Hahahah that steel looks like its paper thin.

I welded up Coke™ cans and made my manifold. Better than Ebay!

I hope none of you live in San Francisco...Looks like the bay bridge is getting the same quality!


http://www.npr.org/2011/09/16/140515...new-bay-bridge

Soooo let me get this right, they are sending our tax money to build our ---- in china.. any one see a problem with that?

Exactly. Reality is there's cheap steel and there's expensive steel. I worked for a metal company and we were able to get cheap American steel and expensive American steel. Guess which they bought for us... the rusty crappy cheap steel that had imperfections and hard spots and surface rust nearly 1/4" deep all over it. I can count way too many times where we have gotten a round 5" piece 2-3 feet long and it has literally cracked in half on a hard spot. I can also say I've worked with an expensive piece of steel that cuts like butter everywhere. Were talking manifolds here and there's 1 main problem with the ebay junk.. the steel they use is too thin. If it was 1/8" thick wall it wouldn't crumple in your hands. Make a manifold with paper thin "American good steel" and see what happens...yes it will also crack. Say it was the proper thickness for the application and it cracks even then.. now you can say it's cheap or not cheap Chinese steel.

I cant believe I didnt see this thread earlier, I think I was the only person in EXISTANCE that had a good "S4 style" single runner 100 dollar ebay manifold that lasted, and all that turbo weight was pulling that fucker down with its homie gravity... now it is lost in the mail somewhere, probably cut up and welded in some raped position on a UPS employee's civic.

I think I'm on my 4th s4 clone now, they last me about 6 months or so. Its just a $100 part of routine maintenance now lol.

Now if I could only find a good use for all these cracked manis I have lying around lol. So if I re-weld them think they will be weaker? useless? stronger?

@ giblets, Ebay sometimes is ok as long as the part isn't coming from China or a cheap company. You will sometimes find trustworthy sellers for car parts. I have a brand new turbo and manifold I had bought for myself from Precision but it looks like I'm not getting my car back together for a while. You can't go wrong spending more money on a great quality part that won't make you wan't to pull your hair out like with cheap ebay parts.

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The raw steel in China is generally crap. I know because I used to manufacture over there--not any more. We'd control (somewhat) the quality by bringing in ingots of aluminum from Australia, or bringing in complete extrusions from out of country that were simply machined and assembled in China.

It's also true about spotty quality. It would usually take a couple of shipments to get the quality right, but then a couple of shipments later problems would crop up.

No, you can't pigeon-hole the most populous country in the world with one sentence declarations, but there's a reason why I no longer purchase from them.

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You're right... That's not pretty.

I wonder how much the collector (runner convergence) at the turbine flange has to do with the failures. Seems like there's a lot more of the quasi-log styles that fail than the long tube style. Flange loads are completely different. The top mount basically sits on the flange while the other is cantilevered off the tube wall.

My log style chinabay mani lasted 15 months...that's where it finally failed.

So a quick question (given I'm onto cracked E-Bay/N-Power mani #2) - what are you guys finding available as a good replacement, and are the cast iron ebay versions also linked in this thread any good?

Can this thread be locked and dead already?! Use the damn search bar.

Yeah make sure you get a 1.6 manifold for your 1.8. I hear those are the best.

Wow - the doucebaggery begins early today.....

I'm not some noobie f#cktard - I was getting good advice here many years ago - probably even from you - when I was doing my build up. That's why I looked in the sticky - almost expecting THAT'S where someone might have put the answer to this problem.

All I want to know is if people have found a good replacement which meets the same fitment as the shitty ebay manifolds which crack. I'm sick of welding the f#cking thing up, and don't want to have to rebuild both the dp and manifold. If there aren't any easy options, then perhaps the elite members here might be able to say so?

Otherwise I'm gonna have to pay to have one fabricated locally - and I'm in Australia so there's no point me telling me the details of your local fabricator.

Basically. No.

User your fabricator or ours.
Nothing else available that's not utter dogshit.

Ebay manifolds are garbage. If you want something reliable look at fm, begi, absurtflow, or other of our vendors here on the forum. From memory those 3 are the common biggies.

There was a diy thread few days ago that was also very good guide.

https://www.miataturbo.net/diy-turbo...anifold-66261/