It wont be cheap... but it wont be insane either. We try to keep things reasonable and fair. We will have a lot invested in this by the time it is completed. Its not like a sheet metal manifold where the only investment is in having some flanges water cut and then welding up tubes.

We are casting the main part, which will be very expensive in custom cast tooling. From there we will make the plenum lids in either billet or sheet metal and perhaps down the road we can have some conversations about CF since we know a guy for that.

When the project is much closer and locked in, we will be able to gauge interest and that will have a huge factor on pricing. If we only sold 10 of them and the cost of tooling and design has to be divided up between only 10... they will be expensive as heck. But if we find that more like 30+ people are really interested than suddenly the development costs divided up starts to get pretty low.

Intake manifold projects are a little scary. Its not like a turbo kit where no matter what you do its going to make huge power and everyone has a great time arguing about negligible differences in powerband from one kit to another.

For an all-motor application, an intake manifold will either lose or make power in differing engine speed ranges, or if you really screw up it will lose power everywhere... and there is no boost controller to save you. You are pretty far in development before you really get to find out for sure on a dyno... and in the case of the aftermarket economics with the 370z, it might be too late to change things much by then.

This manifold will be a great manifold for boosted cars. But for all-motor... that is very hard to make promises until its on the dyno (since the stock unit does perform well afterall). If it loses power on all-motor cars, its not going to sell like crazy. If it doesnt lose any power on NA, it will sell non-stop just because the stock part is ugly. If it *gains* power NA, we wont be able to keep them on the shelves and the price will be much more affordable. So lets all cross our fingers it works well! The better it performs, the cheaper it will be!

Any updates on this manifold?

Now only if all manufacturers in the world would be so open and honest like Charles!

You are so right lol. Honesty in the market place is so important and makes people truly appreciate that specific vendor even more. Charles, I was wondering is anyone from Cj motorsports attending zdayz this year?

Thanks for the kind words guys. Busy season hit me earlier than usual this year but this project is still a front runner. I just keep getting pulled every which way lately.

My target is to get this released this coming spring, and I do not see anything yet that is going to prevent that. But I will have more details from the pattern builder next week I expect as he is reviewing whatever it is he needs to review while making his plan.

need a test subject once you get some made? lol

Yes I currently have a 370z here at the shop that will be used for testing :)

Was going to offer mine also. I'm testing the M370 and a ported G37 stock mani (Synergy) the end of this month. 5 runs each :)

Well, if you should need another test vehicle, just PM me to discuss.

N/A or F/I car?

Its a twin turbo car (mine). For NA testing we will probably borrow a local car from a shop here that works on lots of Z's. By the time we are shipping anything out, it will be finished retail product.

I will be interested in this project for an N/A car. I have a Z1 manifold now and would be interested to see if this produces the same or better gains once it releases. Can't wait to see the finished product!

This looks great. I really hope it makes power on NA.

If it makes power on a NA set up, I would be highly interested in a group buy if the price isn't over the top.

Its officially Spring!! :tiphat::driving:

Making adjustments to the CAD right now so that I can start cutting it perhaps next weekend.

Ditching the casting... going full billet. This means some adjustment to the design to accommodate an alternate manufacturing method from originally intended. I just dont want to deal with the delays and control issues with casting. Too many friends in the industry having too many problems and delays dealing with casting... some having bailed out after investing several thousands. I will go full billet for now, and if its a success maybe then I will work on a refined casting.

Well Charles, the longer we wait the more I think your feeding off my idea of a reveal at zdayz. Sceaming in the dark till the day comes and you go, "oh hey by the way look what we did!" Hahaha. :stirthepot:

Anything I would do would be billet... The horror stories from casting ughhh... that was part of GTM's problems with QC... The only down side is higher cost all around. Cant wait to see what you come up with.

guess I should be happy that i'll be at zdayz then lol

LOL I dont think I will be at ZDayZ... I am not registered or have any plans at this time. It would be a miracle if my car were done by then, but who knows.

I agree FP. Luckily I am too.:tup:.....hey theres the key words!!!! "Who knows"!!:stirthepot:

Damnit, I want this to happen. This manifold plus jun cams on a modified NA set up would be sick

Or just do a VK56 swap and have a sick 560Z! :stirthepot:

My pockets don't run that deep lol. That would be a sick set up. I just want 400 whp, until I hit the lotto and can afford to go boost.

Its happening. We are right there. Feb and March are the busy season for my fuel system products... happens every year, never fails. I just made it through in one piece and sales have already gone back to normal. Inventory is looking good and I am in the clear to focus on finishing up R&D.

While I dont think *I* will be able to make it to ZDayZ unless something changes and they allow last second entries, the posts above here got me thinking that perhaps it would be a great idea to see if I could get an intake manifold there for people to see. So I am going to try and use that for my deadline for now.

