So, basically what you're saying is that the title of the thread should've been;

"Someone is working on an intake manifold for me."

 

I didn't start the thread. Someone else got word of what we were working on and started the thread.

The only thing I don't like is people comparing this to Rev Shift. We have proven this WAS and IS still in the works. We have posted up honest results and clear footage of this item.

How long it takes for the NA version is completely in the engineers hands. All we can do is go by what we are told by him.

 

lol well just because rev shift still has no shown us anything does not mean they are still not working on it. as said yours was made for fi. thats fine and dandy. this is supposed to be for na. until i see an na version that is not put off and put off and put off and put off and put off and put off and put off and put off and put off and put off and put off. its not 2012 and the world has alreayd ended. this will be of no use. i hope when its completed it does make some gains. but until i and i am sure other see a product that works for na or with na then this is just another revshift match. im sorry your feelings are hurt.

 

but damn that response that came with that and how quickly it was, was incredible

 

hmm

 

actually i am not sorry.

 

there we go 24 now

 

One of the biggest "draw backs" to the HR intake manifold is actually the top of the lower manifold. I have done some flow bench testing earlier this year ( flow bench NOT dyno testing) and found that the best results are made with modifying the lower manifold in 2 ways. I never completed a setup as i thought the NA results for the $$ would not be worth it on a lower HP motor. The stock complete head, lower, upper intake setup with T/B's on it does not have much flow loss on the motor, and actually flows more than enough air for over 300whp and the runner length is just about where it should be.

I was going to build one for a friend of mine about 6 months ago, but after bench testing the heads/ intake setup, I realized that for $2000+ there were not going to be much gains unless you have some good size cams and or are really trying to increase the top end power of the motor and extend the power band.

Either way, the best thing to do for some easy HP is to modify the lower intake by reshaping the runner transition from the upper plenum through the lower intake. Takes a few hours, some epoxy, and grinding, but on the flow bench, this picks up about 15cfm and shows a pretty good increase in velocity as well.

Also, Any bolt on upper manifold only, will most likely not have any huge performance gains NA without modifying the lower manifold as well... Just my opinion

I also agree with Gamer on this topic. Something else to consider, is how many people in this thread bashing everything/everyone are actually going to buy an intake manifold that will probably cost $1500+ at a production price, even if it makes 15whp? My guess, probably not many... Its always easier to talk about buying one than actually buying it. Then if it only makes 13whp on your car, then something is wrong and you got screwed...

 

When this manifold comes out I'm gonna take it on a date and try my best not to stare at it's chest.
Just sayin

 

Don't take what i say as bashing. im not trying to bash, but as stated by others, do not say this is will be ready in a couple of weeks and a couple of years later no update. but at least keep us updated. ya know. tell us its going good, going bad, not going at all. i am one to purchase so i will talk. unless its just makes dodo for torque and hp loss. but then would not purchase after all anyways.

 

wow, just read this whole thread again, I first read it back in April . one thing I can tell you guys is that optimal intake tuning is not easy at all,just getting it to work at all is fairly easy, getting it to work decent is tough & getting it good is a huge task. getting it to optimum takes a whole lot more than that even, lots of prototyping & re engineering & model after model with accurate data logging & tweaking & testing, repeating as necessary with many different tweak after tweak, test after test. besides just raw numbers of flow there are also harmonics that come into play... it is possible to actually tune an intake to the point that the relationship between the intake runners & the plenum, at a certain frequency can have a boost in pressure & velocity that can actually result in higher than 100% volumetric efficiency. & yeah, this is NA... this will not come easily though & is not the kind of thing that will be optimized with just one 2 or 3 hand built prototypes modeled in some generic modeling program

the factory may not be known to always provide the "best" of this or that & cost is always a reason why things stock may be less than optimal, noise levels, emissions & part throttle drivabilty all can be reasons why we can squeeze a little more here & there, BUT when were talking about volumetric efficiency now were talking about something that is extremely important to nissan. achieving higher volumetric efficiency in mechanical engine design is key to everything from mpg #'s & ulev standards to part throttle response & overall drivability, point being it is very worth while for nissan to achieve peak VE throughout the engines operating range.

