Time to take a few shots and calm down again.. It kinda hard not to get really pissed after walking into the garage and seeing that...

Exhaust leaks from cracks, however small they may be, pre-turbo or even near is a big NO NO. Good luck solving the problem!!! Those FI manifolds are sex and V-Bands are king!

What happened?

its pretty typical of cast iron turbo manifolds to crack, even factory ones where the turbos are often supported. However, your crack is coming at extremely low mileage, much earlier than I would say should be expected.

I dont know if I think supporting the turbos is the fix. I suspect it has more to do with the stresses of the part expanding differently in different locations based on the mass in that area, and the heat applied to it. I wonder if longer runner cast manifolds might go longer from having more space for expansion before the next "node" if you will. I am not familiar enough with different metallurgy to know if the same design would be more durable if it were thicker or higher quality casting. Perhaps making it thicker could make it worse?

I know that the greddy manifolds crack too. And factory turbo cars I work on often have cracked manifolds.

I am not defending a manifold cracking in 5000 miles though.

This just feels bad. I'm set on building my block. Ordered parts. This is the 4th manifold I've read going bad. I'm certain mine will be no good. Mine has 12k miles on out at 12lbs. I can't believe yours went bad with only few thousand miles.

Wonder where George from gtm is at now. Maybe he can chime in here our options. He was chiming in everywhere a week ago

Damage control for a week caused more damage than they think

Sent with TapAhoe

He has commented on it before, typical blame the customer approach....5000miles to crack a manifold, Cosmo, you running a 3" drop airbag hydraulic HERRAflush setup? According to that guy, you probably are.

George has been idle for a week or two, I sure hope they are paying him, he is at least putting in a good effort. After those refunds are issued!:stirthepot::stirthepot:

Lets put together a tequila fund for cosmo...might need a case or two before this is all said and done my friend! Best wishes!

I don't agree with George about what he said in that quotation.
I know a lot of people who have cracked manifold and they just fix it without speaking to this or that for sake of peace.

Some people are just so patient and fix things without dealing with a company that cant keep up with their orders. (Hint Hint:rolleyes:)

My car does not sit low and I'm sure others will find soon enough that their manifolds have cracked as well if and when they get back in there to inspect. I believe the problem here is there has been no long term r&d on this kit and now us the customer have to pay tp clean up gtm's mess..

Here's a photo of this infamous (and not that uncommon) crack:

http://www.fototime.com/0F4C882B02C5BA6/medium800.jpg

http://www.fototime.com/E4AF81D33A18B73/medium800.jpg

http://www.fototime.com/3E7A604902D0557/medium800.jpg

phunk called it.

Truthfully, the sky is NOT falling. No one is losing boost or exhaust out of that. Had mine not come apart, I'd have never known. Probably been like that for a few thousand miles and would stay like that.

No it's not great, but *what if* you simply put it all back together and ran it? There is all likelihood it would continue working as wished. Just saying.

Coop

Coop do you really think the crack is just going to stop? Yes it may work now and further down the road but eventually it will fail completely. We all paid good money for our kits and now having to deal with this. Gtm should do the right thing and atleast send out new manifolds and warranty them.
I just sent them an email so I will be sure to keep everyone posted if I hear anything back from them.

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that the passenger side exhaust manifold?

Looks like it to me since the downpipe is still connected in that last picture

Well if that's the case the problem is not just isolated to the drivers side.
I'll be honest, at this point I'm considering just putting a stock motor back in and selling everything else and going car shopping. :shakes head: