It's here! Now I just need to build a torque plate, hone the cylinders, assemble the engine and bolt this bad boy on!

Looks good!

Very, Very nice , but what's with this torque plate building non-sense? For the block's cylinders? Your machine shop is not equipped to do the work? I had mine bored to 84mm and the bores appear true (dee crosses fingers). I hope it all work out for you because I know of the setbacks you've experienced and it does get exhausting as well. My engine is totally different with the custom intake manifold, larger throttle body and bigger bores. Still breaking it in, so compression testing is pointless at under 20 miles, although I have done some tests. Can't wait till you get it all assembled, so you can report back.

The machine shop said they could build me a torque plate, but they wanted $500 for it. I laughed and told them they were smoking crack. I paid about $75 w/shipping for the aluminum. I just need to drill holes in it and have it milled flat. I don't expect to have more than $150 into it and a couple of hours of work. I had mine bored to 84.5mm and they had a lot of taper.

Damn, that looks really nice. I'm wondering what to spend my tax return money on.

If you're making less than 300whp, it's probably not worth the money, as you can just turn up the boost a couple of psi and make the same power. But if you're shooting for 400+, then IMHO it's worth it. My plan is to hit 400whp on an old 56 trim T04E. I'm not sure I could pull that off with the stock intake manifold, but I'm pretty sure I can with this thing.

It is time to finish these "so-called" projects of ours Time has been my enemy as well as the focus on my children that are near grown-ups and some home remodeling projects that is eating money like pac-man eats dots. How does that thing look at 84.5mm?

My plan is to hit 400whp on an old 56 trim T04E. I'm not sure I could pull that off with the stock intake manifold, but I'm pretty sure I can with this thing.

few ca18s waaayyy past 500hp on stock intake. Not a 'bad' piece. Dunno why 400 would b a prob

Would like some pictures of the inside of the plenum and runners, could you post some pictures?

boost_boy wrote:It is time to finish these "so-called" projects of ours Time has been my enemy as well as the focus on my children that are near grown-ups and some home remodeling projects that is eating money like pac-man eats dots. How does that thing look at 84.5mm?

Isn't that the truth. We have an almost 1 year old baby that I spend most of my spare time with. Man I love that little girl!!! Anyway, it looks good at 84.5mm. I was really worried about having enough meat left in the cylinder walls, but after seeing it bored out, I wouldn't be afraid to take it to 85mm, maybe even more.

dash wrote:few ca18s waaayyy past 500hp on stock intake. Not a 'bad' piece. Dunno why 400 would b a prob

It's not that I didn't think I couldn't make 400hp on the stock intake. I'm sure I could make 600hp on the stock intake. The question is, how much power are you giving up? If this manifold will net me an extra 30 hp at the same boost level, it's TOTALLY worth it in my opinion. The main reason is that my standalone is a little limited on how much boost it can run. The resolution for the fuel map is fixed. For up to a 3 bar map sensor, the resolution is fine for street driving, although the part throttle tuning can be a little tough if you're trying to get good fuel economy AND run 30psi of boost. Once you go up to a 4 bar or a 5 bar MAP sensor. The resolution starts to become enough of an issue that streetability starts to suffer. So I'm wanting to make as much power as I can, under 30 psi.

tommey wrote:Would like some pictures of the inside of the plenum and runners, could you post some pictures?

Somebody on FB asked me this too. No, I won't do that. There are a couple of reasons. The first is a matter of principle. The guy that HAND BUILT this manifold, went through multiple revisions and flow testing to get the design to where it's at. This isn't something he threw together in his garage and started selling. It's proven to have low runner-to-runner variance, not cause any loss in bottom end power, and flow better than the stock manifold. No small feat IMHO. The second is maybe a bit selfish. I paid, for me anyway, a lot of money for this thing. I'm not particularly excited about the idea of me paying hundreds of dollars for a manifold, then posting pictures of it on the internet so that anybody with a TIG can replicate it for the cost of parts and their time welding it up. The value of this piece isn't in the work it took to build it. It's in the development it took to get it to where it's at. I paid my hard earned money for that development and if you want a proven manifold, you should pay for it too.

