Manifold choices?
 

Hello, I've been planning on turbo'ing my Miata for a while now, since I sold my turbo Mustang I figured it was time. I figured I'd stick with a T3 for now and maybe move up to something bigger later. The 1.8 I have is a little smaller than the 2.3 I was working with before so it's a whole new ball game.

I've been trying to find some turbo manifolds and basically only found 1 that I like so far, the HKS log with external waste gate. I'm certain that the BEGi manifold would be great but I couldn't find it on the web site without buying an entire kit.

I'm definitively looking for a side mounted log to help with turbo maintenance and fitting. I'm not looking for an off-the-shelf downpipe and manifold combo, just the manifold, the rest I'll fabricate.

Car is a 97 btw.

begi and FM will sell you their manis seprate. also there is jgs.

etd racing and flipside customs also sell manifolds

Make your own if you're into fabbing then.
bmcrace.com for the ported head flange for 1/5" sch 40 weld-els available at acestainless.com and the tubing for your DP at racing-solutions.com (google it).
You could to the entire mani including the flange for less than $110 i bet.

http://www.bellengineering.net/Pages...ata_parts.html
Look at the bottom of the page for the manifolds.

Begi Manifold

Here is the link to the BEGI manifold. It is at the bottom of the page. I have the T25 version and it looks like a great manifold. I can't wait to finish gathering my other parts and get it all installed!

The JGS one is what I ran across before that I liked. It's cheaper than the others and looks to be of good quality.

Thanks for the responses, I KNEW there were others It's always hard to find the main suppliers when you switch cars like I did.

I wonder what the real differences are between the BEGi and the JGS manifolds. The JGS has the turbo over the 2nd exhaust port while the BEGi is more centered. Moving the turbo closer to the front makes the DP routing easier I would imagine.

Anyone care to comment or maybe provide better search terms than I've tried?

Moving the turbo to the front will make the DP routing easier, but it also requires a custom DP. I went with a BEGI manifold/DP combo; for me, getting a setup that bolted straight up with minimal fiddling and re-engineering was well worth the extra coin I had to drop. I do wish the DP ran a little further from the transmission, and a flange vs. a slip-fit would have been ideal, and the EGR fitting isn't in quite the right place, but I can't imagine it being any easier with anyone else's manifold. The really nice thing about the BEGI pieces is that you don't have to have a custom downpipe made, which is pretty much required for most other manifolds.

I would go with a T25 to start with. I've seen T3 dyno graphs and they seem to spool really late to me. I've got full boost at 3000rpm with my journal-bearing T25 .48/.49, and I want to see if I can beat that with an EBC and a ball-bearing GT2554R.

I like having more boost a little later in the RPM band, makes driving out of boost that much easier. On my Ford 2.3 Turbo I didn't have full boost until 4500 RPM's and had to shift about 6200, but it still ran 12's. When shifting the Miata, my RPM's never drop below 4500 RPM's, so as long as I'm making good boost by then I should be fine. I also have a few T3's laying around in good shape, so that part's free.

A custom downpipe isn't difficult. I had full 3" exhaust on the Mustang that I made myself. Another friend of mine with an XR4Ti has a 4" downpipe that goes into 3" exhaust, again all custom.

This is a hobby to me so my time doesn't factor into the cost. If I can do it myself I will because that's how I learn and get better. I could probably build that BEGi downpipe (the one with the wastegate separated) for about $80 in scrap from a muffler shop and some welding wire.

I'm making 15psi by 4200RPM on my 1.6L with my .48 A/R T3...id suspect the 1.8L to spool faster. Sounds like you'd have a S60 wheel on there as well coming from a ford background, which is good....I suspect the standard 50trim will run out of steam past 6K on the 1.8L

And if flow/spool is a concern, i'd opt for the ETD shorty and build your own DP. However, having a nice cast manifold never hurt.

I get power from 4200-4500 to 7000+. I am running a JGS manifold with a T3 Stage3/T04E 50 trim. It is relatively weak below 3500 rpms and barely makes boost at all below 3000 rpm. My old T04B with a Stage 1 T3 made full boost around 3800 and had strong torque from 2500 rpm up.

A stage 1 turbine with a T04E should make strong boost before 4000 rpm. A stage 3 is bigger on the top end. The larger than .48 turbines should be even more gutless below 4000 and even stronger at the higher rpms

How much are the JGS Manifolds and where can I find em, googling leads to a site that sells manifolds for the KA24DE. Btw, fastmonkey, HKS also makes a manifold without the external wastegate if you didnt see it. One of the things I was thinking to make a downpipe easier was to get the flynmiata turbine outlet section and make the downpipe from that.

jgstools.com....

this is my basic part together turbo kit with a saab t3 turbo that i had laying around...the mani is a jgstools...beefy mani that gets the job done...
Attachment 215991
Attachment 215992
the arent the lastest updated pics but i will have them when i have the time to fix my camera...

DOH. Mental block.

To bad they don't do T25 compatible manifolds.

They will make a T25 compatible manifold for extra. I believe JasonSBB had one made recently for his GT2554R.

correction: Oops, sorry, his is from EDT Racing not jgs tools.

jgs has like every flange you can thing of they'll do for you....just gotta call....

I think the etdracing shorty ones will thoroughly kick cast manifold ass.

Etdracing: $450
Begi: $440
Jgstools: $380
HKS: $290ish - neighborhood

Whats wrong with the HKS? It puts the flange further forward for easier downpipe routing like someone mentioned, and its also tubular like the etdracing.

The HKS places the turbo flange in the middle of the 2nd and 3rd runner. I'd say it's a hybrid between a log and tubular manifold. It doesn't quite point the exhaust pulses into the turbo like the ETDracing manifold, but has better flow characteristics than a log manifold. I really like mine and for the price it's hard to beat the quality and performance of the HKS manifold. The only disadvantage of the hks is it's a top mount manifold. Routing your downpipe is a little tricky and the exhaust exit is not as direct as a side or 45 degree mount manifold.