nissan puts a whole lot of resources into achieving peak VE through intake tuning, way way more than any tuner would ever either be willing to, or even be able too. nissan knows everything there is to know about the VE of there hr engine, the only reason we can get minimal gains with adding stuff like exhausts & intakes is because after nissan does achieve the "optimal" tune they have to then add in noise reduction & also tune slightly towards low end torque & further reduce emissions by raising operating temps a bit, this is really about all nissan is leaving on the table for NA guys to take advantage of, anything more will require actually doing something to increase themechanical VE of the engine itself, IE; cams & headwork or FI... otherwise the stock engine simply can not increase VE past a certain point.

the mechanical volume of the engine is static & efficiency past a certain point is squeaked out in tiny amounts here & there through tweaking & testing which takes many resources that nissan is willing to devote. I'd be very surprised to see a custom intake that works even just as well as the stock one on a stock engine, anything other than that may wind up sacrificing some low end torque for top end power or something, shifting the power band around a bit, but to build a manifold that is going to be superior all around I'd find very hard to believe... it would mean that nissan has left a bit of VE on the table up for grabs in the intake itself, & I don't see that being likely at all.

now if were talking about FI or a stroker cammed motor then yeah, there I think the possibility for improvement then exists more readily because the VE of the engine has been altered & increased beyond what nissan has tuned for & even that would be tricky & difficult to achieve without sacrificing too much elseware, but on a stock NA engine I wouldn't expect to see much more than MAYBE minimal gains in some areas, most likely just moving the numbers around a bit. would take a real lot of effort to improve on nissans effort here I think. just building a manifold that flows more & better alone is NOT the answer, this is kinda like the old days with street guys going & bolting on a dual quad tunnel ram... hell yeah, it could flow way more cfm's but at what cost? unless it was an all out race car that only lived in the upper rpm range with a 5k plus stall speed then it would just wind up being a pig & just threw all drivabilty, low end torque & throttle response out the window... there is way more to intake tuning than just increasing flow.

don't take this post as a negative, I'm not bashing anyones efforts here at all, honestly I think if they could build this manifold & wind up with something that is at least not much worse than the stock one then I'd be interested in it just because it's so much more bad *** than the factory plastic manifold, but I find it hard to understand how anyone that truly understands how VE relates to HP & torque & understands the harmonics & tuning of an intake manifold could be so optimistic that they can simply re-engineer something to be that much better all around than a giant like nissan could... I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm more saying that it is just way way more complicated than just designing in better flow, & knowing the challenges involved would dictate that achieving something like this would be a pretty monumental task & take a whole lot of resources & multiple modeling... again I'd be very impressed to just see a manifold like this even keep up with the stock manifold all around... this is not 10 years ago when there was much more VE left on the table to tap, today VE is everything when it comes to an OEM & dictates many of there numbers across the board...

I can see maybe developing something like this for FI cars or builds that really increase the VE of the engine mechanically, but I think trying to build this for a stock NA car is not going to be very fruitful unless the end goal is to just be as good as the stock manifold as a best case really with maybe minimal power band shifting, & truthfully that may even be enough to make it worthwhile for some, but in the end I think that if this is developed as just a FI manifold it may just make more sense, hell I'd be happy enough if that alone happened & that is what I'd shoot for personally. if it ever happens I'm down for one for my HR TT I'm building, it def looks bad a$$, I probably wouldn't have the patience to build it myself nor do the R&D, it's either something like this or adapting a stock GTR manifold, I like the way this one looks better

 

oh also just want to add that I really hope that someone could prove me wrong here, I'd be very happy to see that & would be first in line to step up to buy it

 

Cool post so in other words there really is minimal power to be gained through this.

 

Based on what we have seen before, no one knows. Everyone has an opinion but without R&D, we would never know.

My opinion is "there is always room for improvement". I have said from the beginning that this is very important for boosted applications but we will see about NA applications.

 

In response to the above post who said that from the heads to the upper plenum would be hard to approve on.

The head work done on our HR flowed 27% more air alone. This was valves and a whole a$$load of porting and polishing.

 

There is power to be gained from making an intake manifold, but just doing a bolt on upper manifold alone will be tricky due to the transition into the lower intake manifold.

there is a lot of flow to be gained in the HR heads, and they do flow really well stock, but the heads are not the draw back to NA performance, it is the lower intake. mainly the transition into the entry of the lower intake manifold.

IMO would be best to make a complete new lower intake manifold as well as an upper, or atleast redesign the lower piece then make a new upper piece.

