Teflon Intake Manifold Gaskets...

[crzycav86]

Well, as part of another one of my schemes to make money, I've been spending my time working on a little machine that makes these gaskets.

Basically, if you've heard of hondata heatshields(http://www.hondata.com/heatshield.html), you know that the concept is to create a heat-resistant gasket that blocks heat from being passed into the intake manifold, which in turn will keep the intake temperatures as low as possible. According to hondata and testimonials, most gains are found when used in conjunction with a cold air intake, or turbo. I've just copied the concept, and used teflon, which is readily available to me.(the hondata heatshields seem to be made of a similar material, if not teflon)

Hondata already makes these for all honda motors, and a few non-honda, but unfortunately not for the ka24de/e, so that's what I'm making them for first.

Anyway, I'll keep everyone updated on my progress.

[deviousKA]

How thick are these planned to be? If they are dependable with the heat they will be exposed to, ill buy one from ya.

[crzycav86]

I plan on making them about 5mm thick. They'll be reusable as well, you'll just have to torque down the manifold less. I'm just trying to copy hondata's design as much as possible.

Anyway, updates will come when there is something more to update about... such as when I've made the first few prototypes.

[180fan]

any word on those gaskets? I'm pretty interested but I'd need them for my SR. lol

[crzycav86]

nah.. I've been busy lately. I'll most definitely have an update by the end of the week though.

[crzycav86]

any word on those gaskets? I'm pretty interested but I'd need them for my SR. lol

I've got a question, is the intake manifold gasket on the sr20det the same as the NA sr20de?

[180fan]

I used the same gasket for the DE as the DET, but the collector to runners gasket is different.

[sil80drifter]

When the hondata site says

"Turbocharged cars often use an aluminum intercooler to cool the air compressed by the turbo. The intake manifold is also made of aluminum but because it is heated by the head from combustion and coolant, works in reverse to an intercooler by heating the intake air by as much as 50° C.",

They don't realize is that the intake manifold acts as an intercooler TO THE MOTOR. It takes some of the heat from the head onto itself and is a source of heat dissipation. Hence, it provides for lower engine temps. Yeah, sure at first, when blocked off from coolant and the head, the intake manifold will stay cooler than regular. But once everything under the hood heats up, it'll heat up as well. A good example is the front strut bar. It's isolated from the engine since it's not touching it. But you drive around on a warm day (or on any day actualy), get out and touch it, it'll be pretty damn hot. Everything under the hood get hot. I see mroe benefits fromt he intake manifold dissipating heat from the head, than from being kept cooler a few extra minutes for a small power gain which will disappear eventually. You're probably better off disconnecting your EGR, which dumps hot gasses into the intake, also increaseing air temperatures.

sil80

[crzycav86]

While it's true that the manifold takes some heat away from the motor and provides lower engine temperatures, it will not cause your engine to overheat. It will just allow your engine to warm up more quickly and have the thermostat open for longer durations.

And as for engine bay temperature heating up the manifold, this is absolutely correct. However, under-hood temperatures won't heat up the manifold nearly as much as the head. In fact, the heat from the engine bay is rather insignificant compared to the temperature of the head. To testify, go put your hand on the manifold after your car heats up.(actually don't) It's nice and hot, right? Testimonials from honda boys claim that the hondata heatshield makes the manifold warm and bearable.

Also, I'm not an engineer, which is why I'd rather imitate hondata's work rather than try to come up with something on my own.

[crzycav86]

Update-

I'm still building the steel rule die. I need to buy metal for it. It turns out the metal will cost quite a bit, and the minimum quantity is a 35 ft roll.. so this will be quite an investment. Anyway, the die is pretty much done, all I need is to buy and insert the steel. More updates to come... stay tuned

[SSS]

I tried this sort of gasket on my KA24E using a 5mm thick phenolic laminate, and well, did not cool down the intake like i thought it would.

The problem is the coolant circulating through the idle gear, and the coolant port coming from the head has to go through the intake manifold to the top radiator hose. That is what you need to elimate for this gasket to be successful, as the coolant passes through from the head to the intake manifold, it gradually heats the gasket too.

Teflon is a good choice of material going by the fact that it has roughly the same thermal conductivity a phenolic laminate has.

[sil80drifter]

good point, you can't block off that coolant port, because the head needs it, and that water will heat up the manifold.

sil80

[crzycav86]

I see. I wonder if there's a way to separate the the intake manifold where the runners are from where the coolant travels.

