if you have the fab skills to build a manifold than do that.. dont waste your money on a 400 dollar 13bt replica manifold.. at least if you build your own manifold you can place the turbo where you want and not be restricted to that dumb flange that you have to buy an adapter for..
i built my turbo manifold out of 3 schedule 40 tees and 2 90's.. the actual flange cad file was got here off of mud and i had a buddy cut me one out on his torchmate table.. i made that out of 1/2" steel..
total cost for all the parts were 65 for the flange and then about 14 bucks for the tees and bends... oh yeah, and the turbo flange was bought from vibrant performance because i was lazy and in a hurry but for the 24 bucks next time i will make it.. most machine shops will than machine the flange after welding for about 40-60 bucks to get it straight again if it warped at all while welding..
if you do weld your own manifold than do yourself a favour and tack it to a table or bolt it to an extra junk head like i did to prevent warpage.. when i was done i had a buddy mill the back side but he said he only took off about .005 which i thought was pretty good..
here is what i made for my truck.. i went with the gt2052 and am pushing about 18 pounds of boost, no intercooler and some heating issues on long climbs... my egt's are still in check at about 1150-1200 psi but the engine temp is the issue... ( a stock 3b will push egt's at 1200+ degrees easily all day long....) my rad is fawked though because the fan touch it and smeared half the fins over and there isnt much flow.. the new rad is going in this weekend along with my intercooler and i am turning the boost down to 15.. (18 psi is very fun though if you arent concerned although i know a few 3bs that have run over 22 pounds of boost for years with no problems as well..) all of my additions and tuning should fix everything up..
i built my turbo manifold out of 3 schedule 40 tees and 2 90's.. the actual flange cad file was got here off of mud and i had a buddy cut me one out on his torchmate table.. i made that out of 1/2" steel..
total cost for all the parts were 65 for the flange and then about 14 bucks for the tees and bends... oh yeah, and the turbo flange was bought from vibrant performance because i was lazy and in a hurry but for the 24 bucks next time i will make it.. most machine shops will than machine the flange after welding for about 40-60 bucks to get it straight again if it warped at all while welding..
if you do weld your own manifold than do yourself a favour and tack it to a table or bolt it to an extra junk head like i did to prevent warpage.. when i was done i had a buddy mill the back side but he said he only took off about .005 which i thought was pretty good..
here is what i made for my truck.. i went with the gt2052 and am pushing about 18 pounds of boost, no intercooler and some heating issues on long climbs... my egt's are still in check at about 1150-1200 psi but the engine temp is the issue... ( a stock 3b will push egt's at 1200+ degrees easily all day long....) my rad is fawked though because the fan touch it and smeared half the fins over and there isnt much flow.. the new rad is going in this weekend along with my intercooler and i am turning the boost down to 15.. (18 psi is very fun though if you arent concerned although i know a few 3bs that have run over 22 pounds of boost for years with no problems as well..) all of my additions and tuning should fix everything up..
