gospeed81

iTrader: (51)

Wasn't trying to insult you, I was trying to make a point. Please put a little more effort into reading posts, and don't immediately go on the defensive.

I'm not sure what you sell, but I work in the fastener industry. I don't just see chinese crap every day...I test it. Some of it is good, and passable, but about 20% of it consistently fails tensile testing, and one of our warehouses is full to the brim of crap we can't sell, machine or return. This is after our Purchasing and QA department heads made a trip over there to follow the supply line, and check out their own quality controls. They like to show us great parts, then send us crap.

The point is that they may look the same (even in your photos), but the materials used are different. I'm talking about different grades of steel, different wall thickness...things you can't spot with the naked eye. There are many ebay manifolds out there, and you may have found one that holds up and is decent, but most people have consistent problems with them.

Consistent problems is not something we've seen from BEGi products. Consistently late shipping yes, quality defects...no. Listen, if you were an established member here and we had followed your build, your complaint would be taken a little more seriously. But when you post up just to bitch without a real back story, we have to ask questions to get the answers you haven't provided.

I don't know your friend in NY, but since no one else has had problems, we are naturally going to assume it's a setup issue before assuming it's the manufacturer, especially when you go as far as comparing what is pretty much the top notch kit maker for our cars with eBay crap. If you got a Flyin' Miata kit and said "**** these guys, their **** looks like ebay" I'd question you just as hard.

To me it sounds like you just want to vent instead of actually trying to fix your problem. Proper bracing is pretty important with a tubular mani, and there are a lot of vibrations that do ugly things to the turbo, mani and DP when the whole exhaust system is hanging off of them. I run a cast manifold (BEGi) and I'm about to add an extra flex section just for good measure. I don't doubt that they made the manifold well, but I daily drive it, and want to be sure it holds up to the abuse.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I'm not trying to offend you: It sounds like user error. You yourself admitted to putting a ton of bracing on the supposedly equivalent eBay mani, and still had problems. Then the problems with the second mani involved studs snapping (hello torque wrench) etc. You may have done everything correctly, but we can't assume that, especially when you've gone through 3 manifolds on the same setup.

We can help you fix your problem with a little more info. But if you just came to bitch and don't really care to fix it, then I can assure you this won't be the last manifold you break.

Project84

iTrader: (2)

I shouldn't even chime in here because I have nothing relative to add.

But...

If you're willing to spend the money associated w/ fabbing stainless charge pipes, you should've looked into a spool gun and argon tank for your welder. Spool gun will run about $200, a spool of 4043 is $20, and you can rent an argon tank for less than $50. You could've fabbed your own aluminum charge pipes AND had the skills to continue fabbing aluminum for other components for less than the $350 you mention.

...I can honestly say you cannot tell the difference in those pics as to which is which. That's kinda funny. Number one was obviously a better grade of stainless, but other than that, identical.

Aricjm15

I have used both the OEM style gasket and the one that came with the manifold.

Aricjm15

Same grade of stainless one just had not been on the car as long. First one is the ebay manifold.

Project84

iTrader: (2)

errr, stainless is... stainless. It only rusts if there are impurities in the metal (bad grade of stainless) or you get chemicals on it which deteriorate it. At least, in my experience.

Why would one have rust and the other not have rust if they are both the same grade of stainless?

Stephanie Turner

I have no way of knowing, I have not seen photos of a brace installed.

NEWS FLASH!!! The turbo moves, has to move, and has the correct brace so that it can move. The brace must accommodate that type of pivot.

But the fact still remains. I have two known failures, all on the same car. Sort of like lightening striking in the same place over and over. Many, Many cars have been running more horsepower, and running the manifold for much longer than you. I think that gives us enough evidence that it is time to look inward. I, honestly, would have expected a parts dealer of mine to give me the courtesy of finding out about this via e-mail or phone call, or some sort of heads up that it has happened. I would not have expected you to complain about it publicly without my having any knowledge of said problems.

The S4 MSM manifold has not had any problems either. You have done something different that is not working. You need to find out what it is. It is not a heat expansion problem, as we have tested that thoroughly in house. Check to see what is pulling on the downpipe.

You reference a second failure. I have heard it might exist, but have not gotten the manifold back for inspection. However, if it cracked where I think it has, it has nothing to do with the car, install, or user. We did a different EGR design on this manifold that should not have been done. So, I suspect it was more of a manufacturing issue, not a manifold issue. But we shall see.
Stephanie

TurboTim

iTrader: (9)

I know 304 stainless will turn "rusty" when elevated to turbomanifold temps.

I use stainless charge pipes.

PhantomRoadster

Just in the op's defense, I believe I met the guy from NY at an autocross and he was also bitching about his manifold cracking and it being the same as the ebay one.

gospeed81

iTrader: (51)

Your input is invaluable

Corky Bell

Aricjm15: You are quite correct, the ebay piece and mine are the same. We made a proto, sent it to a maker in China, received a bunch of nice pieces, then found the same thing for sale on ebay. I have to admit, I was warned.

When setting up the moveable brace (you imply yours won't allow the turbo to move and the turbo stays there even w/o the manifold) we heated the manifold to cherry red and plotted it's expansion path with dial indicators. I was mildly surprised to watch it move nearly an eighth of an inch. With that info we built a brace that allowed the whole piece to move as expansion dictated yet remain supported by the brace without further bending stress.

As of today, there has not been a single report to me or my office of a crack anywhere.
Often if a hose clamp is not tight enough by a DIY'er and a tube becomes displaced, I hear about it loud and clear. Seems like I would probably be told if a manifold cracked.

So where does that leave you? If you did not have our dnpipe, how did you use our brace? Would your own piece allow thermal expansion w/o further stress? Did your brace pivot in two places? Did you install your brace per our instructions? Did your dnpipe have a flex joint like ours?

Now, please clarify.... No one has reported a failure to me in three years and we have both installed and shipped a gob, yet you broke one in a day? How is this?

Forgive me if I tend to believe your install was not per our instructions, using our pieces, and/or accomplished in an equally rational manner.

Good luck in your future efforts to go fast, but please select someone else's pieces to trash.

y8s

iTrader: (8)

I'd be willing to wager that your manufacturer in china is not using exactly the material you specified. I've seen this happen many times in my career. with biomedical stuff, we'd have china build the tooling but ship it to the US so we could guarantee material was as per its certification to keep the FDA and others happy.

Call a metallurgy lab.

curly

iTrader: (25)

Yup we see that a lot with my shop when we outsource parts to China. You ask for a test piece, and they pay a skilled journeyman a reasonable wage to make a perfect part for you. They send it back, and since it's so good, we might buy them. Every time we make the mistake of trusting it though, they start paying people an hour who don't know **** about machining, and the rest of the parts are crap.