Winter upgrading time. I removed the intake and exhaust manifolds this last weekend and I finally bolted the new intake to the engine in the car for a test fit. There was a slight interference with some brake lines by the master cylinder, but putting a slight taper on the tube, reducing the diameter by about 1/2" in the rear, gave ample clearance. I had contemplated tapering the tube some to begin with, but this just gave a physical need to. The throttle body lands right about where I wanted it to so I'm happy with that. I'll put a 90º fitting on it downwards so I can put an air filter on it until I get an intercooler installed (with a turbo).
Then I made the big leap of cutting up the exhaust manifold and blocking the exhaust cross over. If I get a twin-scroll turbo I will try and plumb it in front and back.
Marked out where I wanted to cut. Turned out to be a larger pain in the rear than I thought it would be as I wanted to keep the two halves connected still so they'd line up on the ports from the two end bolts. The metal is also quite thick in parts of these areas.
I ground down the top of the remaining part of the heat cross over so if I go back to the stock intake manifold it would not be touching the intake at all. As I said, turned out to be a tougher cutting process than I anticipated.
I cut, heated, hammered and trimmed the patches.
Then because my welding is horrible my final shot is after I painted it =P I heated the manifold up in an oven to ~450ºF, while also leaving the metal patches on my wood stove, so every thing was quite toasty while welding. Even the welding gloves were at their thermal limits. I hammer peened the welds after welding short sections. After the welding was done I put the manifold back in the oven and incrementally lowered the temperature over a couple hours and then let the manifold cool in the oven. Crossing my fingers it all holds together! If I have a little exhaust leak here or there I'll put some "exhaust weld" epoxy on it.
