hi everyone,
I’m looking to upgrade my exhaust manifold to go along with my upgraded turbo. The turbo i bought has a t2 flange, and was wondering if anyone one in SONworld has upgraded their stock exhaust manifold to tubular, a la the ones from ssautochrome, megan, hotshot, enjuku, etc.
Any feedback, postive or negative would be appreciated! Gotta love the weak american $$!! Merry christmas!!
interestingly enough, Vibrant is coming out with a uniquely designed turbo manifold for the SR20… it looks nothing like the Megan / SSautochrome etc… it is fresh.
i have been speaking with a gentleman from vibrant recently, think he may be one of the big-boys there but i am not sure, and he is interested in doing a group buy for it when they are ready to launch it.
this is what he has to say about it:
It’s unlike anything else on
the market and we would love to work with you to get them out on the
market. We would be happy to do a group buy for them at a smoking deal
to get them in people’s hands and get the word out. The manifolds are
made of T304 Stainless Steel. The primaries are 3mm thick so you don’t
have to worry about cracking due to thermal expansion like other
manifolds on the market. Best of all, they are as close to equal length
as you are going to get with a manifold for this car (unlike the HPI
manifold, where only 3 primaries are equal length and one is much
shorter). Our design also allows for a proper merge collector, unlike
other models. In my opinion, it’s the best turbo manifold on the market
for the 240’s with the SR20 swap.
of course i showed him the full-race mani after he said this, but none the less it sounds like an impressive piece.
as for pics, go here:
http://www.vibrantperformance.com/products/catalog05/pg06-07.pdf
then look at the bottom right of the second page.
the list of info is not correct, i dont believe it is a top-mount because it then wouldnt mount to stock turbo. it says for S14/S15 but i will have themn change that as well.
it does not look like the SSautochrome / megan pictured here:
http://www.meganracing.com/uploadImage/regular/s14%20header.jpg
these or course are copies of the HKS manifold, or close to it.
http://store1.yimg.com/I/import-store_1819_15203625
the Vibrant piece will retail for under $1000 canadian, but if we get a group buy going it will likely be in the $600 range CAD. and i am sure we could arrange to pick up as opposed to ship to save more $$$.
thanks for the info bing, dcsports.com also has a manifold in the works for 500usd, but it’s not available yet.
$600 would be a nice little deal if it still retained the stock location and T2 flange…
Any idea when it will be in the market? Or is it available now?
i will know shorlty,
this appears to be an interesting alternative to the the off-shor copies…
i’ll keep this thread updated as i find out more information.
how much are megans from varun like 400 right?
600 is kina steep imo
Vibrant is starting to impress me.
I have one of their high-flow cats. That was the first product I’d had in my hands from them. It looked good, the quality was good, not your typical ricer-ific APC kind of thing. But it’s a cat, not really rocket science.
But then I had a chance to go over the Vibrant IC, and yeah, other than cost less, it’s on par - if not better constructed than some of the other units I’ve seen.
I think we’re going to start to see more quality and affordable products creeping out.
$600 still sounds steep for what it is. I mean, I know people will pay a lot more and do … it’s a tubular header with a different flange.
$600 would get you a really nice set of headers for any V8 application 
you know i think varun might be even cheaper than that…
but you cant really compare the products, this Vibrant piece is said to be equal length, the megan ones are definately not.
this vibrant peice is ‘supposed’ to be a better perfroming piece. only time will tell.
you can bet the DC sports application will be more expensive, and the $600 cost (if we get it) is for group buy only, retail will be $900-ish and street price is said to be in the $700+ range…
and i am with mr200 on this…
Vibrant isnt a name that jumps at you as being A-1 quality, but they are making titanium cat-backs and some other pretty impressive items.
Here is my take. The cheapy manifolds are not bad, but they need some work. Welding is good looking but not complete, they miss key areas due to design. I cut mine all apart a welded it up completely, takes forever but it was cracked when I got it and it was cheap. So far I have not had a problem with it but it was only on the car a month before begin stored. On top of the welding the design is not terribly great, from a stress point of view I think it has a disadvantage that would take some rerouting to make right, the #1 runner to be exact, maybe even the #2. It is a good manifold but it needs some work, which most people won’t want to do or can’t.
It is interesting to see that vibrant manifold, seems to take care of a couple issues. The runner design appears a little more thought out than the other ones, looks like the compressor housing will have more clearance on larger turbos too. I think it would be quite beneficial to dyno one of the older designs then this one in the same day and see what happens, until then performance gains are pure speculation.
$600 might be a little steep, but if mine cracks I would seriously consider it just to save time reworking it properly. What kind of warranty are they going to provide? Send me one for cheap and I will even dyno it back to back vs mine, I would be quite interested in the outcome.
so far im happy with my megan manifold, it was very inexpensive and the car boost very fast at low rpms.
it fits perfectly and looks great.
mind you, i have never driven with a stock manifold
ssautochromes are 175 and they include the dual chamber exhaust elbow, and 3.1mm piping, which is a steal if you ask me but there are ??? regarding reliability. JGY customs says their manifold is better although they look the same. They also clearly state their manifolds “help to resist cracking”.
Anyone experiment with porting their stock manifold??
bing your right varun sells his megan manifolds for 250-300 area, i talked to him earlier. 600 is too much for a vibrant product imo.
Well looking at that Vibrant manifold, i must say it looks good but then so do alot of the others ive looked at including some on Ebay.
If infact that manifold is a top mount for stock turbo, then count me in for that price of 600.
with a metal gasket im sure it would be a great buy, usually when people crack a manifold its because they’re running higher boost about 20psi, which im not going to be doing, so anymore info on this manifold would be great, Not a single paragraph like in the link Bing posted.
I think if youre worried about paying 600 bucks for a manifold then you shouldnt be buying one at all.
This is one option ill be looking into, maybe someone does have a place that can do this?
But i still would like a top mount
Top mount looks bling.
it isnt top mount, it maintains the stock turbo location.
that little blurb in the catalog is an error.