H23 Intake Manifold onto F23 Head

Just picked up an H23 water pipe and H23 thermo-housing.

So... this project sat for a while, but I have some updates.

I ended up ditching the aluminum plate because it was difficult as hell to work with. Drilling one hole took 10+ minutes, and was eating through my drill bits, plus I received quotes from $90 to $150 to cut the ports on a CNC machine. That's way more than I intended on investing in this project.

I spent a couple weeks researching materials to use in place of the aluminum. I ran across an old thread on H-T that mentioned Outlaw Engineering.com, a company that makes intake manifold heat shields. In their tech section they state the following:

Outlaw Engineering said:

ThermoBlok spacers are made from a laminated phenolic composite with a thermal conductivity of 0.29 W/m*K. Aluminum on the other hand has a thermal conductivity of 150 W/m*K, more than 500 times higher. You must also remember that there is a gasket, commonly steel (20 W/m*K thermal conductivity), placed between the manifold and head. Replacing the 0.025" thick steel gasket with a .250" ThermoBlok thick spacer will conduct an amazing 688 times less heat (yes, that's nearly 70,000% reduction!).

The ThermoBlok spacer material also exhibits high stiffness and compressive strength, can withstand temperatures up to nearly 300°F, and has a thermal expansion coefficient very similar to aluminum to increase sealing capabilities.

Click to expand...

So... After searching high and low for these laminated phenolic composites that conduct 500x less heat than aluminum, and can withstand temps up to nearly 300°F, I found a 12" x 24" piece of grade XX Garolite (a.k.a. paper-based laminate with a phenolic resin binder). This sheet is rated for continuous high-temp use up to 285+ degrees, and costs just $29! Sounds sweet to me, right!?!

I also picked up the extended studs I'll need. Anyway, here's some pics of the progress. It took less than an hour to do all this. I'm grilling out tonight so hopefully I can get started on the ports tonight. Enjoy...

That is gonna be sick!

Made some more progress... Got a couple of the ports shaped to the F23 head. Gonna work on the other two tomorrow sometime and then begin tapering them out to the H23 ports.

If you need a flange made check out this guy.
http://weirtech.ca/
I think he is a big vendor on homemadeturbo,com. I ordered my flanges from him to make my turbo manifold and I think he does custom flanges.

Update!

FINALLY picked this back up and got the F23 ports finished. Just need to taper them downwards, then taper the other side out to the H23 gasket. I'm going to try to get this manifold on the weekend of the 15th-17th.

I've ordered all new gaskets, seals, o-rings and such, so hopefully the parts I have right now will bolt up with no issues come D-day. The water pipe issue is still up in the air, but I have both F23 and H23pipes, including the tools and parts to join them if need be.

I will work on the ports and try to finish up the plate this weekend, and post up pictures once it's done.

Here's the plate from the other day before I did the final shaping on the F23 side.

now i see what you used. im gonna have to look into that the next time i take the IM off. looks good so far man. you will be running low 14's by the time i get my car back to a track, lol

Wow, great progress so far! Any updates? I'd love to follow this build since I'll be pickin up an H23 IM and TB off craigslist for pretty cheap

Fresh head, cleaned, 3 angle valve job, new valve seals, and milled .030".








Extended studs for the new manifold and spacer plate, and gasket matched ports.








IAB plate with butterflies removed.



Holes sealed, and ports bored .030" over.



Gasket matched ports.