10 October 2010

HKS AE86 cast turbo manifold (real and copy)

Description: T25 turbo exhaust manifold

Pros: Fits pretty decent, cast manifold, brutally reliable.. Top mount so everyone can see your cool turbo in ya face!! If you got the guts for it, you can put on a t25/t3 adapter and bolt up a t3/t4 and it can stick out the hood and you can make a functional hood scoop. :)

Cons: Top mount causes turbine housing to be too close to the brake booster where eventually the heat will shred the diaphram and cook the fluid in your brake booster YAY. Also causes the downpipe to have a sharp angle and its difficult to route a big downpipe with this setup. These were made originally to be on a right hand drive JDM car. Forces the oil return line to be pretty much right on the exhaust manifold.

Improvements: Angle the turbo slightly with the compressor pointed away from the block to get the downpipe and the turbine housing a bit of room away from the brake assembly. Angle the pipes downward to allow larger turbos to be mounted up without cooking the paint off the hood.

Verdict: Its a buy, it does what its supposed to do, just needs some cleanup as far as spacing and such. Actually its reported that the HKS and knockoff cast exhaust manifolds make some of the best hp around if you can just get the thing fabbed in correctly. I know a considerable amount of people who just gave up on the darn thing because it was hard to make a downpipe fit.