.....if you're trying to get good fuel economy AND run 30psi of boost

is that even possible ? A fuel-sipping "beast" - lol

DrDrift(a ca18 tuner) tested one of these manifolds on his ca18(18g turbo) and posted feedback on ns.com

Would b interesting to c back to back dyno of the torque curve, stock mani vs this

qute a few individual claims of port-matching the stock 4 port intake netted significant gains throughout.
Enough testimonials to convince me to try it one day. Performance difference between 4 vs 8 port tested/claimed also, so ymmv

Would like some pictures of the inside of the plenum and runners, could you post some pictures?

check the DSM or miata BP forums. Should b able to find photos online of these types of intakes.... as well as their actual test results on a driving vehicle. I'm sure there is no magic in a ca18-specific mani

float_6969 wrote:
Somebody on FB asked me this too. No, I won't do that. There are a couple of reasons. The first is a matter of principle. The guy that HAND BUILT this manifold, went through multiple revisions and flow testing to get the design to where it's at. This isn't something he threw together in his garage and started selling. It's proven to have low runner-to-runner variance, not cause any loss in bottom end power, and flow better than the stock manifold. No small feat IMHO. The second is maybe a bit selfish. I paid, for me anyway, a lot of money for this thing. I'm not particularly excited about the idea of me paying hundreds of dollars for a manifold, then posting pictures of it on the internet so that anybody with a TIG can replicate it for the cost of parts and their time welding it up. The value of this piece isn't in the work it took to build it. It's in the development it took to get it to where it's at. I paid my hard earned money for that development and if you want a proven manifold, you should pay for it too.

I understand, it`s not an easy type of manifold design when it comes to even distribution.

dash wrote: check the DSM or miata BP forums. Should b able to find photos online of these types of intakes.... as well as their actual test results on a driving vehicle. I'm sure there is no magic in a ca18-specific mani

Nah, not THAT interessted, was mostly curious of how the transition from the stock plenum part that is welded in looks like.

dash wrote:

.....if you're trying to get good fuel economy AND run 30psi of boost

is that even possible ? A fuel-sipping "beast" - lol

DrDrift(a ca18 tuner) tested one of these manifolds on his ca18(18g turbo) and posted feedback on ns.com

Would b interesting to c back to back dyno of the torque curve, stock mani vs this

qute a few individual claims of port-matching the stock 4 port intake netted significant gains throughout.
Enough testimonials to convince me to try it one day. Performance difference between 4 vs 8 port tested/claimed also, so ymmv

LOL, it is possible actually. Back when I was on gasoline, I had it tuned so well at part throttle that I could easily get 30+mpg on straight highway driving. That obviously dropped when I went to E85, but I was still around 25mpg, and that was with less tuning than on gasoline, I don't think I had it leaned out as much as I could have, and I never had a tank of just highway driving, so that might be a little low. That was also on an 8 port head with functional power valve system. I haven't run the 4 port head long enough to know for sure, but I don't think it gets as good gas mileage as the 8 port w/functional power valve.

Yea, I've seen lots of reviews on them, probably seen that one too. For some reason, I haven't found a back-to-back comparison at the same boost level. I intend to remedy that. I have a port matched and polished 4 port head, port matched and polished sub-manifold, and port matched upper manifold setup on it now. I intend to tune with that setup, then swap on the manifold, re-tune for the same boost level (I've helped tune a Greddy IM on an S15 SR20 and it lost power at first, but after re-tuning for the IM to add more fuel where the manifold flowed more air and made it lean out and adding ignition timing, it not only made back the lost power, but gained 10% at peak HP) and then post the results.

Nice manifold. I actually have the first CPC FWD CA18 manifold ever made, once my car is ready for dyno i would love to do a dyno comparison of stock vs CPC.

Also my block was torque plate bore and honed. Picked up the torque plate of ebay for like $70 afew years ago.

Do you still have the torque plate?