Rob's going to be checking it out this weekend. I'm anxious to hear his thoughts on it.

The V6 in the Benz made it fun to drive, but I could be in a Yugo and it would be more capable than the driver at this point. I have so much respect for the instructors that are helping people like myself learn to drive on the track safely. Hopefully someday I will be able to give back to the sport as well.

I finally got it off the car today, it wasn't fun as I had to lift the engine up an inch or so to get enough room to remove it. Here's the pics as promised, enjoy.

Attachment 199044

Attachment 199045

Attachment 199046

Attachment 199047

Hard to tell from the pic, but it does appear to have ballooned and then 'torn' at the seam due to the weld not penetrating all the way.

<- not a welder, so strictly opinion.

That makes me worried about my own manifold as I am running over 20psi. Could it have been caused by a backfire maybe? Can you tell how thick the metal is? If it's too thin, Jeff's theory of it ballooning could have put extra stress on the weld seams.

--Ferdi

I too vote backfire. I am doubtful that 20psi would tear that weld apart in the middle like that.

I can assure you that it wasn't a backfire.

Well, as I was the only other person there, I'm going to go ahead and chime in to avoid speculation. It wasn't a backfire. We started up Jason's car and got it to the shop where he had some exhaust work done. After his car got down off of the lift, he did a few WOT pulls to test everything out. Everything worked as expected at that point. On the way home, the car was running fine for a while, but we pulled off when Jason noticed that his maximum boost level kept getting lower and lower. He then proceeded to putt the car home where we then noticed the crack.

To me, this says that it was forced open under boost pressure and then ripped apart. If it had blown open due to a backfire (which once again, the manifold was fine when we started working on the car, and it never once backfired) it would have just blown out, not slowly been torn apart.

Could it be that they ground the weld down too far, trying to make it look pretty?

That manifold really sounds like it has been painful. I'm sorry :( Maybe BEGI had it right when they made their intake out of iron :/

I'm with the other guy - bad penetration on the welds or the material is too thin. It's a balloon with sharp corners. Bad design idea. :-) Making it thicker (heavier) would work, or even just adding material at the corners would help. Posts through it could help, too.

FYI, the OEM intake can handle serious backfires. :-) A guy once came down the street 6 houses cause he said my garage scared him and he came to offer medical assistance, the last explosion he'd heard like that was in an iraqi war zone. :-)

Perhaps (though I'd hate to mess with the flow) putting a bolt or two through it would really help hold it together, to keep it from ballooning? Or a clamp/strap on the outside? Seems iffy, really good high res close ups of the weld would help someone who knows welding (and I know a few if you don't) tell you if it's the fault of the weld.

From the looks of the pic, it looks like it could easily be fixed.

Are you planning on building another intake?

I'm fairly certain that it could have been easily welded back up, but it would have just failed again. 17# is what I run on low boost and on high boost it needs to withstand upwards of 32#.

I felt the best course of action is to let the guy that designed it have the first opportunity to come up with a fix for it. So currently the manifold is back at Flipside as of last Monday. Rob took a look at it and listened to my concerns. Not sure what his plan is going to be, but I will post up about it when I get the manifold back.

As much as I like the Flipside manifold, I decided to put a 99 intake manifold on the car this week. I'm in the process of finishing that up this weekend. I wish it was as easy as just bolting it on, but I need to re-work my cold side piping, a bunch of wiring, etc... Having a reliable car that I can actually drive is of utmost importance to me right now. I'll most likely sell the Flipside manifold when I get it back.

Its funny, because I showed my boss that pic and he thought it was caused by backfire as well. I hope flipside figures it out. Shitty you had to go all this length to find out you don't even want it.

I think a backfire would have completely ripped that manifold apart, after all it's only made out of 1/16" aluminum.

Have you considered using the Edelbrock manifold. There are some mega horsepower Miatas running them, I bet they are relatively inexpensive compared to sheet metal. It does not look as good a sheet metal intake, but it should handle any amount of boost you can throw at it.

The tubed Miata that is going low 9's at 150+mph is using that manifold. I have seen it on a few other cars. I think it is worth checking to see what kind of flow and boost they can handle, and if it is still available.

I can't wait to see how the car runs when it is back together.

At this point I'm going to just take it easy for a bit and see what happens. If I don't start driving this car soon, I'm going to end up selling it. With that being said, I finished everything up and the car is ready to drive again. I'll go over it again tomorrow to make sure I didn't miss anything and then it's time for a drive. I hope it doesn't rain.

Attachment 198787

What a wonderful day. I took it out and beat the ever living shit out of it, all the way to the gas station and then back home the long way. The plan was to go further, but I left the hood at home and it was starting to rain.

Overall it's a bunch quieter now that I'm not running an open dump tube. I also installed an aftermarket exhaust cam. When I get back on the dyno to do some tuning I'll get it dialed in and see if it will give me any extra power.

Don't you mean... Seeing what power hit you took with the OEM mani? :-)

I've seen people take a dremel to them and hollow them out. Might be something to consider, though this edelbrock suggestion is a good one.

If you or anyone wants to buy my mostly polished and hollowed out NB manifold (hollowed top and bottom) it's FS.

DYNO! What difference did you see before/after/compared to an aftermarket unit?

Did a few pulls on the dyno to see what the car is putting down with the 99-00 intake manifold. VICS was locked in the open position and this was at 19# (wastegate).

Attachment 198531

holy shit

It also sounds quite a bit different with the dump tube plumbed back in. Ben was nice enough to do a flyby in it today so I got to hear it from outside the car and I think it sounds awesome.

What RPM do you hit 19psi at now? 15psi? 9 psi?

It's fully spooled at 4500. As for the other boost levels, I'm not sure and I don't have a log available. With a mbc or ebc I should be able to get it spooled a few hundred rpm earlier. When I do put a boost controller on it I will shoot for a solid 20.5 and call it a day on pump gas. I haven't done this yet because my injectors are already maxed out up top.

Comparison for those that can't scroll back a couple pages...

Aftermarket mani at 17.5 psi

Attachment 198498

99 intake at 19psi

Attachment 198499

More power coming soon...

Attachment 198464

I thought you kicked the habit?:bowrofl: