Cyborg upgraded stock Turbocharger system
Forgive me but I read some posts somewhere about heat wraps... Do they actually contribute to corrosion or carbon leeching or manifolds cracking? Some classic car forum I stumbled on when looking up blankets and heat shield and wraps basically said only do heatshield. Given that I know nothing of this subject and you are wrapping these, is heat wrapping preferable? If you are doing a build for reliability first, is your wrap and blanket setup best?
Well, what ever you read was correct.... Only.... It doesn't apply to our cars.
Our cars come stock with some really nice cast stainless manifolds. Which means... Its really hard to get them to rust or corrode. Also means the chance of them ever cracking is REALLY slim. Once you shave them down and smooth the insides out like I do, its pretty much just not gonna happen. These are not your DSM/SVO/SRT4 type inconal cast iron manifolds. Even if they were..... I'd still wrap them, lol. If they were those older cheaper manifolds, I could prob port a turbo setup in 4.5 hours TOTAL, and I'd use 1/2 as many bits. This stainless stuff is wicked. I gave a local buddy ( secretsquirrel ) a manifold and turbine housing to port himself FOR FREE since I had a spare core. He gave them back like 2.5 months later. They were barely scratched, and he said, "I sat down two different times and tried to port these things, they are too hard and its gonna take too long, you can have them back", lol.
The turbine housing is the same stainless cast.
Also, if these manifolds were not cast stainless, I prob wouldn't weld external wastegate ports on them, but because its stainless, it welds 1,000,000% better. If they were cast inconal iron, I'd weld one on for my car, but prob wouldn't trust it enough to sell to anyone else.
But on older cars, it does hold the heat in and CAN cause issues. Honestly though, its normally worth the trade off, even on those older cars. I mean... Name a older turbo car that has a super expensive stock turbo manifold.... I'm going to use a normal cast volvo turbine housing on my car sooner or later, and I won't think twice about wrapping it because a replacement housing is $50 used or $150 brand new and it would likely take 5-10 years for that to happen. How cheap will a stock fist manifold and/or turbo be in 10 years ? They sell for $350 right now and they are pretty new, so the benefit def out weighs the cost, and again, I don't think the fist will have a cost. These manifolds are AWESOME, its just a shame they don't fit like they should from the factory, lol.
But your def not the first one to ask about that, but most people don't realize these are stainless. I didn't realize it until I went to port mine. Then I put a magnet on it, "I'll be danged, its stainless".