hey everyone well im trying to start up a couple of things. I just gotta draw them up and test them on my brothers truck. Im in the 1.8t scene and the first thing im going to start producing are the Phenolic intake manifold spacers. I was wanting to know how much interest in stuff like this is. everything is kinda in the planning stage and the first thing ill start to manufacture are the spacers. I gotta find out how much it will cost to produce them and get the gaskets and bolts all packaged up and would be willing to lower the price with a group buy of the first run stuff. Just checking into the interest in a part like that. Then if everything works out we would be lookin at pullies and the like. Also looking to mock up a throttle body spacer with a nitrous port on it. What do yall think? Yes im posting this on all the ranger forums i know of so i can get an idea of the collective interest.

 

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Wat will the spacer do? wat kibd of improvements?

 

Basically what it does is if you have a metal upper intake manifold the spacer goes between the upper and lower intake manifold. The colder the air in the better the power since the air is denser. The spacer stops heat transfer from the lower intake manifold to the upper intake manifold. so what it does is lowers the intake temps causing slight gains. But it also lengthens the length of the intake runners which can more your peak torque down the rpm range some. lets say if your worried about loosing torque down low when you port your intake manifold. the longer runner will counteract some of the effect by increasing intake velocity. so between the air being cooler and the intake velocity increase, it gives you a little advantage. Im sure its more effective with other mods and such. you know how people go to the plastic upper intake manifolds? well it would be like that except you can port it which help moddablity ( if thats a word hahaha)

 

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Ya id be into it. How much?

 

well im not really sure yet i gotta talk to my machinist but im sure its not gonna be what morana is selling at $80 dollars without gaskets or bolts. id have it packaged with bolts and gaskets for hopefully around $50ish depending on my quote ( maybe lower + shipping). also if a group buy was done on the first run off of them then id probably have a lower price for everyone then. then id have an option where it was less without the bolts or however you wanted to purchase it. Id probably be running a 1/2 phenolic spacer and might also get into the fuel rail spacer but thats left for another day hahaha. i gotta work all the details out and get it all drafted up and quoted out. then id let yall know what the standard pricing would be. eventually im looking into getting supercharger manifolds but that will be a long ways down the road. since it will take a lot of trial and error and testing and R&D. I refuse to put out a product that has bad fit and finish.

 

as long as its not like one of those hoaxes like the tornado TB spacer (i never hear good things about that thing) id try it out.

 

us 3.0's know we need that! well i do anyways i cant go anywhere unless i hit it to 3200 rpms

 

yeah the tornado TB is straight bullshit. now im not guaranteeing it will give you like a ton of power or anything like that. its not gonna be like night and day. but when you start getting more air in the motor it will help work with all the other parts. like a lot of people go to the plastic upper intake and its kinda like that except you have the ability to port the aluminum intake manifold but you cant port the plastic one. so id say it would def help if your ported the aluminum intake manifold and ran the intake spacer. now i also want to get some throttle body spacers up that have a spot for a nitrous nozzle. so if you wanted to run nitrous you could slap that on run you a wet kit to it and be safe about it. that woul be fun

The 1.8t guys run a phenolic intake spacer and some have seen 5whp which is not a lot but its just that much more. im not sure what we would see on the rangers id have to do testing of before and after. but i have no money to do that so if anyone with accessibility to a dyno for free or cheap could send me the results id send them a free one to test on

 

haha yea. i havent ported my aluminum intake, more like a cleanup and smoothed the edges. if i ever got really crazy with the 3.0 and just didnt wana do a 5.0 swap i would do the nitrous spacer. but for now the intake spacer sounds like it would be cool. how thick is the spacer you thinking?

 

1/2 inch id provide the longer bolts and gaskets for it. some people say every 4.3cm lowers peak tq by 1,000 rpm im not to sure about that id have to do some calculations of my own to confirm or dismiss that. but if that's true it would lower your whole tq curve down around 300rpm which would put max tq at around 3300 instead of 3600 . i could also try longer spacers at around and inch which would lower it around 590rpm. the whole problem with going to far is that you hurt your horsepower.

