HPF's 335 N54 Turbo Manifold Sexy-ness

Originally Posted by mkodama

As for Doc Race, I've never heard of them before, and I had no presumptions good or bad coming into this thread, aside from knowing that if it was marketed to the HPF turbo tuner crowd, it would be very expensive, giving me lots of room to nitpick.

You may be right on all of your points, but I don't think it's a final end-product that we are looking at.

If you feel like venting, I'm more than happy to receive a PM or email from you. Not everyone appreciates your candour.

Originally Posted by mkodama

I completely agree with you on the ebay headers. They may not be the nicest thing out there, but value wise, they are damn incredible.

As for Doc Race, I've never heard of them before, and I had no presumptions good or bad coming into this thread, aside from knowing that if it was marketed to the HPF turbo tuner crowd, it would be very expensive, giving me lots of room to nitpick.

In reference to your nit picking(no back purging specifically)... This is off Doc Race's Blog:

http://docrace.wordpress.com/2012/07...-best-part-ii/

Another factor in having strong weld joints is back-purging. This is something that isn't completely necessary to do, but considerably important for the inside portion of the weld joint. By purging the tube that is being welded, the argon gas that is pressurized inside during welding will aid in controlling push through and also any impurities that may occur during the weld. Purging is a must with some materials even going as far as chamber purging with metals like Titanium that require a lot more preparation and care for a proper weld joint.

In reference to your nit picking on WELD QUALITY, here is Doc Race on a WELDING FORUM being judged by his peers and JOURNEYMEN in the trade. It ended up positive, sir.
In the discussion, his weld quality is HEAVILY scrutinized, and discussed. Looks like he came out on top even with some devil's advocates in the discussion. See for yourself. Talk about nitpicking, these guys were out for blood, and Doc Race's work still held up under such intense scrutiny(eventually).
Apparently some of Doc Race's earlier work was NOT back purged and he caught hell for it on the forum. In spite of no failures to date, Doc Race is now back purging the welds. He even shows a photo of the jig they use to do it. And he makes reference to back purging on his blog(see previous quote and link). Notice also that he PORTS the throats of each runner! Nice.

http://weldingweb.com/showthread.php?t=147921

Sorry, Mkodama, it looks like you are over ruled.

HPF is offering a quality product. Too bad it will likely cost a King's ransom. But you say you wanna go fast?

Originally Posted by mkodama

How is that manifold beautiful? It looks like crap if this is something you are charging more than $200 for.

The welds very are inconsistent, along with heat input, and if those are off, and it means your weld penetration is also going to be off. The weld bead wanders side to side and increases and decreases in width. It looks like you didn't even backpurge the welds, and so you had to grind down a ton of melt-through on the back side of the welds near the flanges. There is probably tons of protrusions through the areas you couldn't get to with a grinder. You don't even machine the flanges after welding? I think I see undercut on the welds too. Also you didn't even use stainless for the flange, just mild steel? WTF?

If someone did this in their garage as a personal project, I'd say that's pretty awesome. But from a company that sells $80,000 turbo kits I would expect way better than that junk...

Hoohaa.

Maybe you can enlighten the rest of us that see this work as awesome, maybe with some pics of a manifold you would pay "more than $200 for"?

I've taken a second look at the photos, I can see that the "hand fabrication" has it's imperfections. But nothing that I believe merits what you have said especially it not being worth 200 bucks. Just the time taken to piece the manifold together within the engine bay constraints would cost more in labor/RND.

Mkodama, we worked hard on this project to bring HPF and the N54 community a new product that was never available. What you're missing is the fact that we pulled this off and HPF can now offer this to there customers. You're picking at a single manifold that was made during r&d where changes were constantly being made. The big picture is HPF is working towards a fantastic kit for the N54 and we are always pushing to produce perfect manifolds.

That being said, it was a pleasure to work with HPF on this project. Fitted with the turbo and other parts as well as a tune, the manifold will definitely exceed HPF and HPF customers expectations.

Originally Posted by DOC_Race

Mkodama, we worked hard on this project to bring HPF and the N54 community a new product that was never available. What you're missing is the fact that we pulled this off and HPF can now offer this to there customers. You're picking at a single manifold that was made during r&d where changes were constantly being made. The big picture is HPF is working towards a fantastic kit for the N54 and we are always pushing to produce perfect manifolds.

That being said, it was a pleasure to work with HPF on this project. Fitted with the turbo and other parts as well as a tune, the manifold will definitely exceed HPF and HPF customers expectations.

I have no doubt you worked hard, and I'm not missing that this is something that was never available before. That's why I never said anything about you, just the fit and finish of the pictured manifold.

I just expect more for how much HPF charges. If I'm picking at an R&D manifold, then why did HPF never say this was a pre-production manifold and make a photoshoot of it?

Originally Posted by mkodama

If I'm picking at an R&D manifold, then why did HPF never say this was a pre-production manifold and make a photoshoot of it?

I would imagine the photo's were at request and an employee took a camera and decided to go hog wild with the edit button...

I've seen the pictures that HPF used to take change from clear and clean photo's to over edited as of late...but I digress.

Doc Race it looks awesome for a pre-production piece and I look forward to seeing some S54 goodness out of your new build

Originally Posted by mkodama

I have no doubt you worked hard, and I'm not missing that this is something that was never available before. That's why I never said anything about you, just the fit and finish of the pictured manifold.

I just expect more for how much HPF charges. If I'm picking at an R&D manifold, then why did HPF never say this was a pre-production manifold and make a photoshoot of it?

So what you are saying is you want to blame HPF now. I never posted a price on this manifold.

Y'all need some v-tech

Originally Posted by Russian172

Y'all need some v-tech

Lmao, I love that comment in the heat of all this.

Originally Posted by Russian172

Can I install this mani in my m54b25 and pipe it to the exhaust I wonder if it would restrict the flow

Secondly bump to this. I am trying to make a custom turbo kit for my car seeing as how there happen to be absolutely none out there and after looking at the s54 swap it just seems pointless now. I want a twinscroll and you guys always do some amazing work. HPF all day. But still, is it gona fit on a m54?

Updates for the New Year?