Project 1 from Zedron - Honda B16 Intake Manifold

[zedron]

Heh. I know what you mean. I messed up once in the brake for this one and it was on the last bend...arghhh!!! There are two CNC'd pieces there. The first is the main flange which my friend sells, not exactly sure on thickness. Its either 3/8 or 1/2" thick. The other piece is what the throttle body is bolted to on the left and is definitely 3/8" thick because i machined it myself. It is set inside the plenum so you cant see it from this angle and since the TB is bolted on it.

[DVA]

That is a cool project. Did you have any issues with the flanges deforming when welding?

[zedron]

That is a cool project. Did you have any issues with the flanges deforming when welding?

Thanks!
I bolt them to a 1" steel jig to reduce warping. I use the same jig for when I make turbo manifolds. It still moves a little bit even with moving around to different areas of the piece to spread the heat out. The movement isn't enough that the gasket cant fix though.

[youngnstudly]

Heh. I know what you mean. I messed up once in the brake for this one and it was on the last bend...arghhh!!! There are two CNC'd pieces there. The first is the main flange which my friend sells, not exactly sure on thickness. Its either 3/8 or 1/2" thick. The other piece is what the throttle body is bolted to on the left and is definitely 3/8" thick because i machined it myself. It is set inside the plenum so you cant see it from this angle and since the TB is bolted on it.

It's almost always the last bend that gets messed up! Murphy's law! It's especially tough when braking something up that is 10' or really big/heavy, and you need to rely on another person to brake up your material with.

I quickly learned to mark out my brake lines with different color fine tip Sharpe's and use a numbering sequence! Even with that you need to watch the other person like a hawk since most of the items I would ask for help with happened to be stainless, copper, or (special order) 10 gauge cold rolled. It was always for some rush job too!

I was asking about the thickness of the main flange since it looks like 1/2". The 3/8" thick material I've used in the past for flanges seemed like fairly thick stuff, but that 1/2" is much better for your application. The ones I used for VW applications were water jet cut and it always amazed me how "clean" they were (freshly cut)! I never even had to file them to get fasteners or tubing to fit inside.

[jakeru]

Nice work... making intake manifolds with the TIG welding processes works out very well!

(I once tried making one with the oxy-acetylene welding process, which was a big mistake.)

[youngnstudly]

I read an article in an old Hot Rod magazine when I was in 9th grade metal shop that explained what was needed to gas weld aluminum with the oxy-acetylene torch, so I got some insight from my instructor and before long I was off and running.

Of course I thought I could weld any aluminum project that you would normally tig weld, but I soon found out that trying to gas weld an intake for my car wasn't such a grand idea! A lot of work went into nothing, and I haven't gas welded aluminum since!