Intake/ Exhaust Manifold Flanges

[garboui]

I know this should be posted in the performance section but because of the possible obscurity of my request this will have better exposure.

Im looking for a mechanical drawing of the dimensions of our intake and exhaust mating surfaces on the engine head. Having the drawings for the intake is more important to me. Reason being is that lots of companies have stepped up and produced exhaust manifolds but not many (besides cosworth which is $$$$, and some for high boost applications) have made any high performance intake manifolds. Im stepping up to this task of designing testing and producing a performance intake assembly that will work with our car, put out better gains than any cai and be resonable in price. Yes, i said "assembly", this is going to include manifold and intake section as a kit.

[3GFX]

Short of taking your own manifold apart you won't have much luck. Try contacting Mazda to see if you can work something out. Maybe even going out and purchasing a manifold? Did you try going to a junk yard and finding a junked 3?

[Moose]

Order an intake manifold gasket - scan it 1:1 - do a raster to vector conversion - import it to Autocad - return gasket to Mazda less the restocking charge. Or bribe the parts guy with Timmies etc to borrow the gasket to scan it.

This give you the flange - all you might need to do is to extend the edges beyong the gasket, and perhaps add some tapped holes for coolanrt / vacuum etc.

I did a similar thing when making a custom CNC flange for a set of ITB's

Moose

[garboui]

Thanks for the suggestion. I think that is going to be my best option right now. Allthough i think i am going to be ditching autocad on this one and using solidworks instead.

What did you build the ITB's for? Do you have any pics or any recommencations for things to watch out for that dont seem too obvious at the beginning of the design stage?

[Moose]

Thanks for the suggestion. I think that is going to be my best option right now. Allthough i think i am going to be ditching autocad on this one and using solidworks instead.

What did you build the ITB's for? Do you have any pics or any recommencations for things to watch out for that dont seem too obvious at the beginning of the design stage?

-The ITB's were for SOHC D16 (Civic) - I did the scan and Cad thing on the Air-Horn flanges so I could get some alunimum Flanges water-jetted.

http://www.redpepperracing.com/gallery/d/94573-3/abb.jpg

Inthe picture above I was mocking up the wireing, vacuum, coolant, sensor placement BEFORE I finasised the design for the CBR-929 ITB's


Things that bite you in the ass
Mostly physical fitment issues with parts in the engine compartment.
-Coolant and Vacuum lines
-Sensor placement issues
-Wireharness issues -do you have to move/relocate/extend parts of the harness.
-throttle and cruise cable routing, length, and attachment.
-Other sensor flanges such as the MAF
-Other fittings such as the evap, egr, and other emmisions related connections
-Other custom flanges - such as the Throttle body - you will need to scan that gasket for bolt spacing and fitment of you are planning to re-use the OE TB - or if you are using an aftermarket TB or MAF for higher flow (Mustang etc) - you will need to scan the flanges of thoose items

-Make sure your flanges and runners and walls are beefy to allow for tweeking via hand porting after the fact.

-Look at using thermal isolation gaskets between sections/parts to minimise heat transfer.

The best thing to do is to CNC up the primary flanges, and other connection points and then do some measurements and do a sheet metal mock-up to determine if the manifold will physically fit. Once you have finalised your over-shape that physically works, you can then optimise the design for production ... what parts are sand-cast, what parts are CNC'd, what parts are sheet/metal, and what parts and hand-fabbed.

Have you played arround with how Helmholtz resonance effects runner legnth tuning - 2nd and 3rd order resonances can really help flow at certain rpm's - Figuring out the optimum runner cross sections and legnths will help you optimise the power optimised for the motor - related to this - what are trying to accomplish with this manifold - high rpm flow - short fat runners (NA), torque - long narrow runners , or absolute flow - big fat runners and big plenum (Boost)

-Once you have your runner legnths/diameters set you can play arround with some fluid dynamics modeling software to tweek the design of the plenum, runnners, and the interfaces to optiise flow.

Moose

[garboui]

Wow, Thanks for that info. I have allready done a bunch of ballpark calculations with helmholtz resonances as well as some hand sketches to get a starting point of design that will fit. Im assuming you had a programmable standalong fuel mgt system so re mapping for air:fuel wasnt a prob with running the maf in a different environment.

Allthough to do calculations that will give me more predictiable outcomes i need to find out what the duration of cam intake and overlap on our engine is.

Does wnyone here know the stock cams intake and overlap duration?

[3GFX]

This is awesome guys. I don't work with SolidEdge, but from what I understand it would be a better program to use. You could test streses and airflow! (I think).

Can't wait to see the results!

[garboui]

i cant wait either. i wount be releasing any pics untill the design is up to my satisfaction for performance. ill be posting updates along the way though when we start testing and a/b dynoing with our designs.

once we we reach final design a handfull will be made and then well need a couple high mileage test monkeys.

After going over some preliminary designs, it was soon aware that if overall intake diameter changes then the maf will be off.

Does anyone know the pinout of the MAF on the 2.3L engine as wel;l as its signal type/ range?

Thanks