Custom Toyota 4-cylinder Intake Manifold (jakeru's #17)

I welded a custom automotive intake manifold this weekend for a Toyota Celica, which was going to be getting a turbo on it as well. Here is the final product:
Attachment 2941

I started with these "raw materials". Some nice CNC milled pieces. Everything was 6061 aluminum.
Attachment 2942

The intake runner tubes (1/8" thick, 2" OD tubing) had to be:
1. cut to a specific angle, (which I did on my horizontal bandsaw)
Attachment 2946
2. formed into this cylinder head flange shape, (which I did with a vice and a hammer)
Attachment 2945
3. beveled, deburred and cleaned for welding, (beveling helps encourage good, consistent penetration, with no hot cracking on 6061 butt joints)
Attachment 2944
4. fitted up nicely on both ends to the head flange and the plenum base.
Attachment 2943

I then proceeded to tack weld the runners up to the head flange and the plenum base,
Attachment 2948
...and I fully welded the runners to the plenum.
Attachment 2947
(On the other side of this joint, I used my die grinder to deburr the transition from the base of the plenum opening to the runner tubing piece.)
Attachment 2949

I bolted the head flange to a fixture to prevent warping during welding (and it worked).
Attachment 2958

(...continued on next post)

I built the runner tubing weld up especially thick on the inside radius of the runner tubing transition to the cylinder head flange (since I would be die grinding material away inside there, to ease the turn) Shown after welding, with fixture still attached:
Attachment 2959

The plenum was built from a cut piece of large diameter pipe/tubing, which had to be positioned precisely and tack welded,
Attachment 2950
...before doing the final welds. (Which I did making good use of Jody's "TIGFinger" heat resistant finger sleeve.)
Attachment 2952 Attachment 2951

I then welded on the plenum wall with the throttle mount (this was rather thick, 1/2" plate material, that had female holes blind-drilled and tapped on the throttle mounting side)
Attachment 2953

And after a little porting work to ease the transition from the runner to the head flange, I ended up with a rather beautiful creation...
Attachment 2960 Attachment 2956

Filler rod was 3/32" 4043, current control was done by footpedal, AC Balance was 20% DCEP (min cleaning), front end was stubby gas lens w/ #6 cup and ~14 cfh argon, 3/32" lanthanated tungsten was ground to a crayon shape.

wow that came out awesome. How long do you think it took you from start to finish? And on the picture of your band saw, is that how the clamp is made for that band saw or did u just use that c-clamp in order to get that angle for the cut?

Jake, very nice. Did you fab up all the parts in-house, bending, etc. Looks great.

Brandon - Good question on the bandsaw fixturing. My horizontal bandsaw, like most has two fences: one fixed, (which can pivot, for angling/mitering ability) and one movable (for quickly clamping/unclamping parts). For cutting these particular bends at the angle that they needed, the other leg of the "El" would have interfered with the movable fence, so I removed the movable fence from the bandsaw completely (it's not that hard, two bolts secure it from underneath in the slider slot.) I just used some c-clamps to secure it instead.

Here is another angle of the bandsaw setup:
Attachment 2961

It took me about 11 hrs from start to finish, and I made kind of a showcase of my work out of it. A good bit of time was spent getting the parts fitted up just right,
(especially getting all four runner tubes fitted just right at all 8 ends.) Welding around the runners was kind of tricky too; I had to reposition (changing the approach of vision, filler rod, and torch) several times per around-runner weld.

Mike - The customer supplied all the pieces shown in the second picture; I just put them together for him. It was fun welding on them, because there obviously was a good deal of time/effort/expense in the overall project planning and CNC machining of the pieces. Actually I was in touch with the customer several months before it was time to weld the pieces; that's how long he was planning this.

I thought it might be a kit but it didn't look stamped out. Or you have quite the shop/tools and time. :D

Looks like a lot of time both on material work and welding.

Very nice project. Thanks for sharing it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jakeru

Brandon - Good question on the bandsaw fixturing. My horizontal bandsaw, like most has two fences: one fixed, (which can pivot, for angling/mitering ability) and one movable (for quickly clamping/unclamping parts). For cutting these particular bends at the angle that they needed, the other leg of the "El" would have interfered with the movable fence, so I removed the movable fence from the bandsaw completely (it's not that hard, two bolts secure it from underneath in the slider slot.) I just used some c-clamps to secure it instead.

Here is another angle of the bandsaw setup:
Attachment 2961

It took me about 11 hrs from start to finish, and I made kind of a showcase of my work out of it. A good bit of time was spent getting the parts fitted up just right,
(especially getting all four runner tubes fitted just right at all 8 ends.) Welding around the runners was kind of tricky too; I had to reposition (changing the approach of vision, filler rod, and torch) several times per around-runner weld.

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Excellent tip, never even thought of that (Probably would have helped when making my header) but i just used a table and tried to gues the angle but i will be using this idea in the future. Thanks

excellent work jake! do you know what year celica it is an what engine its going on?
im a bit of a celica enthusiast!

::edit::
the head flange looks like a 5sfe...90-93 celica, or 94-99?
i'd love to have more details on the car!

I just spoke to the owner, and it turns out he already heard about this thread. :)

Perhaps he'll chime in and will be able to add some details about his planned Celica build (if he wishes to "go pubic" about those details.) Cheers

yea, from the pics, i figured out who that manifold was for! i am on a website dedicated to the 6th gen celica (94-99) which he is also a part of...he has been PMing me on a regular basis about parts for his build, cool kid...once i figured the flange out, and saw you were from WA, i was able to put 2 and 2 together...lmao...small internet!
i am linking him here.