3D printing is amazing technology. So much that it actually scares me. I have done a lot of 3D printing in the plastic injection molding side of my career, but I have only done very little with it for auto parts. I printed the fuel rails for the GTR for test fit since I had only a short time with the car and the rails are HUGE -8 rails with tight clearances... I didnt have time to make the billet prototypes and their fixturing because the car was leaving soon. So I used rapids to test fit and then sent the car on its way and shipped him finished parts later.
There are applications where 3D printing is great, and its often very cost effective. But for this intake manifold, its actually simple enough for me to print out life scale prints of the manifold on paper and just cut out with scissors and hold up to the car! You would be shocked at how quick and effective that can be! That is how we designed the DE manifold in the area that crosses over the timing chain cover with very tight clearance. Then we machined its outter surfaces out of sheets of MDF glued together to do a physical test fit. The CNC can machine away that stuff so fast and you get a head start on some of your actual part programming.
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