Hey guys,

It's been a long time since I've been on here but now I'm back in the Honda scene . Long story short I've grown tired of manually building my collectors and I desperately want to offer my customers the most reliable manifold in the world. The project started 6 months ago and were finally ready to build the header now that the collector is done. It's currently at the polishing shop now so more pics to come!! Customer has an Ap1 S2000 with a GTX3076R

 

very nice...

 

Id hate to know the price tag but god damn is it ever beautiful and obviously strong, takes the thought of cracks probably right out of customers heads

 

That's impressive! What did you use to make it? 5 Axis cnc?

 

impressive...Colin has been producing these at Toxic Fab as well...he doesnt offer just the collector so you can build your own, but i have been curious of the cost difference since i know machine time on these has to be pretty extensive

 

The advantage here is the wastegate is also machined, there is no point in making a billet collector if the wastegate arm is not machined into the collector as that is where 99% of all failures occur.

The first one was incredibly expensive, we don't have a price set in stone yet but the sidewinder were building will most likely be in the $2k-$2500 range. Believe me, it costed me way more than that just to build the collector

 

Yes 5 axis

 

why would you build something that you lose money on? that just doesn't make sense. if someone isn't willing to pay for it, don't build it. you should view your business as a business, not charity. developing parts for free is never a good idea imo.

collector looks good, did the machine operator cut through it on the neck between the wg and turbo inlet? It looks like you filled in a hole there. I think a smoother finish on the outside would look nicer, but it would also cost more. you could maybe benefit from a bit larger rads in the wg branch.

 

must say they look great but id rather make up a collector myself for the price of a few bucks and mybe 2 hrs works invovled than paying the cost of a billet collector they do the same job in my opinion ,nice steel blade will cost 100 bucks for a cirular saw nice cuts to

 

First of all, it's an investment . I've never taken a loss on anything and not eventually profited off of it later, that's the nature of business. Back on topic, the collector is perfectly smooth on the ID with a beautifully radiused wg entrance. Besides, this product is not for everyone. I am also a CWI certified aerospace welder, you will be getting the best manifold money can buy.

Why not just weld up a collector you ask? Because you're not solution and aging your welds so the material is very hard and brittle and prone to failure. This eliminates that completely. The customer had 100% piece of mind

 

You would be much better off starting with a casting and then working from that. Would be considerably cheaper and much easier to do as well. Also I think what Weir is talking about is using a "tear drop" instead of a ~110* bend going into the wastegate, which I also agree with.

 

Badass, but too rich for my blood.

 

cheaper once you have a mold made

I would think a mold for a piece like this would be above $100k and then you still have secondary machining.

Casting isn't prototype friendly in the least. Rapid Prototyping/DMLS maybe but if you already have a decent CAM program and a decent CNC mill then this is the way to go to make a small quantity.

Looks good although I do agree the stepover needs to be half of what it is now to make the thing look worth the price you would need to charge to make money on them as is.

 

awesome

 

The collectors are all going to be mirror polished, they are being done by the best polisher in the business around here. It should look incredible. I don't know why everyone is lecturing me on how this is being done, it's simple, if you don't want to pay for it then dont buy it lol.

I've gone over every option as far as castings etc and I chose 5 axis cnc with billet because I have a great relationship with the machinist. The programming and hard work is done. Billet has several advantages over castings anyways. The feedback I've already gotten from the S2000 world has be substantially positive.

I will post finished pictures Friday/saturday

 

how much does it weigh?

 

How much do you guys think a billet 304ss merge collector should cost. For example i made a few of these both t4 and t6 for a few projects. What you have to consider is time it takes to make one by hand to cost of a billet merge collector. Ive done that math and for me its cheaper and more reliable to use a billet collector over a hand made collector.

Cost depends solely on machine run time. More complicated collectors like these 6 cylinder cost more than say standard 4 cylinder because its slower. Material useage is roughly the exact same. I dont think $350-$500 depending on type of merge collector is really that big of deal.

 

The first one always costs a lot. That's sick! ^^

 

I see 8 cylinders not 6!

 

most likley for wastegates

 

Correct they are for a wastegate setup.

 

It just depends on what you can sale the finished product for. In an ebay age it is hard to find the people that appreciate and are willing to pay for it. Those are badass btw

 

It's hard to keep the inside surface of a casted part smooth. You would need to make it into a two step process and machine the inside to a desired surface call out. Also as a previous user stated the mold would be expensive, and I don't think OP is going for mass production.

 

^^ correct, I'm only making these headers one at a time because of the cost. I can't wait to pick it up from the polisher!!

 

Here it is!