Looking at this bad boy for my single turbo, price seems right but has anyone used these before?

rotary-works.com: Turbo Manifold For Mazda RX-7 93-96 T04R T78 T88 TD-07 TD-08 (Single Turbo)

 

I bought one of those a few years back just to cut it open. The welds were crap. The tubing very thin walled . The actual holes for the wastegate were the size of about a quarter. Stay away from it invest in a quality manifold.

 

Looks the same as the poor eBay ones. Would stay away

 

That's the same manifold that is all over ebay, and can be had for anywhere from $20 to $200 and everywhere in between.

I purchased one before I got myself a "real" manifold...I havent even bothered to try and sell it, never been fitted...I dont think I would even offer it to someone else without at the very least having the flanges machined flat.

With that said. They can work, and there are many examples running around that prove that.
Here are some pro's and con's though;

Pro's - its cheap.

Cons
- flanges are probably not perfectly flat and should be machined
- the flange on my one had so much varnish and crap on it that it could "rock" on a flat glass/granite surface.
- where one wastegate runner joins into the other - the hole is not "tear dropped" and adds lots of restriction. (can be grinded out yourself with a little effort)
- The T4 turbo flange has been "ported" (lol) into some kind of horrible flange with massive holes for the runners...put a normal T4 turbo on there and the gas flow runs straight into the bottom of the turbo..adding lots of restriction and reducing the life of your turbo
- as the flange has been "ported" there is not much meat left around the edges for a gasket to seal properly.
- a normal T4 gasket will not fit properly (well it will but same as above, exhaust gas will flow straight into the bottom of the gasket / turbo creating restriction and destroying the gasket in short order.
- the flange on it is for a dinosaur of a wastegate..(or compatible with "knock-off" ebay gates)
- the holes in the manifold to engine flange were not really drilled centered in the flange .(i.e more meat around some holes than others) will not effect performance..but I just looked at it and thought what a piece of ****...

Short answer is they can work, but I would suggest pretty much anything else...

edit; oh and look at those flanges that they say are CNC machined..what a load of crap. Look at the manifold to engine flange...its been cut out with a band saw, or gas torch or similar then has been sanded / finished on a belt sander or similar.
Its not straight or consistent. Not CNC machined.

 

^Bang on. All the piston guys I know that get the eBay manifolds have welders and have to get the flanges planed true. Then cut off the wastegate runners and dremel all the edges smooth inside then weld the runners back to their spot. It's a bit of work but can be made to function. You'll make more power with a proper manifold anyways and not have to worry about creep.

 

Amen. ^^^

 

Pay cheap, pay twice.

 

Good call ladies and gents!

What do you guys recommend in terms of manifolds? Looking to get an S366.

 

Take a peek at this.

https://www.rx7club.com/vendor-class...npipe-1085128/


728usd - manifold
417usd - 3" downpipe
115usd - dump tubes
312ea - Turbosmart 40mm Wastegates
S366 - 795usd + 120usd for machining the exhaust housing for a v-band

john@gleasemanufacturing.com

 

I dig it!!!

 

That's a straight ebay manifold.

The materials are very poor quality. They polish it up to look nice but they usually crack within a year.

Half the time they are warped right out of the box and leak.

The flanges are off. The wastegate flange is designed for an old hks gate. Sometimes they even weld a vband flange on top of the original flange.

The placement of the wategate runners is very poor and they tend to creep boost.

There are absolutely no calculations done for runner length and diameter.

Buy a quality manifold that is proven from one of the reputable vendors on here. Look for dyno numbers and time slips as well as real world performance data, not just pictures. All of mine are on sale right now Turbo | Product Categories | IRPerformance

 

Don't do it! Turblown latest long runner twin gate has been working out great for me. Glease Man billet manifold looks unbelievable but I have no experience with it. I am sure you can't go wrong with either. Money spent here will save you money down the road.

 

Some turbo kits I've done.

 

Do you guys have a billet collector option as well?

 

I don't unfortunately. I'll admit the billet collector looks great, but I have yet to see any dyno or flow numbers to say it works any better than a traditional collector. Any good manifold (including my own) is hand ported in the collector area to eliminate flow restriction.

 

Just wait til the 347SS tapered cast version is out

 

I am actually very interested in seeing how it turns out.