I need some suggestions on the design of an intake that I am going to cast out of aluminum for my slant(s) in the near future. It will be fuel injected and turbo charged. I'm also going to cast the fuel rail. The design of the graphics on the outside are no problem. I'm an artist and professional fabricator. I've got quite a few wild ideas of the outside appearance and finish, but would appreciate all input on shape of the interior of the casting, angles, dimensions, and especially any special features that I could build into it. Once I'm done with the intake, I'm going to cast the exhaust manifold and maybe some additional hardware to adapt the engine for the turbo and probably a intercooler. After that, maybe a custom fiberglass hood, front grill and or possibly a fiberglass fender with some kind of crazy intake and housing for the intercooler for my 75 dart swinger. I'll also be casting some reproduction and custom emblems. "DART TURBO," "SLANT SIX TURBO," "FUEL INJECTED TURBO," not quite sure about that yet. I appreciate any input!
Thanks, Dan M.

Corky Bell's <i>Maximum Boost</i> has a chapter on the design of intake manifolds for turbocharged, fuel injected engines. An injected manifold can be very similar to equal length headers - unfortunately, I can't seem to find the equation for how long the runners need to be. As a general rule, the runners need to be like extensions of the intake ports, with the same shape and cross section. The plenum volume should be somewhere from 50% to 70% of the engine displacement, and there should be a radius on the runners where they intersect the plenum. Point the injectors at the intake valves.

There's another thread going on right now about the possibility of a variable length intake runner - or perhaps a manifold with two sets of intake runners, a shorter set that opens at high RPM. The variable runners would be rather tricky though and may prove difficult to seal under boost, but a second set of shorter runners may not be as hard, particularly if the main runners curl around like the runners on many BMW inline sixes.

_________________
"Mad Scientist" Matt Cramer
'66 Dart - turbocharged 225
My blog - Mad Scientist Matt's Lair

Thanks Matt, Have you run across any PICS on the web of similar intakes
Dan M.

I haven't seen any online, but I'll see if I can do one better and try to ray-trace a few pictures of my concept for the ultimate slant six intake manifold tonight or tomorrow. I'll post the pictures once I have them!

_________________
"Mad Scientist" Matt Cramer
'66 Dart - turbocharged 225
My blog - Mad Scientist Matt's Lair

I would really appreciate that Matt. Right now I'm in the process of locating parts for my new metal melting furnace. It's going to be the "mother of all furnaces " (For a home foundry anyway) I'm a bit of a mad scientist myself!
Dan M.

Dan, check out the pictures of this turbo EFI slant that an aquaintence of mine built for his 39 Willy's Pick-up http://mysite.verizon.net/david.clement/turboslant6.htm .

His intake is a fabricated unit vs cast but may give you some idea's

_________________

Dave Clement
68 Barracuda (Hot-Rod \6)
http://mysite.verizon.net/vze4pgxf/

Interesting that this thread would appear about a week after my collection of books on home metal casting and machining showed up from Lindsay Books. I'm taking a look at David Gingery's guide to home casting, if you're familiar with that. Good luck with your project, I'll post a picture of my digital model of an intake soon.

_________________
"Mad Scientist" Matt Cramer
'66 Dart - turbocharged 225
My blog - Mad Scientist Matt's Lair

I've been on backyardmetalcasting.com lately. Are you on there too? They're always referencing Linsday books and Gingery too. I jump between here and there asking questions which hopefully will land me an intake cast in aluminum.

_________________
Slant Six... out of the ordinary - just like me!

Slanted73, Yes I have been there. http://foundry101.com/ is another good site on sand casting. I also purchased the "Home foundry ebook," but to be honest, I was a little disappointed. It's a little hard to follow, and not because it's too technical, it's just sort of vague. "How to cast small metal parts" and other books I have read were more helpful when I first got interested in the subject.

Matt, so you were the guy that bought the last copy that put the book on back order! Hope to get mine real soon.
Sure would be interested to know if anyone figures out the math of the length and diameter of the runners for the ram air effect for a 225 slant!
Dan M.[/url]

Dan,
At Foundry 101, did you ever email them an idea of an intake and ask for a quote?
Scott

_________________
Slant Six... out of the ordinary - just like me!

No, I never tried to get a quote for anyone else to do the work. My plans are to cast my own. I'm a professional fabricator with quite a bit of mock and mold making experience, mostly building custom car parts out of fiberglass, as well as modifying stock parts. I also do "side jobs" powder coating. My intake project may be slightly delayed now because I may be starting my own business (with a silent partner) powder coating, repairing "curbed" wheels, refinishing bumpers and emblems, polishing aluminum, and custom detail painting. I still plan on casting the intakes within a few months.
Dan M.