 

oh so thats the downside. so for every 4.3cm you lower the torque curve but how much do you think it hurts your horsepower? theres gotta be a happy medium somewhere. your going to run all these tests to find the best thickness?

 

if i can yes. i know a lot of companies stick to 1/4 thickness but for the 3.0L 1/2 should be just about right (since its not a high revving motor). i don't have a way to test to find which the best thickness is but i wish i did. maybe one day when i have the resources for R&D. but a safe guess would be that 1/2 would be a happy medium. I believe if i went much longer without porting the manifolds that it would choke the engine up more then the heads restrict up top. Porting the manifolds slows intake velocity therefore loosing tq but you gain horsepower in the upper RPM range. so if you can port it with the spacer and keep the peak tq around what stock is with more horsepower up top then that will be the ****. But its all a give and take you just have to find what gives you a more meaty rpm range then sacrificing one for the other. so i think the real benefit to this will be when you port the intake manifolds and head accompanied with this will keep your tq curve just spot on. but of course it will still improve if you dont have this done just not be as helpful

 

oh ok i gotcha. ill look into porting them a lil more. see what i can do. and lets see if we can get more interested in this.

 

sounds good! i gotta get working on this since it seems i do have a bit of interest. just cross your fingers!

 

I,m interested. I have thought about the same thing for the same resons. I just don't have access to the equipment to make it.

 

Im working on getting all the materials and connect all the people. i have been making great progress even though i don't think its fast enough. I should have a prototype for the 1.8t coming out and once i get that going i will make the spacer for the 3.0L then go from there im hoping to have a prototype for both by the beginning of next month. I will keep yall updated about it. I also have to get the gasket material and packaging all up so that will take some hoops to jump through to get everything working. Im busting my rear to make this happen.

 

hey everyone still in the process of getting all the manufacturing lines open and rolling. then gotta work out packaging and so on. its getting there slowly but it is moving along. I got big plans for the 2.3L, 3.0L and 4.0L eventually. but im going to be focusing on the 3.0L since my brothers truck can be a test dummy.

 

in the mean time of waiting to get a quote back for my first line of parts. i have been researching some forged connecting rods and pistons for the 3.0L the crankshaft is a nodular cast iron which is very similar strength to the cast steel if im not mistaken. so hopefully if everything works out we might see some 300-400whp 3.0L. the ls1's use nodular cast iron just an FYI

 

a 300whp on a 3.0 would be awesome. no more getting lauged at for having a lil 6

 

Thats right can you say twin t25's? what will be nice is the low down tq and also no need to swap the stock crank probably just balanced it to 10k cause vibrations kill. also we are talking a better rod ratio. more to come soon i hope!

 

yea that would be sweet. throw in a set of new 1.8 ratio rockers and its a whole different motor. looking forward to it

 

yes sir. youll be able to run a lower gear ratio in the back as well for better MPG's. the motor will not struggle like it does now that's for sure. plus much much better intake manifold design then what we are stuck with, with possibly a ford lightning throttle body plate on it.

 

yea a little larger TB would be helpful on its own but with a whole new design it will really increase things. all i want to be able to do is when i punch the gas, i want those tires to spin, i want them to smoke, and i want to take off at the line, when i punch it now i get nothing.
what kind of gear ratios you thinking?

 

probably something like 3.55's not a extreme change like a 3.08 but if your going from 4.10 to 3.55's from 120whp to like 300whp youll be just fine.

 

just found out nodular cast iron is right there with cast steel.

Cast iron 70,000-80,000 psi OE engines
Nodular iron 95,000 psi OE engines
Cast steel 105,000 psi strongest of the cast cranks
1010/1045/1053 100,000-110,000 psi high-carbon factory-grade forging
5140 steel 115,000 psi sportsman-grade forging
4130 steel 120,000-125,000 psi premium alloy
4340 steel 140,000-145,000 psi strongest alloy for cranks and rods

so i believe i will talk to morana and see what his crankshafts hold power wise. Im thinking his rod ratio will not be as good as my setup. we shall see!