ME7 manifold project 'tidy'

**Niles** · Friday 13th February 2009, 14:02

Tim & Tony kindly helped me get an ME7 exhaust manifold. Perfect condition other than a bit grubby. Clean it up I thought........Results.......
My 1st go at this type of thingy......

Final polish required (it is very smooth but shows the grind marks, not sure I'll bother a s it's going to be carboned up within a few miles anyway)

**dooby** · Friday 13th February 2009, 15:39

Hi Niles,

just out of interest how do you go about cleaning something like that. It does look like new, fresh metal again.

Cheers, Pete

**1996 850 T5** · Friday 13th February 2009, 17:26

looks like its been beed blasted?

you can get 2nd hand cabinets for peanuts now,

managed to pick up an old cabinet for £100 last summer, ace bit of kit!

**Dangerous Dave** · Friday 13th February 2009, 18:45

I'm after a cabinet to do my brothers mini bits in, missed one the other day for £50 on the bay

**Niles** · Friday 13th February 2009, 18:55

yep, a good dunk in a decarboniser cleaner bath then sandblasted, milled out using Snap On milling tools in an air driven drill @ 56,000rpm!!! Hot knife & butter springs to mind.

**Niles** · Friday 13th February 2009, 21:35

and now ready for installation.........

**p fandango** · Friday 13th February 2009, 21:39

i'm surprised you haven't milled out the top outlet from the turbo while your at it

**Niles** · Friday 13th February 2009, 21:49

to be honest mate I really thought about it & didnt think it was worth it. Still might tho. Go on, nag me!! The exhaust side has had major work removing ridges and imperfections. Super slick in there now.

**AndysR** · Friday 13th February 2009, 22:40

Blimey it's that clean I thought it had been sprayed with silver paint!! Top job will look smart, shame its covered by heat shields or aren't you going to bother refitting those?

What is the benefit of fitting an ME7 manifold are they better flowing than the 4.4's?

**dooby** · Friday 13th February 2009, 22:47

Hiya Niles,

you sticking with the straight exhaust outlet? I'm going to run a 2nd hand Volvo downpipe and cat off a C70 (I think it was) which mates up to the angle flange until I can get an uprated downpipe with racing cat.

Also, do you have the part number of the exhaust manifold gasket? I ended up with 5 individual ones and yours looks easier :-) Any idea on the price? I think my 5 individual ones were around £14 from memory?

Looking very nice, clearly I need a proper parts washer and bead blasting cabinet!

Cheers, Pete

**1996 850 T5** · Friday 13th February 2009, 23:06

It does look good, its a shame there are no decent coatings that will withstand the heat (at reasonable money anyhow...)

I havent paid a great deal of attention to the manifolds I have, but that seems very similar to the normal T5 manifold to me? What are the differences on the ME7?

I was looking at an IPD site the other day and spotted an 'R' manifold, which i presume is meant to perform better?

http://www.ipdusa.com/product.asp?P_ID=1857&CAT_ID=372

I do like that one piece exhaust gasket though (is that the std gasket on the ME7 engines?)
i wish i knew those existed before replacing mine the other week, miles less fiddly!

imho milling out the compressor exit wont aid performance one iota, so wouldnt worry about that at all.

Did you use TC burrs for the porting? Theyre a godsend for cast work, always try and keep them loaded up or theyll go dull quite quickly.

if anyone else would like their manifold cleaning up, just let me know, i could do this for people on an exchange basis if needed?

Regards

Joe

**Niles** · Friday 13th February 2009, 23:10

Manifold gasket was recommended by Tim Williams. Its made of 3 thin sheets of stainless steel, should do the job very well!!!!
Part number.... 8699467 £3.75 + VAT. Bargain!!

Im sticking to the straight outlet for the time being. Next jobs are continue tidying the cars body, then move on to more serious suspension & bigger brakes.

**Niles** · Friday 13th February 2009, 23:11

yep, the tools where Snap On tungsten carbide bits. (lent to me, not bought PHEW!!!).