Dan,
What types of items are typically powder coated on automobiles? What is the reason for doing it? I am rebuilding a '74 Dart Sport. What would look good? Is it something I can do at home, or does it require a lot of expensive specialized equipment? Not that I want to cut you out of a paying job, but I always enjoy learning how to do new things.

Jerry

_________________
There's a difference between ignorance and stupidity.
Ignorance is not knowing any better.
Stupidity is knowing, yet doing it anyway.

Sounds like you get to do stuff others dream about. Fiberglass is another thing I've started reading about. I'd love to have a fiberglass front end for my 73 Dart where the front clip flips forward. Many moons from now...

Good luck on the new business.

_________________
Slant Six... out of the ordinary - just like me!

Jerry, As for why to powder coat, wow... a lot of advantage over paint. It's many times more durable than even the best automotive paints. It's resistant to chipping and chemicals like oil, cleaning solvents, fuel, and heat up to about 300 degrees. Perfect for valve covers, intakes, metal brackets and braces, alternators, even steel fuel lines. I also started using the high temperature coatings for things that get hot like headers. These powders are good up to 1000 with peaks up to 1200 degrees. The two things that I think are the best reasons to powder coat are that you can take any almost any factory part that will conduct electricity and withstand the baking process of around 400 degrees, and make it custom and more durable than painted parts. Even better is that when paint dries, it develops thousands of microscopic pin holes that occur during the drying process, powder coatings are basically powdered plastic that melts and flows out to make a totally sealed cover over the metal. This is why it lasts longer and is more resistant to corrosive actions. That makes it very easy to clean. Every so often I just squirt a little dish liquid on my engine and hose it off and it looks great.

Can you do it at home, absolutely, and with pretty good results! I started with a cheap gun, about $70, and an old electric toaster oven for small parts. Like any thing else that you try that works well, you soon see the potential and want to do more. That usually means spending more money! I now have a couple of non contact temperature guns ($80 each) a better gun, ($800) an inferred heating system for larger parts like car frames and wheels that I modified for faster production, ($900) parts washer for degreasing, ($200) Two sand blasting guns for different sized parts and operations, ($300) and a bead blasting booth for larger things like wheels and headers. ($600) and a bunch of metal finishing and buffing tools. Boy, I hope my wife doesn't read this! Luckily for me I work as a high end car audio fabricator at the leading shop in the Pittsburgh area, and the stuff was quickly paid for with side jobs, and work through our store.
I'm an artist, so for me, powder coating is just one more tool that I use. Sculpting, carving, molding, painting, and fiberglass are still my primary methods of fabrication.
If you decide to give it a try or have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask. As you can tell from the length of this post, I love what I do, and I love to talk about it!
Dan M.

Slanted 73, Hold on to that dream! I think that I can be some help to you. I do a lot of fabrication like body kits, custom front clips, and so on. I plan on fabricating a lot of custom parts for the slant community as an eventual part of my growing business. I'm going to use my 75 Dart Swinger to make the first prototypes for what I hope will be a whole line of custom parts for sale, starting with an aggressive 60's look mean street front clip. Hey, I think I just found a name for the line, "Meanstreet," what do you think? I'm sure someone is already using it! Anyway, I'm going to take lots of PICS of the design and production of it, and maybe write an article about custom fiberglass fabrication. As soon as the project gets underway I'll post some PICS.
Your right about being lucky to do all of this cool stuff, I can't even explain how much I love what I do, although I'm not to crazy about where I do it! (soon to change)!
A quick story. When my youngest son was about 12, he saw some of my work on one of my own cars and said I had a really cool job, and that I even got to listen to amazing car audio systems while I did it. I laughed and told him that the best part of my job was that I also cut up $80,000 cars all day, and get paid to do it! Often the guys in my shop will cut or modify a part of an expensive car and joke, "wow, I wonder how much a door pannel for a $150,000 car costs!"
Dan M.