OBX/ Ebay manifold ??

[Tony-R32]

Any tubing/ piping that has been welded together from ebay is known to crack at the welds from heating and cooling...same thing with ebay turbo kits, half of the parts in the kit need to be replaced because of crummy materials!

[DJ]

Cast iron is the way to go, not just ebay manifolds but any SS will crack eventually , even hks manifolds crack.Steam pipe ftw

[cortexx]

both cast monifolds on my 3000gt cracked !

[DJ]

that's cause it's a Mitsubishi

[BrianV8]

I've got a godspeed top mount on my car, works great. Sure the fitment may not be as deadly as a tomie but it definatly does the job. To clarify some myths the main difference between tomie and china manifolds is the grade of the stainless, most china are 304 where the tomie are 321 grade steel. Number difference relates to the amount of carbon in it to make it high grade stainless, Exhaust stainless vs food grade stainless etc. With enough weight eg on my car i have a 29 pound holset turbo hanging off it, any header will eventually crack. Don't care if its brand name or not. What i did with mine and what i recommend with to others is to brace the manifold, If some of the stress can be relieved you will never have a problem regardless of the make. Also china manifolds are made out of a thicker stainless, not thinner like many people think. Due to mass production its far easier to weld thicker metal than thinner and not have the concern of burning holes through the metal.

[Dragon Humper]

+1

And contrary to what you might think, a lower content carbon stainless will not look as pretty but will have more resistance to cracking, not less. As long as the welds look good and you don't need to alter too much to fit it, the cheaper mannie is the way to go. It will weigh more but last longer.


I can't believe no-one has mentioned Extrude Honing the stockers yet, it costs about the same as the cheap mannies but will look stock and flow more than tubular mannies would. All you do is port match the ends, then send them away. You will get back stock manifolds that will have any resrtiction smaller than the ported ends removed and smooth as a babies bootie.

http://www.extrudehone.com/auto/auto-performance.php

Jon.

[Supraclean]

I've got a godspeed top mount on my car, works great. Sure the fitment may not be as deadly as a tomie but it definatly does the job. To clarify some myths the main difference between tomie and china manifolds is the grade of the stainless, most china are 304 where the tomie are 321 grade steel. Number difference relates to the amount of carbon in it to make it high grade stainless, Exhaust stainless vs food grade stainless etc. With enough weight eg on my car i have a 29 pound holset turbo hanging off it, any header will eventually crack. Don't care if its brand name or not. What i did with mine and what i recommend with to others is to brace the manifold, If some of the stress can be relieved you will never have a problem regardless of the make. Also china manifolds are made out of a thicker stainless, not thinner like many people think. Due to mass production its far easier to weld thicker metal than thinner and not have the concern of burning holes through the metal.

Also To add to Godspeed exhaust manifold topic I have a topmount for my rb20. I have had to shorten one of my manifold studs and some on my upgraded hardware to match. The Wastegate pipe moded and all new hardware to mount. Sure it might get the job done for one year or two after you mod it. Im making mine do for the time been as my car will not sit another year.

Serously take it from what everyone else is saying. Either port your stock on or pay to play with the big boyz and buy a quality manifold with no hassle bolt on a go!

[M13]

werd, I'm rocking a OBX that's been modded considerably so that it can meet my expectations. (port work, extra gusseting, weld clean up, shortening exhaust studs, machine work.

Sure the price after all that mod, it's still half the price of a high quality name brand, but if I were to do it again, I'm paying the big bux to try out what they have to offer/easy fitment and better design.

[Daryl @ RightDrive]

To clarify some myths the main difference between tomie and china manifolds is the grade of the stainless, most china are 304 where the tomie are 321 grade steel.

Another difference is that Tomei test and redevelop their products in their own shop before producing them, leading to better overall design and flow.

There is a post by a member here who bought eBay manifolds and they didn't even sit flat, resulting in massive leakage. He regretted it because he went out and bought Tomei manifolds aferwards. The eBay manifolds were a huge waste of money for him. He posted pics of the ridiculous fitment somewhere on here.

[BrianV8]

well all i can say is i had no real issue fitment problems, been running my manifold for over 1.5 years now with a 29 pound holset turbo hanging off of it. and the car is making 400whp. OH an ya i saved 800 dollars doing it. So IMO i got my money out of it and continuing to do so. Sure i may have spent and extra hour getting just right, but end of the day 1 hour of extra work does not match up the price margin. I"m the type of person that doesn't mine spending the extra 5 minutes to make something work work save a buck to be spend elsewhere. Just takes a bit of time and know how.

This is where i'll join your side, if building an extremely high hp car 550whp + spend the money do it right absolutely , especially at that time you already have thousands done in internals why would you cheap out on a manifold? but for the average joe blow and the power numbers u make on a factory motor, IMO not worth it.

And as far as your "HUGE waste of money" the average china manifold costs between 150-200 bucks, IMO if you spending the money to go top mount etc you've already spent a tonne of money in other mods to justify going top mount, so a measly 200 bucks to try something that could work to save a "HUGE amount of money" could be worth it.

Not saying fitment and quality is all the same, They change batch by batch, In mine i happened to have relatively decent fitment, i can see how another guy would have not a good of luck. End of the day NO they are not top of the line but at the same time NO they are not complete junk and do the job very well if your willing to put a bit of TLC into them.

[sarazinj]

ive installed and personally used obx manifolds, and ive never had or seen any problems, yes mounting a huge holset on it would require some support, but so would any manifold. i also know someone running an ss autochrome manifold on their 1.5 jz with a hx35 on it with zero problems and he drifts it competetivly

[Daryl @ RightDrive]

And as far as your "HUGE waste of money" the average china manifold costs between 150-200 bucks, IMO if you spending the money to go top mount etc you've already spent a tonne of money in other mods to justify going top mount, so a measly 200 bucks to try something that could work to save a "HUGE amount of money" could be worth it.

I'm sure some are fine and work OK, I was just referring to this one incident with a GT-R Canada member, and for him it was a huge waste of money because they were unusable. Perhaps the OBX are OK, I'm just saying in this case, these eBay manifolds were awful.

[BrianV8]

I'm sure some are fine and work OK, I was just referring to this one incident with a GT-R Canada member, and for him it was a huge waste of money because they were unusable. Perhaps the OBX are OK, I'm just saying in this case, these eBay manifolds were awful.

totally agreed, with any Chinese knock off you take a chance, more times than not it will work fine, but in the case you have described it didn't.

When dealing with knock offs they are all the same brand name is negligible IMO godspeed, obx, speeddaddy, autobahn its all the same. All have there good batches and there bad ones. Biggest difference is lack of quality control that results in the bad batches and its to be said about any Chinese product

[Supraclean]

Just sucks having to take a gamble if it "might" be a good decent batch or not. I didnt want you to take it personal Brian I just wanted to share my experiance with people that might be interested in there purchase.

At the end of the day as long as you owner is happy with the turn out and there car is running good, all is probably forgotten at full boost:P

[BrianV8]

Just sucks having to take a gamble if it "might" be a good decent batch or not. I didnt want you to take it personal Brian I just wanted to share my experiance with people that might be interested in there purchase.

At the end of the day as long as you owner is happy with the turn out and there car is running good, all is probably forgotten at full boost:P

Not too worry, just wanted to make aware how chinese stuff works, it doesn't just apply to manifolds its everything thats produced. Part of making stuff thats cheap is not having quality control behind it.