This sure does make a mess of my plans... good thing I didn't order metal yet...

[12er]

thought this'll be worth mentioning..the last ford engine i worked on runs some sort of plastic framed intake gasket with rubber inserts to seal the intake and coolant passages apart.. it works fine until the rubber seal decided to expand and cause some coolant leak into the intake.

otherwise, you can, of course, cut off the coolant port at the intake completely, and then have a neck made up to fit to the head. but that's too much work just to fit a simple intake manifold spacer (off my head) for a lower intake temperature.

hey, any engineering major here can explain the difference between teflon and delrin?

[compression]

I am on the sil80drifter, this all seems like a major waste of your time. Do you realize that the air travels through that whole system in an instant?Heres an example (i have a spreadsheet that calculates this stuff)2.4L engine, 3000 rpm, 1.5 ID intake runner, 8"long intake runner

Under those the conditions, the air is traveling through the intake runner (ignoring frictional and pumping losses) at 141 MPH. THat means that it spends .003 seconds in that 8" intake runner. Is that time for the air to interact with the walls of the intake manifold and do some heat transfer? no. Intercoolers work because of the massive amount of contact area the air has with inside walls and the large temperature differnece between the compressed air and the ambient air. they are able to transfer the heat to the air with very good efficiency. The intake manifold (space-age gasket or not) will eventually become heat soaked from all of the ambient heat from the engine. I am not entirely convinced that there is a massive amount of conductive heat transfer happening between the intake manifold and the head. I think the manifold draws a significant amount of heat from its surroundings.This same argument can be used to question why some people wrap their intake pipes with heat barrier wrapping.Last time I had my SR on the dyno, I did 5 runs over about 15-20 minutes. as I did more runs, power actually went up until it settled at a certain level. More power as the engine got hotter...hmmm...I did allow about 3 minutes between runs for the intercooler to cool down.

Also, I have been on the Hondata website too. There is a lot of good info on there, but also a lot of BS. You have to be able to filter that stuff out. If they dont have conclusive evidence or proof of any kind besides the all-to-common "heresay & I think...", then it has to be questioned before taking as fact. Hey, I made this new Johnson rod! it makes 7-9 HP (more on a turbo car!) if you install it in your cruise control module! it lets you open up the throttle past 100% for even more power!!! It only took me a month of free time to develop, and I cant prove it works! $19.99 plus shipping.

Since I am an engineer, I will take a stab at the question:Teflon is a DuPont registered product. Also called PTFE. It has good thermal resistance and is a good insulator. Not ideal mechanical properties for structural use.Delrin is used where high wear resistance and low friction are needed. It is made using differnet polymers than ptfe and has better mechanical properties.

[sil80drifter]

a smart person agreed with me! i feel smart by association.

sil80

[12er]

Since I am an engineer, I will take a stab at the question:Teflon is a DuPont registered product. Also called PTFE. It has good thermal resistance and is a good insulator. Not ideal mechanical properties for structural use.Delrin is used where high wear resistance and low friction are needed. It is made using differnet polymers than ptfe and has better mechanical properties.

thought so..but was unsure. so, which is more useful? a teflon gasket or a delrin t-chain guide? I'm leaning toward the later...

[crzycav86]

I agree that the air moves very quickly in the manifold, but the air doesn't travel directly from the filter through the manifold and into the engine. Since the intake valves open and close, the air moves in pulses. So the air sits around in the manifold for quite some time(relatively speaking).

Also, the main thing that pursuaded me into thinking that it actually works was the fact that the honda guys buy these up like hotcakes and have given testimonials that lead me to believe that it works. What better proof than first-hand experience?

Anyway, I'm probably going to put this project on hold due to the coolant issue, as well as having to spend $100 on metal ...

[compression]

Go for it. Make sure that when you test it on a dyno that you do so in a fair way. Try to dyno them on the same day, within an hour of each other (how fast can you change that gasket?). Keep all of the controlable conditions the same and only make one change at a time. I know that dynos use a correction factor, but it is still easy to get varying numbers from run to run. Take 3-5 runs in each configuration, and average the results. Otherwise the results will be unreliable. I know this from lots of experience.Even changing the location of the fans will throw off consistency. There are plenty of ways to cheat to get the results that best sell your product, but nobody does that...its dishonest.But I am all for new innovations, so prove me wrong and Good luck. Let us know how it works if you get around to finishing some prototypes. In fact you could probably make a prototype by using a router to shape a piece of teflon into a gasket form.

