Was looking at that manifold again, I give it just a few hours of run time before it starts coming apart. You gets what you pays for, and IMO you can barely buy the materials to build a good strong turbo manifold out of stainless for $94. One more thing, if they made the header flange out of stainless too, it shouldn't be that easy to drill through, especially at 3/8ths or greater thickness. Most really good turbo manifolds don't use stainless header flanges due to the greater expansion rate of stainless. It tends to shear the studs off the head when it heats up and expands. The bolt holes have to be such a loose fit around the studs that you end up with big time sealing problems. Or, if it's the cheap quality recycled spoons and forks the Chinese use to make their stainless it'll probably just warp and split.

I have a bunch of Ls already, just regular steel tho, to make a manifold. I just wanted something that I could copy from and seeing it was so cheap, it doesn't matter as much if it fails. For the tubing that intersects from the sides, they only made a hole about the size of a nickle for the exhaust to pass through. I'm going to see if I can get in there with a carbide bit and open it up some.

The wall thickness isn't... thick. It's like 1/16-3/32" maximum from the looks of those passages. The header flange is warped a bit too. I tried quickly sanding it flat and it sands relatively easy with paper. BOTH flanges look cast, and after sanding the head flange a little, it started turning a copper color so I'm worried and unsure WTF it's even made out of LOL. There's no returning it now that I've notched/drilled the new holes so I'm going to try to make the best of it.

What  the hell, it'll make a good template!    Oh, any pic's of your control arm mods? I seem to remember someone doing something similar, maybe it was you. I've been searching this forum looking for pics, without luck. BTW, regular steel is fine for a manifold, just paint it with some of that ceremic high heat paint, Duplicolor works good.

What  the hell, it'll make a good template!    Oh, any pic's of your control arm mods? I seem to remember someone doing something similar, maybe it was you. I've been searching this forum looking for pics, without luck. BTW, regular steel is fine for a manifold, just paint it with some of that ceremic high heat paint, Duplicolor works good.

I did the arms back in Feb, unfortunatelly I didn't take pics. Got caught up in doing it and getting them back on not long before a trip to Rausch Creek. I think the passenger side is about 1/16" more forward then the driver side but whatever. I punched out the factory bushings and used ES bushings. I forget the sizing for them also LOL. I used a piece of 1.75" DOM and insterted it into the sleeve and welded it in to make the ID of both arms the same. I also used the same ES bushings on both then opened up the front LCA mounts where the swaybar mounts to use the same size bolt there and in the rear. I still have the swaybar there, I usually have it connected for on-road driving and always disconnected when I went to Rausch.

That copper plating is usually done to get chrome to stick, I don't know why
they would chrome plate stainless unless they were going for a show look

Wild

Unless it's not real stainless. Put a magnet to it. Real stainless isn't magnetic.

That is true sometimes, some Stainless is magnetic, so that isn't
always the best test, but copper is the under plating for other
processes like chrome

Why would they plate stainless? The material itself is one of the best corrosion resistant materials available. Me thinks it's just a cheap rip off.

For one of two reasons I can think of, it is a cheep ripoff or it's
easier to chrome plate to make it bling bling than to polish it

My guess is it's for show, as the disclaimers say and is shiney
chrome to look good under the hood on a rice racer... for a
few days until that stuff burns off or get's bubbles in it

Good quality stainless is not that hard to polish, providing the finish is already smooth. I have a buddy who has a metal shop that specializes in fabrication of stainless sheet metal products. The good quality smooth stainless polishes up so easily it looks like chrome. When I built my turbo manifold out of Sched 40 304 stainless the finish was rough, so being as anal as I am, I used a variety of tools to smooth the finish, files, grinders,  belt sander, sanding discs on power tools, whatever I could get at it with. Then I took it over to his shop and used their industrial buffers to polish. Came out pretty nice and still is kinda shiny although I haven't polished it in a couple years, no corrosion whatsoever though.
Ya know, it doesn't really matter though if it was chromed, cheap stainless recycled pots and pans, whatever. What matters is he's trying to build a turbo setup and that deserves credit. Props for that!

enough banter already.....who builds (or would build) a quality one for the 2.0L family? how 'bout it wild?

Get me an exhaust manifold gasket and what turbo flange do you want?

Should be about $250 plus shipping

I would suggest a top mounted turbo, t-3/t-4 type for best price
on the turbo, new can be had with internal 8 PSI wastegate for
about $200

Wild

sounds good, I will let him know. will any other mods be necessary? computer, fuel delivery etc??   BTW sorry to sidetrack the thread) 

Great stuff bro. Your technical is great. From where did you get to learn all those things??

Lots of study, reading over technical books on all sorts of related subjects,
and hands on doing it, as well as I have a natural aptitude for mechanics.

I often say "it's a curse" as I can't hardly look at something and not want
to either know how it works or want to make it better

Wild