Sounds good.

I just picked up a carbon fiber intake similar to this design, previously known as Joefis Racing and they came in fiberglass.. Well they are carbon now and starting to reach out to the racing community online so i scooped one up for about $190. It is VERY sturdy, larger than the 3d printed one while also contouring to the shape of the hood.. will post pics soon. Its two halves that are glued/epoxied together.

 

Awesome news! How do I get in line for one?

 

+1

 

A couple of notes from my installation and testing.

• Scottns was right and it clears just fine. The main issue was getting a socket wrench into the small gap above the filter. It's not fun, but definitely doable with a 1/4" drive, small extension, and a u-joint.
• I added a piece of insulation underneath the intake to avoid it touching my radiator. It seems like the hood wants to push it into the aftermarket radiator.
• The elbow at the throttle body wants to touch the radiator hose coming from the front of the engine. This wouldn't be a problem if you have a re-route?
• Torque reported only a 10F increase in IAT over ambient vs 45F the stock box, even with hood vents. This was only done on my short 20 minutes commute, so I'm sure it would be even better under harder driving.

I'll be testing it at Laguna this Saturday with the stock airbox in the trunk, just in case something goes wrong.

View from below.

 

Hey! I'm also going to Laguna Seca this weekend, but on sunday. It'll be my second time back at this track, so we'll see if I feel any power difference with this intake. The uphill sections leading up the corkscrew are really frustrating with the lack of power.

 

Same to everything: second time on track, and from 6-7 is where everyone catches me. I usually pull away from 8 to 11, then get passed on the straight It'll be really obvious if we have extra power since i'd be comfortably shifting from 3-4 instead of shifting early for the sake of my power steering fluid.

 

I'm almost far enough with my printer to start printing intakes. To start, I'm going to try a polycarbonate blend (polymaker PC Max). It should be much stronger than ABS, and has a slightly higher TG than 3d printed ABS, and is much easier to print than straight ABS. I can also get it in white or black instead of just clear.

 

Think this intake will work ok with the Skunk2 mainifold? I think that manifold sits a bit higher or something like that.

 

That should be no problem. You would clock the 90 and 45 degree elbows differently.

 

Skunk2's sit lower and over towards the passenger side a good bit. Greg has some good comparison pictures on his page (https://www.thecarpassionchannel.com/skunk-manifold)

 

^^ Looks like those pics are showing a completely different intake manifold though.

 

...that's the point. To highlight the difference between TB positioning on OEM vs Skunk2.

 

Yeah, my bad - I misread the original question to just be referring to the Skunk2 TB.

 

Those are good pictures. Aside from clocking the elbows differently, it will probably need a longer cross over tube.

I registered a vendor account "WrenchGame" for intakes and my game so that I don't run up against any vendor rules discussing things for sale. I'm looking for two kit testers who have cars that will see a lot of track time over the next few months. Ideally someone in a warm climate and someone in a cold climate.

 

*raises hand*

I run NASA TT in Texas, but wouldn't have to twist my arm to go run some DE's for additional testing. Car is also my daily driver, 97 with BP4W swap running MS3 Basic.

 

SWEET!
My NA died back in Sept 30th, and the intake was DESTROYED. Look forward to buy it again, as I'll be buying the carcass from the insurance company, and swap everything that survived to the "new" NA I just bought.

 

 

The tooling costs to rotomold are prohibitive- I'm not willing to drop that kind of money into a side project like this. That's why I backed off from the prepreg bladder molding in self heating aluminum. I agree that most consumer FDM machines aren't really up to the task. Large thin wall structures from high temp plastics are challenging. I'm building a printer specifically to FDM these out of polycarbonate (90c chamber, high temp extruder, etc). I'll even be able to print Ultem on my machine if I decide that is needed. Polycarbonate as a material is tough enough and has a 150c tg. The challenge is getting the full mechanical potential. The high temp chamber will help with that. I'm going also going to be printing from a filament drier and post curing the parts in an oven.

 

Why wouldn't one simply print a very thin-walled version and wrap it in fiberglass?

 

Several reasons. My garage is attached and under my living room. I don't want to deal with chronic epoxy or polyester resin exposure in my house. Also it adds a lot of per unit labor in the form of layup, cure, and finishing time. Also skinning with wet layup is messy and inconsistent and should ideally be done with a vacuum bag. That adds consumables. The shape of this part is a pain to vac bag since its too narrow to bag the interior easily. If you were to go that route you would need to make the composite layer 100% responsible for the strength. Laminating dissimilar materials doesn't always yield more strength in a straight forward way and you would need to be really thoughtful about the stiffness and strengths of the materials.

If I was going to do any kind of skinning I would print a soluble core and laminate it with carbon prepreg then dissolve out the core. I don't think the miata market can support the labor and materials cost for that process.