Now, I'm not saying it isn't good value and due to the fact I've been out of the country for quite a while now, I may be way out of touch but that price is excluding VAT!
When you add that on, it becomes a whopping 660 of your finest pounds. Just for a manifold? Is that then a good deal? The Ashley is less than 200!
I'm probably going to buy one anyway but I'm just interested in people's thoughts
Cheers
Dazzle
SRD manifold is £550 from Historic Motorsport, see link i posted, Ashley manifolds are crap, you end up spending the best part of a day fixing the poor welds in the inside of the flanges, i reckon £550 is quite cheap for a hand made quality manifold, the parts alone to build one are about £150 from the like of Simpsons, £400 for 1.5days of quality fab work for a manifold that will outperform all others on the market.
I really dont think thats a huge amount of money for a handmade stainless manifold proven to produce the goods, my engineering time is charged out at £1200/day! As said, £150 for materials and £400 labour is reasonable, especially considering low volume production and the R&D investment.
Yes £550 is a respectable price today to pay for a hand made exhaust manifold. However as to R&D development that's another mater. Is it just me or is the exhaust manifold the same or very similar to the the one that the now defunct John Read engines sold and fitted to their Historic 215 bhp Pinto? Maybe it's a coincidence that both companies came from a similar part of Cornwall and both engines could have come off the same Dyno, hence the same power, or is it that they are measured in Cornish Torque?
A disagree with your comments in the thread Ashley manifolds are Crap. They are what they are, representing value for money and decent performance, they are never going to have Simpson or JP quality for that sort of price. They have served the Clubman well over the years trying to compete on their low budgets, so it's unfair to knock them. If money was no object we would be having our cars built by M Sport.
I had problems years ago with a NA Cosworth engine fitted with a massive Tony Law manifold, no Rolling Road operator could ever get rid of a massive mid range flat spot without resulting to fitting small chokes to the carbs which strangled the engine. In the end and in desperation we fitted a cheap £120 at the time Ashley one and it transformed the engine. It did n't look as pretty, lost in the engine bay by its puny looks but it performed so much better.
Last edited by Forest_rallying; 25-03-2018 at 08:26.
The SRD manifold has different primaries to the old JRE one, they are longer, any product will always have the R&D factored into its price, especially when the product is made in such low volumes, the benefit of buying an engine part from an engine builder is that the majority of the R&D costs are absorbed by the complete engine build sales. Thats why Simpson rarely make and stock their own engine specific exhausts, they do them in conjunction with engine builders who invest the time in testing, thats what they have recently done with the Harris guys......another good manifold. I agree that the Ashley Grp2 is a decent manifold for the money, but that doesnt make it a quality piece of kit, its a budget manifold and as such its quality isnt great, the welds are poor, ive had two and spend a day with a die grinder dressing and re-welding. Also sometimes the manifold flange fit is poor, you end up with sprung, over-stressed pipes that can induce cracks.
I do recall spending the day with a die grinder opening the head flanges on the Ashley manifold for the NA Cosworth. The last Pinto one I bought was much better.
That reminds me, I must get round to finishing fitting the manifold and system to my own car when time eventually allows.
Also, they dont come with a lambda probe boss, not a huge issue but if you're running an AFR or closed loop injection you have to weld one in.
i think he is referring to the ashley with no boss.
Yeah the Ashley doesnt have one.
Yes, it has a std M18 lambda boss
The SRD manifold really opened up the top end of my Pinto, as well as a good torque gain around 4500-5500 rpm, i ended up using a larger main jet than with my Grp2 manifold.
I fully agree, for the price they ask, it vey well made. BUT, it says nothing about the power output. It can be very good but also opposite. I've tested many many manifolds on different engines, the results never had anything to do with shiny, well make, nice looking welds and Y joins at all. In the very beginning of the low budget Beetle we had a 150 € manifold. Maybe rusty after one season but when we tested manifolds in all price classes, none was better for a small prepared Beetle engine (and some where priced 1500 € !!!). I had the same results when I was testing Pinto manifolds.
I disagree the quality problems above, never had to re weld anything, never took out any weldings on the flanges (do not even believe it matters). I will use them again time after time unless I find one make really more power, not just 1 or 2 Bhp. I'll spend my money elsewhere.
