Jump to content

Home-made plenum spacers...


MattMe

Recommended Posts

I was looking at the Motordyne website and thought to myself they look quite straight forward - particularly the basic kit.

 

Does anyone know if the 5/16ths are the same size all the way round or if they slope slighty to one edge?

What's stopping me seeing an enginner, giving them a gasket and asking them to make one out of ally at 5/16ths?

What's the Motordyne spacer made out of? :dummy:

 

If anyone knows the answers to these I may look into getting some made up so we can all enjoy the benfits at a cheaper price. Just a thought at the moment, but I'm willing to try one on mine if I can get one made for less than £200, which I'm sure I could...

 

Hmmm...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was looking at the Motordyne website and thought to myself they look quite straight forward - particularly the basic kit.

 

Does anyone know if the 5/16ths are the same size all the way round or if they slope slighty to one edge?

What's stopping me seeing an enginner, giving them a gasket and asking them to make one out of ally at 5/16ths?

What's the Motordyne spacer made out of? :dummy:

 

If anyone knows the answers to these I may look into getting some made up so we can all enjoy the benfits at a cheaper price. Just a thought at the moment, but I'm willing to try one on mine if I can get one made for less than £200, which I'm sure I could...

 

Hmmm...

not sure what mine was made off, I'd say you could easily copy one type of spacer. The one I had was same width the whole way around.

 

Oh here it is: 10mm thick, waterjet cut from single aluminum plate. <<

 

Then you need another gasket for the plenum spacer and also a gasket for the internal and some nylon spacers and bolts and if you want to reuse the normal strut bar you would need spacers for them too. Sure a quick google will give you all the stuff you need. Best of luch with it!

 

:dance:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hmmm, so it might be 'that easy' then...

 

Any ideas if the aluminium would need to be a particular grade?

 

The 'basic' spacer kits just include the plenum spacer and the nylon bolt spacers don't they? Obviously wouldn't be as good as the thermal type but wuold provide what I, and I assume most, buyers would purcahse it for - increase airflow over the front 2 cylinders. Heat soak wouldn't be any worse than without the spacer in the first place as far as I can tell.

 

Doesn't the Motordyne basic spacer just reuse the gasket from the original plenum - no extra gaskets needed?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hmmm, so it might be 'that easy' then...

 

Any ideas if the aluminium would need to be a particular grade?

 

The 'basic' spacer kits just include the plenum spacer and the nylon bolt spacers don't they? Obviously wouldn't be as good as the thermal type but wuold provide what I, and I assume most, buyers would purcahse it for - increase airflow over the front 2 cylinders. Heat soak wouldn't be any worse than without the spacer in the first place as far as I can tell.

 

Doesn't the Motordyne basic spacer just reuse the gasket from the original plenum - no extra gaskets needed?

You need one gasket on each side so OEM gasket stays and sits between lower plenum and plenum spacer underside and then on the top you need a gasket between the plenum spacer and the upper plenum chamber. If you look on motordyne website I think you can buy a full set of toys for 45$? Anyway some manufactors actually dont use the inside 6 bolts and cover the wholes up instead of using the nylon spacers (these dont cost much either way).

 

Depending on how much you need to spend on manufacture of the part itself and all the bits I think you'll do good to get away under 100£ It all depends on how much you need to pay someone to create this for you and also if you can get away with not using a gasket (using gasket on tube or similar product instead might be ok?)

 

A

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Really not worth all the hassle mate IMHO.

 

I have the facilities to manufacture these but there is much more to the Motordyne kit than just the spacer. If it had been cost effective then I would have been producing these.

 

Cheers,

 

Alex.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dont they have the gaskets moulded in somehow? As when they used normal gaskets they quite often had leaks? Moulding them in elimited a lot of them I believe, sure I remember reading that on my350z a few years ago.

