Yep they don't last long..

 

Obx?

 

It's the one from CXRacing.com I only had it for 2500 miles and one time on the track

 

Could you take a larger picture of the whole thing so we know there's no question as to which one it is? Or just upload a pic from eBay... don't link the auction as it will be gone in a week, simply ad it as an attachment.

 

just a FYI, my ebay cast mani is STILL holding strong, im frankly suprised

 

 

ouch.....im thinking if I get one of these maybe have my dad ( professional welder) go over the welds?

 

the welds are find, the walls are just WAY to thin.

 

I think it’s a design flaw. Those tabs are cooling down slower than the rest of the manifold. The tab stays expanded for a lot longer while the pipe has already gone full hard and shrunk back and formed itself around the new tab position. Mean while the tab is still shrinking back to its ambient size which is pulling that pipe with a tremendous amount of force to bend it back to the tabs ambient temperature. Those full hard distortions on the pipe and the welds which probably weren’t relieved properly and are already very hard are being slowly strain hardened to be even harder. Sooner or later it’s just like bending a paper clip forward and backward and it snaps.

That crack between 1 & 2 just happened because heat concentrates in the middle. The inside is bulged out while the outsides are a lot cooler during the cool down period. You get the same action going on. It just slowly bends the manifold back and forth until it cracks

 

I was thinking about welding it back together so i can drive the car but just pointless if it's going to crack again and have to remove it. So now im stuck trying to find a manifold that will work for my td05/t25. Any ideas?

 

cut the flanges off it and replace the shitty thin tubing with weld els.

 

It looks like the best ebay mani out there.

 

cxracing is local to me...only thing worth buying from them are aluminum pipes for the IC and their front mounts. Their silicone couplers suck ***** too.

 

Has anyone try the ebay cast manifold with the adapter plate for a td05 or only talked about it. I know it would be a close fit to the hood but i might have to try and see?

 

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing twice and expecting different results. Buy a quality manifold.

 

fwiw, I use a BEGI old school ( think 1999 ) and its still in perfect shape.

But, has anyone tried running a brace from the motor mount to the turbo flange to help support it?

 

I've been running a brace from the block/mm to the sched 40 dp for about 2k miles and no cracks on my SSA manifold which is probably similar thin wall mild stainless.

I say hand that mani over to a fabricator. He can tie the flanges up, cut out those pipes and weld in new heavier gauge quality pipes and you can then bolt it back up w/o having to change anything else. Get an ewg flange installed while you're at it.

 

I agree, using weld-els in place of the tubing that failed would provide satisfactory results, I also believe that cutting the flange to allow for expansion and contraction would help as well.

Sometimes these failures are not the fault of the manifold but associated with excessive EGTs. So check that you are not running to lean/to advanced. That can and will kill a thin wall manifold quick.

Mark

 

Do you have bracing to the turbo? m2cupcar suggested bracing to me very strongly. He was right!

I've been running a cheap manifold for 13 months of dd with a heavy turbo, around 20 passes at the drag strip, quarter of a track day and probably 150+ autox runs with no problems at all. It is braced.

My (probably incorrect) theory is that you have this heavy object that creates a pretty good moment on the manifold. Maybe not so much the static weight but the vibration and other forces that eventually break the manifold.

At autox there is non stop brutal heating and cooling. 6 to 10 cycles of heavy boost and cooling in 45-60 minutes.

My bracing doesn't so much support the turbo but more dampens any oscillation. It's not pretty but it's worked so far.

 

Haha FIXED!... So I gave it a swing to see what whould happen and how it would turn out. Don't look to bad I guess. I tryed to grind out the crack a bit the welded it with high amp and low feed. Figure I didnt want it to be all wire. Not sure if im going to use it yet
(The rust is from acid wash when I cleaned it..?)