Correct
And sometimes a manifold was made for a purpose engine, working very well but will not say it will do the same on an other spec engine. As sone as you are locked into "full race" all become very critical (and expansive because of the time and parts spend to find more).
alot of people dont actually apreciate how much work goes into making a completly bespoke manifold that not only and most imprtantly performs well, but fits perfectly and looks well. Dazzle above is a perfect example.
There are hours upon hours of painstaking labour that goes into engineering a manifold from scratch, and i get that comment so many times i know who not to waste my time on. its only a few pipes, its only a few welds, i can get one on ebay for x, etc etc. There are people that appreciate quality, precise workmanship with high attention to detail, and there are those that dont. But thats ok, everyone has their standards.
Now im sure they have very good jigs made up for cutting tube and putting the manifold together, which makes a massive difference. I wouldn't even break even in most cases manufacturing one of my manifolds for that price.
I havent seen the one SRD one up close, but it looks like decent quality for very decent price.
given the price you can pay for a top pinto £550 seems well worth it if it produces the goods and you are chasing the those elusive final bhp's
well , yeah thats the way i read your post anyway.
"When you add that on, it becomes a whopping 660 of your finest pounds. Just for a manifold?"
Maybe i took that up wrong but designing, buying material, cutting flanges, cutting tube, shaping, sanding, test fitting, cleaning, forming, expanding, welding....... takes ALOT of time for just a manifold
BUT If you'd read my earlier post you'll see I mentioned I could be way out of touch with the prices as I now work in Dollars, not pounds
Plus I will always question something like that as it makes sense to hear from other people on their opinions of something.
As it turns out I was just about to buy an Ashley when I saw this thread (not on here enough!). I've now purchased the SRD manifold so I'm not averse to spending my money, I just want to make sure I'm not wasting it
Cheers
Dazzle
Hi Alladdin
I will be putting my car back on the dyno with this manifold fitted so we'll be able to compare it.
It will be the same dyno, dyno operator but the ECU, although the same manufacturer, is a newer model. Don't think that will make too much difference but I believe our resolution will be higher in our tables, so more precise tuning?
The manifold I have fitted is a Stainless item but has cracked even though it has been repaired before. I'm really interested to see/feel what it does to the engine
Cheers
Dazzle
I've been used to pay round 1500 € for a purpose made manifold (no longer into this business). And I can say, they never looked so well as the one in the pics here. For this reason I call it a bargain. I do know very well how much time it takes and that it's more like an "art" not just a welding job. I'm working almost daily for car owners who don't care about the price, want the finest carb and has to look very well. And this is the market where I feel this manifold is best made for.
On the other hand when it comes to raw power, those nice, art looking tubes don't matter that much. When I build a power engine I try to get as much power out of it for the ( lowest ) budget. And than it will be very difficult to beat the Ashley manifold. The rest of the money saved I will invest in other parts needed for more power. I'm just not the guy who buy's and alloy cam cover for a race engine just because it looks nice, I buy and other part that makes the engine more reliable or faster.
My new manifold has turned up
One of the boys said I was like a kid at Christmas
Haven't looked at it fully but the one piece I took out of the box looked nice.
Best I pull my finger out and get on with the other things I need to do before my first track day in June
Cheers
Dazzle
Tip, i found mine easier to build from the bottom up
Hi guys. Glad the exhaust thread went that far lots to learn from one place 👍
So what happened here. I gave up, thinking that my head is poor and won’t give me more power then 150 I got stock on. Met on a tack day guy that is really into Sierra cosworth cars (many builds) and took my car to his dyno suggesting that there is inlet and maybe exhaust issue. First results even worse...around 145hp and 175 nm (before 150 / 210). Same type of dyno.
Then we cooled the car a bit, lowered the ignition (+16 instead of +18) and gave the car more air (stream directed to carbs and metal mesh filters removed). The result was 183hp and app.200nm.... running the test few times resulted in lower results each time (even by 15-20hp). Seems the engine gets tighter with heat.... final and repetitive result is 175hp and 218 nm when lots of air is blown. Very Nice but still trying
Questions / concerns :
-what size of air trumpets on my carbs you advise. Above you wrote something about special ones with 90dwgree angle edge... Can you post a photo / link to such?
- exhaust - now that I have the Ashley 4-2-1 ending with 2,5” - what should be the diameter of the rest of exhaust system ? Mine is 2,25”....some people say it should be 2,5 all way thru, some have it even bigger (2,5” and then 2,75” but on 2,3 L engine) and some say it doesn’t matter that much on n/a car like mine... wonder what you think
And latest dyno graph
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