That's awesome. I really hope this intake mani makes a decent amount of power throughout the power band for poor people like me who can't afford boost. I would love to have this piece on my car

is there any preference for a local guy, NA Z, to get his hands on one of these? :yum:

People With Na Z are praying to the gods this mani makes power. If the right engineering goes into the design it will make power for those who prefer to stay NA

i mean we could just crowd fund your zdayz registration fee to ensure we get to see this lol

it's only $50 for the whole weekend :tiphat:

That is sort of a matter of perspective. An intake manifold design is a compromise. Adjusting the design will shift around its peformance range. If there was any free horsepower on the table, I can assure you Nissan would have found it before I could.

Since I don't stand a chance at beating Nissan at their own game, the only hopes for gains we have depend on setting different design parameters. It is possible that emissions or packaging forced a compromise on them, but other than that... It's safe to assume that they aimed for the greatest performance possible.

A manifold targetting slightly more torque such as the HR manifold does would create perceived performance gains by increasing power through the midrange, although midrange power doesn't exactly make for a faster car in terms of a drag race, but can make it more flexible and faster around a course.

I tend to be more critical of power "gains" though. I don't care for cooled-down glory pulls, or picking the best out of 12 runs to overlay from the worst of the before. I can't stand that part of this industry, and I am not a fan of people being tricked out of tons of money for a car that is only just barely faster as measured under a microscope. The butt dyno lies to please our pride.

When the time comes I will give you guys the data as it is. I don't think there is an intake manifold that will reasonably fit the engine bay and make great power for the all-motor bolt-on and tune cars. But maybe I just expect too much to personally label "gains".

It might come to that but I won't know until right at the moment of. I have decent access to Zs for testing exciting new parts on, it will just come down to whatever car is most convenient and appropriately modified to test on.

LMK, I have an un-tuned 40th with FI CBE/HFCs and a stillen Gen III intake. Glad to help

I have my race prepped nismo... We will have everything N/A needed! Plus Z1 is not too far away and we can do videos and dyno comparisons for before and after. Hit me up in PM if your interested.:happydance:

So will the intake manifold be a similar set to 1slow370z gtm manifold?

How about you bring BOTH your Z's up to Chicago, and we can spend a weekend on the dyno and drag strip!!! Or I guess it would probably be easier for me to just bring a manifold down there LOL.

Since my manifold will be multi-piece rather than one solid piece, I will have the ability to alter it a little bit.

My current intentions are to have a long and a short runner version.

1slow370z's manifold has very long runners, which are good for torque. They might even be a little longer than preferred, but unless you go very short, you have to be that long, because you have to put the plenum floor on either side of the intake "cams". the vertical space between the strut bar and the valvecover over the intake cams is too short for a plenum floor.

I believe I can keep stock throttle location, or be so close to it that minimal modification to the intake tubes is required... probably at most just cutting some off and adjusting the couplers.

Something long like the GTM prototype will put the throttles in such a drastically different location, that custom intake tubes will have to be made. Which isnt really a big deal, just worth a mention.

The GTM prototype manifold replaces the stock lower intake manifold (LIM) and goes straight to the heads. This is ideal for a zero-sacrifice manifold. My manifold will be using the stock LIM. Using the stock lower intake manifold reduces costs by not requiring a custom fuel system and custom rails, and will make installation marginally easier. It may come at a cost of a couple HP though. Or maybe not.

They did a very good job on that manifold and while we didnt get to see any isolated dyno runs with it, its obviously working well either way. It would have been nice to see how much it did gain and where the gains came in... but I am going to have to say I doubt that manifold lost any top end over stock, and probably gained a lot of midrange-low. It looks to me like a pretty versatile manifold and should even work well on high HP turbo cars running 8000rpm and below. My only gripe with it is packaging / size, and reduced serviceability. But otherwise as one of GTM's critics to the most personal degree, they did really well on that.

I am getting really anxious to start cutting this. I better get off the computer and go get the CNC fired up so I can push through this stuff in line so that I can actually build you guys a manifold. Not to mention, there was recently a fire lit under my *** and I want to get my Z back to the drag strip. That means putting it back together and that means not needing it anymore for intake manifold R&D.

phunk i don't know much about the cost that goes into the cutting of a billet prototype with a CNC but i'm curious is a CF option could be cheaper? i don't know what that would run either but i saw the AMS GT-R ptroto CF mani and it got me thinking about it.

Come on down brother! I am sure Jon@Z1 and I can keep you busy :driving:

So you would want to cut a billet die for the unit and then use it to make your outer shells. From a manufacturing cost it shouldnt be that expensive but if there are errors it would be catastrophic...