**Niles** · Friday 13th February 2009, 23:15

Originally Posted by AndysR

Blimey it's that clean I thought it had been sprayed with silver paint!! Top job will look smart, shame its covered by heat shields or aren't you going to bother refitting those?

What is the benefit of fitting an ME7 manifold are they better flowing than the 4.4's?

Thanks, sure it'll go rusty soon, I might refit the heat shield but as my car is right now it hasn't one fitted, i took it off so i could set the actuator up & couldn't be arsed to refit it. lol
The ME7 manifold flows better, porting out & milling stuff helps further. The S60R manifold is the top kiddy tho. Ebay gets 175-225 for an S60R one. The ME7 go's for 50-100.

**AndysR** · Friday 13th February 2009, 23:51

Originally Posted by Niles

Thanks, sure it'll go rusty soon, I might refit the heat shield but as my car is right now it hasn't one fitted, i took it off so i could set the actuator up & couldn't be arsed to refit it. lol
The ME7 manifold flows better, porting out & milling stuff helps further. The S60R manifold is the top kiddy tho. Ebay gets 175-225 for an S60R one. The ME7 go's for 50-100.

Yeah I had noticed that the S60R manifold's go for fair price, didn't realise the ME7 was any different to the earlier version. Very interesting, Thanks

**Enigma666** · Saturday 14th February 2009, 09:54

Tim reckons he can port a late ME7 to flow just as well as the S60R manifold btw, so say £70 for the manifold and about £60 for porting from Tim, bargain

**AndysR** · Saturday 14th February 2009, 10:54

Originally Posted by Enigma666

Tim reckons he can port a late ME7 to flow just as well as the S60R manifold btw, so say £70 for the manifold and about £60 for porting from Tim, bargain

I take it the amount of porting required doesn't weaken the manifold?

Have tests been done on the flow rate of the S60R manifold vs. a ported ME7 manifold? Because that makes for a seriously interesting alternative.

**p fandango** · Saturday 14th February 2009, 11:01

S60R manifold

**Niles** · Saturday 14th February 2009, 14:03

Originally Posted by AndysR

I take it the amount of porting required doesn't weaken the manifold?

Have tests been done on the flow rate of the S60R manifold vs. a ported ME7 manifold? Because that makes for a seriously interesting alternative.

I dont know mate.

Has anyone ever seen some kind of comparison flow graphs between standard manifolds, ME7 & S60R?

**1996 850 T5** · Saturday 14th February 2009, 19:22

after reading this, i had to have a bit of a bash on my spare manifold today (will take some snaps tomorrow) haha

on looking at my manifold now, (off a 96 T5) its slightly different in quite a few ways to your ME7 version

niles, when porting yours, did you mistake any of the casting lines as cracks, when i first got stuck into the divider area, i paniced as cracks started appearing at the root of each one, once sandblasted if can see its just where it has been cast, phew!

quite a few authors/tuning guru's state that in a turbo application 'flow' isnt the start all and end all of performance, some of the best turbo manifolds are the horrible convoluted 'log' type, but they seem to deliver to goods

if you look, the 'paired' ports on our manifolds, 1&4, and 2&3 are chosen as they fire quite far apart (FO 1,2,4,5,3)

i imagine this will help two-fold, firstly, to stop the port from 'strangling' the exhaust, which would occur if the cylinders fired consequetively (sending 2 cylinders worth of exhaut down the same port), and secondly, it will help provide 2 distinct exhaust pulses.

turbo's seem to love exhaust pulses, thats why tuned length manifolds work so well, and why the dividers exist in our stock manifolds, if these are taken away too much, then the pulse effect will be lessened and it might hinder performance in some areas

with this in mind, i didnt go quite as deep into the collector as you, instead just cut back until the openings were about the same x-section size wise as the rest of the port (about 1" in the centre), hopefully should 'de-choke' the collector area, keeping the gas velocity nice and high, without the pulse waves bombing about down other ports.

having said all that, knowing my luck, it will prob perform worse than std haha