So, im struggling here. car is a flying Miata manifold, garrett 2560r, silicone intakes plate and fin fmic on clones of the flying Miata intercooler mounts. Maf, internal wastegate, bypass valve. Pretty much a roll my own voodoo2 kit.

I CAN make anything I need to. Have all the tubing and couplers and tig here to make all hard piping for the filter to turbo, turbo to intercooler, amd intercooler to throttle body. I have the materials and talent. But the time investment looks like it will be pretty massive to do it right with a minimum of couplers.

I can also just come off my wallet and buy the silicone parts from flyin miata that should theoretically drop right in. Be done for 500 bucks and a phone call. It'll knock me out of challenge budget, but the car will get done months quicker

Is there a compelling performance or reliability reason for hard piping vs silicone?

 

I went from cobbled together hard piping to the silicone. IMO I'd go silicone all day long, less couplers and perfectly smooth bends, easy routing, and seem to flow plenty of power.

The price is the major downside, but otherwise I don't think there's too much downside to the silicone setup.

 

If you have the welder & knowhow, one piece pipes is my vote. Siliconeintakes pipes are really easy to weld, i got a basic kit plus a 45 coupler at the turbo, 2 couplings on either end of the intercooler and a 90 at the throttle. Boost leaks begone and they make zero contact because i calibrated my eyeballs real good before cutting.
This took me <3h, its not a huge time investment at all .

 

Mr waffles: that looks FAR simpler than i expected it to, honestly. I may be overestimating the complexity of the piping task...

Fireindc: thanks!

 

Obviously if you have aluminum welding skills, or affordable access to someone who does, those 1 pc aluminum piping are the way. But the easy button is the silicone and they flow great. I was worried about ballooning but it's a non issue on the FM pipes as they are reenforced to prevent that.