Turbo manifold.

The turbocharger I'm using is a stock Subaru WRX TD04 unit.
Good enough for 227 hp in a Subaru at 14 psi boost.
They're plenty cheap and available, as a lot of WRX owners upgrade to a larger turbo.
I see them on Ebay for $100-$200 all the time.
I polished the outside of the turbine smooth in preparation for ceramic coating, and ported the turbine inlet.

I started to make the header flange for the turbo manifold.
I'm using 3/8" mild steel for the flange with 1.25" cast steel pipe elbows to make the runners.
It will be TIG welded together then ceramic coated. It's a lot of work making a flange from scratch...

Bob,
I know you're busier than a six-pack of mother bears on the Carlisle project,
But if and when you take a break, can you e-mail me a list of the 1 1/2 "T" and 90 degree elbows you used on the turbo manifold?
I need to get hold of McMaster-Carr and order 4 elbows, 4 "T"s and a pair of 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 reducers.

IIRC, these are the numbers.
You can type them into McMaster's website for more details.

I used 1 1/4" pipe fittings, they're actually 1.380" ID.
43425K141 - 90 degree elbow, 1 1/4" pipe, schedule 40
43425K144 - T-fitting, 1 1/4" pipe, schedule 40
They list 1 1/4" to 2", and 1 1/4" to 3" reducers, but none 2 1/2".

HTH,
Bob

Sorry for the lack of updates here,
It's been tough getting anything done other than ordering parts (which has take about 2 hours per day for the past three days!).
I did finish the header flange and finish-welded the fuel rail. I also trimmed the throttle body to clearance the fuel rail.

Here I started to make the header tubes.
It's tough to make thick-walled round tubes fit a rectangular port shape.
I decided to make the beginning of the header tubes from square tubing,
And form them into a round shape to meet the remaining round tubes.
I needed to make the tubes 1.25" x 1.50" to fit the header flange.
I only had some 1.5" square tube, so I cut the tubing at 3/4", figuring on welding the two 3/4" pieces into one 1.50" piece.
Here are the cut pieces before welding...

Here the two pieces are welded together to make one piece.

Inside the tube....full weld penetration.
Damn, I love my TIG welder, don't know how I went without it for so long.....

Not much accomplished today, didn't spend a whole lot of time at the shop.
But, the critical tube merge (rectangular to round) was at least completed on the header.
I used a t-dolley clamped in a vise, and then hammered the square tubes into a round shape at one end.

Here one side has taken shape.
Nothing fancy, just used a ball-peen hammer and hit it for about 2 minutes total per tube.

The full rounded tube outlet.

You can see how nicely the cast steel 1.25" ID tube bends fit the newly formed outlet.

At the inside of the tube where it meets the flange,
I tack-welded the corners, then used a small hammer to tap the tubing tight to the inside of the hole in the flange.
This will make for a nicer weld later on, and hopefully it will flow better too.

With the 3 day weekend here I decided to focus on the turbo manifold, as I'm already a week behind schedule.
Things just got worse when I realized the manifold that I had designed in my head would not fit in reality.
The stock EFI intake manifold simply gets in the way,
And if I tried to place the turbo below the manifold I feel the heat would melt the engine mount,
The upper a-arm bushings and would potentially create too much heat in the block itself.

My final solution is to place the turbo above the inner wheel well.
It gets fairly close to the hood, so some heat shielding will be required.
It also gets close to the throttle cable, so I may have to reconfigure that as well.
If the inner plastic liner melts, the throttle will stick.....
Didn't finish it, but it's all 'figured out', and the rearmost tubes are tacked in place.
Should be able to complete it tomorrow.

Had to heat 'n hammer the turbo collector so that all 4 header tubes would fit.
PITA too, since the metal is nearly 1/4" thick.
Here it's roughed out, and you can see the taper created from the opening of the collector down to the turbo housing itself.

Here you can see the approximate location of the turbine housing of the turbo.
It gets kinda close to the intake manifold,
So the thermal barrier I'm having applied (Swain Tech) will go a long way towards reducing the radiant heat.
More pics tomorrow....

I should have finished the manifold today, but I was one 90 degree bend short.....
I still got the rest of the manifold welded up.
I chose to smooth out all the welds, which required each tube to be partially assembled/welded first and then sanded,
Otherwise access to certain seams could not be made after the manifold was tack welded together.
Here's one of the center tubes after welding, but before polishing.
So far, so good.

This was as far as I got today because of the missing tube bend.
I still have two welds at cylinder #1 and #4 to smooth out at this point.

And here's an overview of the manifold, with the collector roughly in position, and the turbine housing of the turbo in place.
The collector still needs to be polished down too, it's really rough from hammering on it....

Very nice Bob,
I've got to smooth out the welds on the exhaust manifolds, I just hope they turn out as good as yours.
They do look nice.
Ron

I kept track of how long it took to grind a weld down Ron
(mostly for your sake as I know you're undertaking the same type of project right now),
And it boiled down to about a minute per weld.

Used a 7" electric disc sander with 80 grit paper on it to rough it out,
Then a 'DA' sander locked out to spin (not orbital) with 150 grit paper to smooth the 80 grit scratches.
Good enough for ceramic coating!
It helps that I used the TIG method, MIG welds are a lot harder to grind and are usually bigger as well,
The TIG welds are nearly flush with the surface of the tube.
Oh, and the 80 grit disc sander will polish out the letters/numbers that are stamped into the tubing too....

HTH!

The turbine and collector held in their approximate final resting place.....

The day was not a total loss, I got to finish the last header tube finally.

Header merge welded and ground down.... Getting close!

The collector cone and flange welded in place.
Yes, the manifold is finally done!

Finished header flange detail.
Welded in and out at the flange, and steel washers were added to get to the correct flange thickness, within .002" anyway...

An overview of the turbo manifold, turbocharger, and intake manifold.
Yes, the turbo is close to the intake, however I'd rather have it mounted near the side of the intake rather than under the intake.
Heat rises after all...
I will be making a physical heat shield,
And also the Swain-tech thermal barrier will reduce the radiated turbo temps by about 300 degrees.

A different view....

I also got the parts back from Swain Technology today, the thermal barrier coating is awesome.
Eventually the turbo downpipe will get this coating too, but since that part isn't even made yet, it will have to wait until after Carlisle.
This stuff will reduce the radiant heat by about 300 degrees,
Which is damn critical on a turbo engine due ot the extreme heat generated.
It also retains the heat energy within the exhaust pipe, allowing the turbo to spool up faster.
It's been my experience that all other coatings are mostly for appearance-sake.
The Swain coating is a true aerospace coating,
And Jet-Hot, HPC, and Airborn, no matter how pretty, just don't hold a candle to the Swain for heat-retention.

Thanks Ron, I haven't been working on car stuff much lately.
The hand is almost totally healed, and I have nearly regrown the fingernail of my once-crushed finger.
This is the worst time of the year for me in general, I abhor heat and especially humidity.
But it's been very cool here the past few days so I got motivated again.

I just dug up a few photos from a couple months back.
It just shows the difference between the stock WRX turbo I originally intended for this project,
And the new VF22 turbo I'm going to use instead.
The turbine housing is quite a bit larger in diameter as you can see.
I still took the time to port the turbine housing inlet to promote faster spool-up time.
The second photo shows a stock unported VF22 next to the one I ported for the Manta.