Thoughts on this cheap cast mani?
 

Hello All,


I was browsing Amazon and came across this. Thoughts?

Old begi copy.

It's a taco taco manifold. We have a few threads on it already.

https://www.miataturbo.net/diy-turbo...anifold-86200/

http://www.ebay.com/itm/94-05-MAZDA-...3c96ac&vxp=mtr

I assume for the price its garbage. Am I wrong?

It's probably fine.

Fine if you like having to replace a whole bunch of hardware because half the OEM studs are too short, fine if you like a log manifold that doesn't flow very well, fine if you hate supporting forum vendors. Sure, fine

Yeap, and cheap!

EDIT: Looks like you can't use bolts on the bottom, never mind. Still for the money, it's a cast iron manifold.

wow that thing is unattractive

So is monk, and that didn't stop us last night.

loll

Everyone says I'm ugly, but I'm fun:party:

I hate to tell you this, but that's not what people mean when they say "fugly." :D

But seriously, Nic. You have stumbled across one of the very few eBay manifolds which is actually known to work properly (eg: not fall apart almost immediately.) The design isn't the best from a fluid dynamics standpoint, and lots of fabrication will be required to make it work, but if that's your thing, go for it.

Props for making me nearly choke to death on my morning pastry.

OP, as others have mentioned, you are going to have a fair amount of work on your hands cobbling together the rest of the system.
Just be aware that your DIY fu must be strong to make this whole thing work.

someone looking at a $80 manifold on ebay isn't shopping at TrackSpeed for a man's man manifold.

Actually Joe, this particular one has not yet been even proven to work.

Just cause it's a cast log don't mean it won't crack. That generalization is reserved for the quality ones. The tacotaco 1.6 one has cracked on at least a few people's cars.

Ah, I see what you mean.

I posted that from my phone, having just looked at Monk's post where he evoked the Taco, without actually clicking through the ebay link.

Well, it's a cast manifold anyway, which means it's probably going to be more durable than the thin-walled welded SS pieces which usually show up on the interwebs' greatest flea market.


Sidebar:

Who else remembers when eBay was used by individuals to sell their own stuff similar to the classifieds, rather than as a front-end / middleman for Alibaba?

I should have clarified that it's the new 1.8 taco taco manifold.

*raises hand*

I even actually used to *gasp* buy, and *gaaaasp* sell stuff on there too.

Those were the days

God damn, that thing is ugly...

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1453313374

Kinda cool that they include that heatshield plate, though. Addressed a problem that's difficult to tackle otherwise. Though I wonder how much heat it's pulling from the turbine flange and subsequently re-radiating...

I have said this at least a dozen times now, but here goes: why can't they knock off something that's not an old piece of junk? I mean, it takes the brainpower of a grunt to do a google search for Miata manifold and see that like every other one is a better, nicer, design, order the $300-350 unit and scan it.

My initial hypothesis was that they were afraid to knock off something that was still in production, but the bell s4 tubular knockoff disproves that

So that just leaves us with: they are really, really, stupid.