 

a stock head, stock bore, stock stroke & compression stock cammed engine(your basic NA) has a definite fixed volumetric efficiency potential. period. this is not opinion. pressure wave intake tuning involves creating boost at the intake valve at the precise time it starts to open at a certain rpm to increase the VE above what it's potential would be without this tuning. actual "boost" is created at the intake valve by tuning pressure waves, again, not an opinion. everything above & below this peak point of tuning benefit less AND any changes in port length, diameter & even port transition changes the effect & amount of this "boost". this is not just about more flow... that's not the whole picture. if it was just about more flow then it would be easy, but it's not. flow alone matters when it comes to heads, but not when it comes to intake tuning for a specific head flow.theres a lot more than just flow coming into play here...

Nissan knows this & fine tuned the intake for the engines best all around efficiency for the stock head and cams, tuned specifically for it's potential VE. higher volumetric efficiency= more power... Nissan has done extensive tuning in this area, remember, Helmholtz tuning is altered as cam timing is altered, this all affects the design of the intake, so now there is a wide range of actual tuning to account for with the variable cam timing also coming into play, you can not simply plot & pick one specific port design & build it with your fingers crossed, I guess that's what you mean by "you never know", in the end the science behind designing & tuning intake pipes, plenum sizes, and runner size and length to take advantage of positive & negative inertal and resonation effects to supercharge the volumetric efficiency of an engine is known as intake tuning.

it would take me writing several very long paragraphs to try to explain all the resonation effects of intake tuning & I have no intension of doing that, but to sum it up, fine tuning the sweet spot in pulse wave tuning or Helmholtz tuning of an intake involves precise adjustment & fine tuning of the ports, meaning multiple mock ups & testing & logging with increments of port & transition adjusting & testing, adjusting & testing & then plotting results. many times done with adjustable ports for mock up testing. this is the only way to really optimize, again, relative to a stock headed stock cammed stock HR engine. this is also why personally I wouldn't even bother trying for NA stock, now FI is another whole world...

FI is increasing the VE of the engine BIG TIME, this dramatically changes the parameters of an intakes tune, plus, FI adds it's own boost, so the effects of pressure wave tuning are much less missed or required, as they are replaced with even more boost. for a proper street FI manifold you may want larger longer tappered runners to keep the velocity up at lower rpms adding low end torque, this is going to be the best way to help neutralize the negative effects of boost lag, then, when the engine is in the upper rpms, flow is your goal. problem is, the ideal design fixed runner intake for a FI engine at up to and even over twice the VE of a "stock NA" engine is just not going to possibly also enhance that stock NA engines overall VE throughout it's range of use over the stock intake. this too, is not really just opinion, it's more like engineering type stuff .

ok, now this part is my opinion based on the above facts, in my opinion you will not be able to build a manifold that is superior at making good gains for a FI car & is also superior to the stock intake throughout the usable range on a stock NA car. in my opinion the only way you could do such a thing would be with building your own variable runner intake design, one that can change from a long runner at lower rpms & then either vary or just open up to a short runner at higher rpms, taking the tuning that nissan did to the next level, this is the only thing that nissan has left on the table in intake design as cost & size restrictions probably dictated. nissan has used this technology on other engines, but not the HR. many other manufacturers such as BMW Ferrari & even F1 race cars have adapted this technology, but, I'm thinking this is probably well beyond the scope of your project at hand too.

bro, I'm not trying to battle you, I'm more trying to help. I know that ideally you would love nothing more than to build a manifold that will be major gains on a FI build & still be usable by the masses as a direct replacement bolt on. I'm just pointing out the problem with that idea, & the best advice I would give is to just build it for FI, tuned for the higher VE expecting & accepting that it will not be also ideal for stock NA cars. I would also even suggest as my opinion that considering this intended use & design there really is less reason to even build for "stock" compatibility, such as the stock position side mounted TB's, I'd expect a much more efficient & equal distribution can be designed without necessarily staying within these restraints, I'm taking about the possibility of maybe front mount throttle bodies & designing the most even distribution you can. I know this goes against your desire of compatibility with existing setups for the most sales potential, but spreading your goals too thin can result in not reaching your goal either, focus on what your actually tuning for & build the best you can there, if done correctly THEN you'll have a good seller on your hands, maybe not the best for every car out there, but effective for it's intended use. to have a superior manifold for a stock NA HR & for a FI HR with much higher VE will require designing & building 2 different intakes, in my opinion ....

