92 Civic Si - My Turbo Project
| Welcome to my page for my 92 Honda Civic Si.
Here I am going to cover the parts that I use to turbocharge my civic.
The very first part I bought turned out to be a big disaster.
I figured a good place to start would be a turbo manifold. I don't have a lot of money to spend because I'm in collage so I figured Ebay would be a good place to search for deals. I thought I would start where the turbo system start at the head. Then buy a turbo and wastegate then intercooler and buy parts that work with what I have already |
So I do some research on OBX Manifolds...
My Turbo Manifold Disaster
| So I bought a turbo manifold off ebay. I found one
that looked really nice from a company called ssautochrome. They sold
it with a down pipe (if you want to call it that) and they were guaranteed
for life. I figured it would good if they give it with a life time
warranty.
It was advertised as Stainless Steel, which is partly is. Here are the pictures I took and some commentary to go along with them. |
The Manifold. Your joking me right?
| When I got the manifold home I should have known as soon
as I pulled it out of the box that it was a piece of crap. Look at the
cheezy braces holding the collector. What are these holding?
Seriously.
Stainless Steel? Yeah right. The pipes are stainless but the flange is mild steel. Don't they know these two metals expand at different rates and will cause cracking? Stupid!!!! Wow it's shiny though, thats always the best quality when looking for a manifold, yeah right! |
Stainless to Mild Steel?
| Here is where the flange and pipe meet. You can CLEARLY see that this is mild steel welded to stainless steel. I used a magnet just to confirm what I suspected and I was right. The magnet was barely attracted to the pipe because it is stainless (VERY THIN I MIGHT ADD) and the magnet stuck to the flange like it was holding on for dear life. You can try this out at home with your moms cooking pots and the kitchen fridge to test it for yourself. All stainless my arse! |
The Collector - Rusted
| OK, so here is the collector. You can
clearly see the "stainless" is very thing, poorly welded and rusting.
Somebody else noticed it was rusting and left it under
their feedback and said this. Complaint : headers had rust in them and hack marks on the flange. paid for bad quality part Response by www.ssautochrome.com - NOT Rust, it is Manufacturing DUST -stainless steel does not RUST go read a book Click here for more of their feedback Too bad many people leave feedback before they use the product. If they waited I'm sure there would be a lot more Negative. Manufacturing DUST? Does that look like dust to you? Thats called RUST. When you use very cheap quality stainless like is used in these manifolds made by OBX (which are made in Taiwan by the way) it will rust. Stainless steel comes in different grades, YOU NEED TO READ A BOOK! You can barely speak English let alone be bold enough to tell somebody else to read a book. |
| Here is a closer view. Look at the crappy construction, and the wastegate hole. What is that? Thats like a hole burn in the side with a pipe and a flange. That's the worst construction I have ever seen. I work for a manufacturing company and if something left our plant that looked like this I would be fired. Too bad their Ebay auctions don't show these pictures. |
| Here is another view inside the wastegate flange. Geez are you serious? That is the most horrible thing I have ever seen. I seriously can not believe I paid money for this piece of crap. |
Runner Thickness - OBX Manifold
| Just so you can see how friggin thin the material is I
held a penny near it and took a picture, then took a picture of the penny
with my vernier gauge so you can see how thin it is. It's slightly
thicker then a penny so maybe 1.55mm which is very very thin material.
No wonder these pieces of crap crack so easily. So I decide to goto a local welding and fabrication shop that makes manifolds (I find this out after the fact, grrr) and ask for a sample of their material. |
Local Manifold Maker Manifold material
| Can you see the difference here? No this is not trick photography, it really is almost double the thickness of the OBX material. This is just a piece of pipe used for turbo manifolds from my local machine shop who makes turbo manifolds for Honda/Acura cars. Just as my luck goes I find these guys after buying that piece of OBX garbage. I showed them my manifold and they were shocked how poorly it was made and literally laughed at it. They bet me that it wouldn't last over a week on my car with a turbo. They have a 550hp B18C civic that runs mid 10.59 @ 135mph and is street driven (on slicks at the track) so they know what they are talking about. I'm located in Florida so take a guess who I'm talking about. I'll keep them nameless just so nobody but the manufacturer of this crappy manifold gets trashed here. |
Manifold Runner Size - OBX
| Here is the runner size of the OBX manifold. Yes it's nice and shiny, maybe I can wear it around my neck like flava-flave cause it sure as hell is not going on my car. |
| Here is the material from my local manifold maker. Again you can see it's bigger and you can also see the thickness of the material they use. |
Downpipe - Yeah Right!!
| Do I seriously need to even comment here? It's 2" outside diameter. That is not a downpipe for a turbo car, that is a piece of pipe for a vacuum cleaner! Show me a turbo car with a 1 7/8th's downpipe I show you this manifold being crapped on in my toilet (may just do that anyways) |
I go back to ebay: I went back to the ebay listing and noticed that this guy who sold it has lots of feedback. Most of it is good (I think because people leave feedback to soon) and I sift through it and find some very interesting pieces from people. Click here for more of their feedback
Complaint : headers had rust in them and hack marks on the
flange. paid for bad quality part Manufacturing Dust? Your joking right? Please see below... Complaint : THE FLANGE IS WRONG BUY A
NEW JIG...SPENT 400 TO HAVE ALTERED !JUNK!!!!!!!!!!!!! Your in business and calling a guy a "retardo" What is a "regardo" anyways? I think your refering very rudly that he is mentally handicapped. If you knew anybody who was this way you would never call somebody that. Your a total jerk, I can't believe I gave you my money for anything other then castration. Complaint : Horrible customer service
!!I Item DID NOT FIT!!!NO RESPONSE to multiple e-mails You have got to be kidding me? Your seriously responded like that? Complaint : Make manifolds with bad
welds that crack. Don't order crap for a good car. Some how I believe this guy did get a manifold. Complaint : Product was not what was
advertised, manifold cracked in 3 days! OBX Gives lifetime warranty? So what? Why do I wanna send
back 15 manifolds a year because that is what would end up happening! He left neutral feedback which is neither good nor bad. Stated a fact and gets called a Biatcch. That's Biatch your moron, you can't even spell slang correctly. Here is a bunch more that I wont bother commenting on. Complaint : Ya delivery was fast, but it would be nice if IT WOULD FIT ON THERE RIGHT! Complaint : HORRIBLE PRODUCT!NOT AS DESCRIBED! NO CUSTOMER SUPPORT BEFORE OR AFTER THE SALE! Complaint : ford focus header and flex is a p.o.s and does not fit had to modify everything Neutral : Headers no very good rust
on them the following day after installation?? etc etc etc.. It just goes on and on. |
More to come!
people think OBX is JUNK!