| Mike@GTM |
02-03-2011 01:10 PM |
Here's an update on our intake manifold. We've been working with a Rapid Prototyping company, and it's taking a little longer than we anticipated. Nevertheless, here are some images generated from the scanning software. One of the biggest advantages of this process is the ability to verify air flow through the intake and make any necessary changes to the design in CAD to eliminate any restrictions. The design has been finalized and is being "grown" as we speak. According to the company we are working with, we should have the prototype in hand next week. At that time, we will be test fitting the lower manifold in conjunction with the GT-R upper intake plenum and performing some initial dyno testing to verify the design.
Some of you familiar with rapid prototyping have suggested growing the part in titanium. Unfortunately, this part is physically too large to print using an iterative metal laser sintering process. Not to mention that even if their "printer" was large enough, it would take over a month just to print! Given that people want to see this car finished, we found the timeframe unacceptable. Therefore, we will be using a new type of high temperature plastic developed to be tested in harsh operating conditions (such as a forced induction manifold). Although we were skeptical of using plastic on this part of the engine, the material specifications convinced us that it is well within operating parameters.
We have several cars that we will be testing this manifold setup on: a stock 370z (to see what effect this manifold has on an NA application), a GTM supercharged 370z, and of course the White Dragon. Given that we can make adjustments to things like runner diameter and length in CAD, we can fine tune the performance to suit the particular application.
Also, it has been our experience that the factory HR/VHR upper intake plenum starts having issues with over 15psi of boost and 700whp (afterall it was designed for an NA application). Using our lower intake plenum in conjunction with the GT-R upper intake plenum will allow for more boost and more power.
Enough technobabble, here are some pics:
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