 

Ok, so i just read the above post ^^^ and I am under the impression that you have never done any actual DYNO testing before or building actual manifolds or other performance parts??? you are talking a lot of general theory that is all over the internet... but nothing specific to the HR motor. You would be surprised how much stuff "in theory" goes a certain way, but on the dyno or flow bench is another story. A flow bench is a tool, more than just finding how much something flows, there are several other uses for one, and if you know how to use it to its fullest potential, then you are way ahead of the game and have a tool way more important to you that you could imagine.

As for your tuning for higher "VE" that you keep posting everywhere... that is a given, that is what everyone is trying to do....

And for building a FI manifold before an NA one, i disagree. yes a FI manifold is "easier" to build because FI motors are more forgiving because they have a constant flow of air into the motor that NA motors do not have. FI motors will make up for a pressure drop across the system ( such as a poorly designed intake manifold) and will still "flow air" by these pressure drop points. by having a higher rate of pressure drop going on inside the motor, just relieving these areas will usually make more power, which is due to turbo's having to flow less air, which means less exhaust gasses having to flow through the turbo's, and less backpressure... yada yada yada...

A turbo/supercharged engine will always be more forgiving, than a NA motor... always.

If you design, test, build an intake manifold for a NA motor setup ( I am not saying a stock motor, but say made for a more radically modified one) with a near correct runner length, flow-loss, taper, and it performs on a NA motor, then it will almost always perform on a FI engine. Many times, these intake manifolds will perform better than a "FI specific" manifold across the board.

Also, you talk about "pressure wave intake tuning" or as many people know it "inertia supercharging"... if you TRULY understand this concept, then you should really know why a correctly built manifold for "X" NA motor setup will work awesome on a FI motor.

Most people, and i'd say over 99% of them, do not know how the cylinders are filled on an engine, let alone the difference from a NA and FI setup... If you say " thats easy, a NA motor sucks the air in, and a FI motor has its air forced into it" then you have a lot to learn...

 

I agree with everything you are saying, the whole single point I'm originally trying to make here is that building something here that is going to be superior for either a built motor or FI will probably not also be a design that is going to offer stock NA guys a manifold that will also be an improvement for them throughout its usable range as well. that's it, whole point in a nutshell, everything else is just explaining why, because as you say, majority of people don't fully understand how a cylinder is actually filled & may not understand why the factory manifold is so very hard to improve upon with the heads & cams remaining stock... instead of just saying "the factory manifold will be hard to beat" for that situation I tried to also explain why. instead of just saying that the manifold will show losses in some areas on a stock engine I tried to explain why.

also, as you've said:

" If you design, test, build an intake manifold for a NA motor setup ( I am not saying a stock motor, but say made for a more radically modified one) with a near correct runner length, flow-loss, taper, and it performs on a NA motor, then it will almost always perform on a FI engine. Many times, these intake manifolds will perform better than a "FI specific" manifold across the board"

this I also agree 100% with, but, again, even this^^ will more than likely STILL not be a design that will benefit the average stock NA guy, again, for the reasons stated... I too agree that "ideally" this is the way to go as well but some may not understand why this would wind up not being a performance enhancement on a stock motor too, all I did here was try to explain why, because many do just think of how it works by just thinking that a NA engine sucks the air in while a FI forces the air in.



I guess I could have just not typed any of the long boring explanation and theory behind the thought & just simply posted this instead:

I don't think you will be able to make a manifold that will achieve the goals you desire & also at the same time be an improvement all around for the stock NA HR engine. most likely the stock headed HR engine will see a loss in some areas at least, compared to the stock manifold.

but if I just posted that^^ then the next question would be why? many would think that if it flows better then why wouldn't it just be better? I'm simply trying to explain that there is more to intake tuning than just flow alone. like you said, the majority don't understand everything when it comes to cylinder filling. you have guys here saying they want 20hp gains for it to be worth it for a stock NA HR, but these will be the same guys that won't want to accept losses in the bottom end or midrange power either, my whole posting here is just to show why this may not be a realistic goal to achieve & why, why the stock manifold would be so hard to beat on an otherwise stock HR engine & why hopes of 20hp gains without any losses is not easy to achieve at all... some may not understand all else that is involved & that is the whole point of any of my postings here, to help those that may not understand.

 

Ok, NOW i understand what you are saying and agree...

Stock motor setup, no, I do not see a point in engineering an intake manifold for NA use, too much money for not much return, the stock HR setup is actually really good and works great for what it is designed for

Built motor, cams, headwork, custom headers exhaust, yes, large gains to be had...