hmmmm.......
taz--------------HAHAHAHAHA
ERAU------------ok.I geusse I was Wrong but the inside of the arms or whatever are FULL of crap so id like to clean that out anyway.
Manning--------same thing
anyone else done anything special to anything that would like to say something?

 

flexible Butterfly... I dont know if you can buy one and I am not even sure thats what its called... but thats what I call it. A regular butterfly is made with a piece of 1/4" x 6" drill rod with a 1" deep slot cut in one end. A strip of 1" wide sandpaper is put in the slot and then wound up. Put it in a die grinder and your ready to go.
flexible version.... add a nice long spring and shorten the drill rod.

I guess its called a butterfly because when you have it in the tube it goes around pretty good... but if it slips out and is still going around... woo hoo.. its an angry butterfly.

 

How about those things used for honing cylinders. I think they are called ball hones (ouch) or flex hones or something. We used to use smaller ones (for brake cylinders) at the bicycle shop for honing out burrs in seat tubes.

 

HAHAHAHA--Ball Hones--HAHAHAHA

I dont even now what a hone is.........?

 

It is amazing what can be found on the internet!

 

I was looking at an Eastwood catalog last night and they have a manifold buff kit for around $45. It comes with clear paint to keep the shine.

Aluminum Manifold Buff Kit

Item No. - 13149
Designed to take aluminum manifolds from raw castings to shining brilliance. Kit includes a tube of Grinder's Grease which extends the life of abrasive rolls. Kit can also be ordered with a can of Clear Coat Barrier aerosol to protect the luster of your polished manifold (not a fuel resistant coating). Also included are two felt cones, assorted midget buffs, Tripoli and White Rouge Compound, wheel arbor, grinding rolls and mandrel, and 8 page buffing manual.



Regular Price: $49.99
Sale Price: $44.99

 

Now THAT is the way to do it, should you be so inclined. Personally, I prefer the original look. All business, no bling.

If the car ever makes it into concours competition down the road, a shiney intake will lose it marks.

 

Here is a picture of a ball hone or actually Flex-Hone. They are referred to as ball hones because the abrasives are little "*****" on the end of bristles. They are used for honing out the inside of tubes, cylinders, etc. You could use one to clean out the inside of your intake runners. Probably carb cleaner will clean most of the gunk out though.

 

I haven't done this powder coating a whole lot but I'm thinking $60 in labor and probably another $10


Most places have a setup charge and minimum fee. My intake is going to cost roughly 75-80 dollars. It would cost that much if the part was 2cmX2cm or a big as a fender. Just check around, just about anyone can do powder coating and it becoming more and more popular with schools, etc. because it lasts so much longer than paint.
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I still say the whole "keep the inside of the runners rough" thing is a bunch of crap. After all the bumping around the intake charge does by the time it gets to those smooth runners, I think its pretty much still going to be turbulent by the time it hits the fuel/valves. The only real thing to worry about when getting everything to smooth (like velocity stacks alone) is hot spots in the cyl.

 

Yeah, the theories hold true, but the dynamics are different. I can't explain it very well, but here goes anyway. In an NA application performance is more sensitive to changes in volume and velocity since you are basically asking the motor to pull all the air it needs in on its own. Obviously anything you do to strangle the flow is bad. But changing things in a way that slows the flow down are bad too. Slow it down too much by opening up the intake too much and the motor can't suck in enough air. Intakes are tuned in such a way to create a venturi to speed the flow so the cylinders fill faster. This is going to sound like a crazy example, but think of it this way. Take three straws of equal length and try and drink through them. One is as big around as a swizzle stick, one is a McDonald's straw and the other is as big around as a garden hose. With the swizzle stick the flow is strangles. With the McDonald's straw you get a pretty good flow without too much effort. And with the garden hose sized straw you just can't seem to draw on it hard enough to lift the drink into your mouth in a smooth fashion.

Turbos and superchargers overcome these issues by forcibly cramming air into the cylinders. You can open up the intake much more as long as you maintain even flow to all cylinder. From what I understand, one shortcoming of the stock manifold on our cars is that the manifold is not balanced very well and the last cylinder runs a bit lean.

Obviously the exhaust side is pretty important as well and needs to be balanced to the intake side to allow proper scavanging of the spent charge to allow for a clean new charge to be drawn in.

 

Travis, I wouldn't say keep it rough. I think the points are that polishing is a waste of time since there are minimal if any gains and that if you really hog out the intake on an NA you may actually make things worse.

 

Come on now you are confusing me more So on a turbo charged car honing the intake manifold could help some? I know I am not looking to get it real smooth. If I measure an intake runner and it measures lets say 1" what size hone should I get 1.25"?

 

Mike S
How did you get the intake to shine? I used a 1725 rmp motor and cotton buffing wheel with trippoli rouge to get a lot of billit aluminum parts to polish but the intake just never would polish out right.
2nd question. Are those stock intercooler pipes? If so how did you get the black anodize off? I know those will polish out if I could get that stuff off.