 

As Alex said, if it were that easy, he and every other engineer out there could make them ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you know somebody who has, or works on a flowjet or laser cutter, then you may be able to get a limited quantity made up, IF you can find the material, sheet alloy would prove expensive, however there are thermal plastics/resin that would be suitable, the spacer/washers could be made the same.

 

but i would thing the best most cost effective way would be to mould from thermal plastic/resin but it wouldn't be cheap that way, i see no reason why silicone gasket should not be used.

 

Personally if i was going to spend £150 or more just to increase the effectiveness of a badly designed plenum, i would look into spending the extra and buy a purpose built plenum and do it properly ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting responses.

 

I know getting a one-off made wouldn't be cost/time effectinve but if I could get 10 made at say £100 each and a few people wanted them then I'd be willing to invest the time to sort it out for people.

I know the ISO thermal kits include lots of goodies but like I said before the basic spacer does what most people want it for and is one hell of a lot cheaper then a whole new plenum.

I know a company quite well who have a made a few nice bits of ally for a kitcar I built a while ago, pullies and brackets etc and their work is top-notch and done at a fair price.

 

I was wondering what people's thoughts on the feasability of manufacturing one based on the fact that from the pictures it appears to be a very basic lump of metal. If it does require another gasket I doubt they're much, or you could use gasket rfom a tube...

 

I've never actually seen one in the metal before so if anyone has could they explain what they think would make this such a difficult piece to manufacture?

 

Thanks for all the reponses so far :thumbs:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting responses.

 

I know getting a one-off made wouldn't be cost/time effectinve but if I could get 10 made at say £100 each and a few people wanted them then I'd be willing to invest the time to sort it out for people.

I know the ISO thermal kits include lots of goodies but like I said before the basic spacer does what most people want it for and is one hell of a lot cheaper then a whole new plenum.

I know a company quite well who have a made a few nice bits of ally for a kitcar I built a while ago, pullies and brackets etc and their work is top-notch and done at a fair price.

 

I was wondering what people's thoughts on the feasability of manufacturing one based on the fact that from the pictures it appears to be a very basic lump of metal. If it does require another gasket I doubt they're much, or you could use gasket rfom a tube...

 

I've never actually seen one in the metal before so if anyone has could they explain what they think would make this such a difficult piece to manufacture?

 

Thanks for all the reponses so far :thumbs:

if you got a machine that can cut it out I see no reason it would be easy to do so program the machine and put the sheet in and hit the green button :lol:

 

Not sure how many people would be interested in getting one. You'd need to get some solid numbers and timelines up I'd say and what would be included in this group buy (which it would result in and you need to then follow the guidelines for the GB). 100£ you can't really go wrong. Even if you take a leap of faith and put in 1k into it yourself and sell them over time, sure there would be interest to buy!

 

Best of luck with it.

 

A

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Really not worth all the hassle mate IMHO.

 

I have the facilities to manufacture these but there is much more to the Motordyne kit than just the spacer. If it had been cost effective then I would have been producing these.

 

Cheers,

 

Alex.

 

Hi Alex.

 

Based on the basic kit (alloy plenum spacer, gasket, 6x nylon bolt spacers and few bolts) there's not much of any value other than the plenum material it's self. Do you still think this wouldn't be cost effective?

Being that you have the facilities to make these do you have any idea of what grade the alloy they use might be, or something else suitable?

I don't mean to be disrespectful by continuing my reasearch after you have said it isn't cost effective but I would like to know where you think the main cost would be.

I think like andlid said, if I invested my own cash into manufacturing a few and sold them over time I might be able to make it cost effective, and the whole forum would hopefully benefit from it.

 

For me the plenum spacers are an all-round winner it terms of engine mods (based on what I've read). They're easy to install, improve performance, can improve fuel consumption, would extend the life of the from 2 spark plugs and are relatively straight forward to install (did I already say that? Meh, can't be bothered to delete it now). Even at £200 they're worth-while, I just feel they could be sold at a much lower price than that. They're nearly half the price in the US of A...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...