[eddiec]

so does the honda engines route the coolant rgrough the manifold like the ka does? if it doesn't then clearly this may not be an effective optoin for us. props to crazycav86 for doing the work though.

[deviousKA]

Heres what i did with the water passage, on one of my manifolds. This is for ka24e and unfinished btw. The water neck will be "double gasketed" and not welded to the flange. Minor heating issues for my first runner like this.



I would buy one of your teflon gaskets. Think you could get them in different thicknesses? Might be another handy way to change runner length as well as isolate heat.

Oh, and no my flange isnt warped. Dont know why but it really looks like it is in the pic.

[sil80drifter]

OMFG! you made ITBs for the KA-E!!! wow!! that is so frikkin cool. how long did it take you? where did you get the throttle bodies from? are you using an aluminum head flange? did you just cut pieces from original manifold for that water passage? the water temp sensor holes look stock... wow!

sil80

[deviousKA]

Thanks sil80

that right there took me no more than 3-4hrs. The particular aluminum pipe i used, when crushed, fits ka24e port perfectly so very little porting is necessary. The holes that were cut in plate are oversized, and the tubes were crushed and then pressed in > welded on back. Throttle bodies are suzuki motorcycle, and have approx. 44mm throttle plates. After the plates it tapers out to 50mm. Those are just some velocity stacks i had around here. I have a boxfull at work.

The flange plate is aluminum, and the water neck was cut from a ka24e truck manifold i had laying around. It is same as 240sx. I did it this way to get around the p/s pump. Most itb setups on ka lose the p/s.

[sil80drifter]

Would you consider making these and selling them? I'd expect a nice gain and amazing throttle response from that ITB setup. Have you done this before on an SOHC?

Lol, I guess I sounded a little too extatic earlier, but I've just never seen an ITB setup on any KA before, and this reminded me of my early dreams of making my car into a 13K RPM monster that the Nissan Motorsports team once did with their SOHC.

sil80

[crzycav86]

so does the honda engines route the coolant rgrough the manifold like the ka does? if it doesn't then clearly this may not be an effective optoin for us. props to crazycav86 for doing the work though.

Well, from my understanding, the honda engine routes the coolant through the manifold and into the throttle body. Since it's not really necessary, this passage can be blocked off. Unfortunately for the ka's, the coolant port can't be blocked off because the line acts as a feed line to the top of the radiator.

[crzycav86]

devious: I'd like to know what you're using for engine management since you can't use the mafs. Very cool.

[deviousKA]

I do have another manifold almost identical to one above for sohc. I will make these up for anyone that is interested. Mine just left for the shop, getting finish tigged and decked.

For my setup, i am using Megasquirt v2.2 standalone with edis and various other modifications. This uses a map sensor of course, a very good ecu you all should check it out, msefi.com. Heres mine, i use palm for datalogging and control.



I am dumping my distributor and oem ignition, and coverting to edis4 distributorless (crank pulley mounted trigger). If there is interest i can write up a full wiring tutorial and parts list for 240sx (and supply parts).

Ok and if im not already off-topic enough, an itb setup could work with oem ecu. That is, if a plenum chamber was used to group all throttle bodies. The 240sx ecu is fully hacked and can basically be used as a full standalone (with maf sensor that is). I have full software and setup to do this with 240sx/truck ecus, if anyone is interested in the subject please let me know id be glad to help.

[sil80drifter]

for the love of!!! yes, i would like some more info on the hacked KA ecu, because so far i've only seen attempts, but nothing really working. I'm sure you've heard of Uberdata for hondas (like hondata but free), and i was always hoping this could be done for the KA. where is the software and hardware instruction to be gotten? I tried to PM you, but it seems that PMing has been disabled by the administrator, so I had to post here.

sil80

[deviousKA]

Yes you can do just like uberdata, with most nissan ecus. This is very very simple and easy to do with sohc ecu. The dohc ecu is a different ballgame. Ill post what i know in a new topic in a minute, with some screen shots to spark some interest. Most people keep this info hush hush and are in it for the money, even deleting any possible info after they figure it all out.

[crzycav86]

or... do you think it would be possible to have a mafs on one of the throttle bodies, and somehow multiply the volts by 4, or somehow compensate to get an accurate reading?