New Stainless Manifold - Impulse Buy

Not sure I've done the right thing, but in a moment of madness I've brought these manifolds from ebay tonight http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200383283433&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT Has anyone had experience of these? Do they look any good (naff question I know!!!)? I'm thinking of sending my car to an indy to get them to replace the manifolds, along with the bypass mufflers I should be getting back from the welders anytime soon, and obviously fit all new gaskets, nuts and bolts to the whole system. Has anyone done a similar thing and how much might I be looking at? My thinking is that this probably isn't a job I should attempt myself!! :nooo:

A reasonably straight forward job providing the manifold to head bolts remove ok - they have a habit of breaking and if they break, can incurr extra labour time extracting the broken M8 thread. Some indy's either want to remove the cylinder head or even pull the engine out to effect a repair. Of course, this is only if the bolts break, they may all undo ok. I too looked at those manifolds and wondered if there was any performance gain??? And if so, would this 'modification' be discloseable to the insurance company?

I'll mention it to the insurance company. I use Peart insurance, and have phoned them before for mods. They recon the premium may not go up, just the excess. Not ideal, just an extra incentive to stay on the black stuff!! Do you know any good indies in the area?

I think it's always best policy to inform the insurance company of any changes like that - should the wheel come off (so to speak) they are the first to look for a reason not to pay out..... :x As for indy's - the only one that I've heard good comments about in the area near to me is Zentrum in Nottinghamshire. That's not to say there are plenty of others. I was also thinking about trekking up to the North West to Hartech, they look to have a good system in place as an alternative to OPC and I understand you get a hire car (at a very reasonable rate) whilst your 911 is with them. Hartech may be abit out of your way unless you dont mind the travelling. Oh, and on topic, Hartech do have some special jigs for removing broken manifold to head bolts as I've seen mentioned in other posts. Which could be relevant for your manifold change.... :thumb:

Yeah, I've read those posts as well. Bolton isn't a million miles away. I'll give them a ring today. I'm hoping that with these and the bypass, it won't be too loud. I've also heard good reports about Zentrum, so might see what there setup is like and how they would deal with a broken stud. Sod's law it will happen to at least one!!!

Ok, car booked into Zentrum in october to have all the work done. They recon they have all the kit and knowledge to deal with snapped studs etc etc and at 45 plus VAT per hour they are reasonably priced. They also have a loan car FOC, which is a real bonus.

I have these exact manifolds fitted to my 98 C2, with partial bypass manifolds and the sound is lovely, although I think Cat bypass pipes would just finish it off and produce a very sweet sound! The sound with muffler bypass pipes (complete bypass) is a lot better than with the standard manifolds, doesn't sound so much like the exhaust is blowing. Still extremely loud though and the amount of boom is nauseating! Had my manifolds fitted by Ninemeister, took two days as TEN of the bolts snapped and required drilling out and re-tapping. Ninemeister were very good though and gave me a courtesy car (Fiesty ST) to run about in and cut the labour bill pretty much in half. Still ended up £760 for fitting alone (would have been over £1500) and think what you can get for £1500 (i.e. PSE). I will say it again though that Ninemeister were very good, as at the end of the day, they only did what I asked them to do and it's not their fault that ten of the bolts broke. Was a tense experience from my part as I had a matter of hours to get back to Edinburgh to leave for work for a month and my car was still in bits! Made it in the end though!

What's the quality of the manifold like? Not sure what make they are so not sure if they are any good. Are they any louder than standard? I was just hoping they would give better air flow rather than increase in noise. I'm concerned now that they will be too loud and the last thing I wanted was boom.

Id be interested to know how you get along with Zentrum(where are they?)

North nottingham

To be honest, they don't make the car louder, just make the sound more 'cultured'. The sound with the bypass pipes is awesome, I put them on for track days then take them off again. I get a headache after ten minutes at motorway speeds! Got it down to about 30 mins for changeover (in the car park!), but I'm looking at commissioning a simple design whereby I can manually adjust the bypass of the mufflers, so I don't have to keep taking the mufflers off. I'll let you know if this comes to fruition. (BTW I had the car on the rolling road a few weeks ago, said to the guy that he might need his ear defenders! He gave me the 'I know what I'm doing look' and said that they have had some very loud cars in the past. He went to bring the car from the car park into the rolling road, came back into reception, a bit sheepish, and said 'I see what you mean - I'm just going to send someone round the other units to warn them it's going to be a bit noisy for the next half hour!' - Cool. Wish I had taken video now, but will next time, hoepfully with cat bypass on then too!) The quality is good so far IMHO, I expected to find cracks in the welds after the first couple of weeks, but that's been six months now and all's well. My advice would be to throw away the composite gaskets that are included and get the real Porsche items (for the sake of a few extra quid) as I had the manifolds off twice after (again in the car park!!) to cure a leak at the gasket at the cylinder head, put in a Porsche item and no problems since. I also think its pretty cool as the manifolds hang down lower, so you can just see them looking at the side of the car, but have not had any problems with them catching or anything. If you have some luck with the bolts coming out ok, I would say you've got a great value mod there!

Thanks for that - great reply. I've been down to my local exhaust place this afternoon and had the car up on the ramps. It is leaking from the left manifold (between manifold and head). It looks like someone has tried to cure it in the past, and has replaced all the bolts on the left manifold, and the bolts between the manifold and cat, so these will hopefully be easy(er) to remove. I had a good look while it was up and the manifold bolts are a lot easier to get to than I thought. I'm actually quite tempted to have a go at the right manifold myself, then if I snap some I'll send it to the professionals.

i bought the exact same manifolds, they are amazing value as other places do the same looking ones for 500+. Anyway they now sit in my loft as my exhaust studs are rusted blobs and I could move 2 of them. Good luck with Zentrum, they are my local Indy too.

UPDATE Ok, so picked the manifolds up yesterday from Worksop and they look to be good quality, so happy with them. Not going to use the gaskets, so will get all new Porsche parts. Picked up the backboxes, and the workmanship of the bypass pipes looks spot on. Will get some pics up over the weekend. Thought I'd have a go at the manifold bolts this afternoon. Went for a drive in the car, then got it jacked up. Went for one bolt in the middle. Bit of pressure, creak, creak, loose - came out quite easy!! Great, I thought. Went for the second. Bit of pressure, nothing, bit more pressure and it budged a little. Had a horrible feeling it was moving too easy, so decided to try and tighten it back up, which it did easy enough as well - so I knew then what had happened. Sure enough, snap - sheared off flush with the head. Left it at that - didn't see the point of trying any more. Will leave the whole job to the experts. Booked into Zentrum on 6th October. :thumb:

I feel your pain! The final bits arrived from Porsche for mine and should be back on the road middle of next week with literally every new seal, stud and bolt being brand new.