Who here has build/uses their own/Aftermarket intake manifold?
 

Seriously considering it.. With how ridiculously over engineered it is and now that our cars are getting up there in age, All the rubber bits are bound to fail. Looked into the cost of replacing them all, It adds up quick.

So I thought, why not just build a tubular alloy manifold? For those of you that have (even turbo applications) What IM to head gasket did you use? Or did you use the stock ones and recess into the mounting plate for the rubber o rings?

Always thought this was kind of cool. Dress the welds and powder coat or polished stainless.

That is, although mine is a m104.032, I should have specified that before. I have a single throttle body. Ideally, I would Route it towards the front of the motor.. Actually similiar to that exhaust manifold.

What rubber parts are you wanting to change? Building a manifold is going to be way more expensive and will produce less power than the stock one. ( Unless you are going to super / turbo charging. )

Smarty had a party and no body came.

I could build one for ~$200. And just about all of them. The lower to upper intake boots, vacuum hoses, intake to head gaskets, crank case hoses.

The plan is one or the other (with regards to SC or TC). I have an eaton m90 and a couple different turbos just lying around, Though I would rather go turbo in the interest of economy.


I'm sure this is some kind of poke/prod towards me..

Or heres a better question as i've never turbo'd either.. Is there a straight six manifold out there that I could just modify some flanges to make work?


Time to start looking up head and port dimensions

There is a tremendous amount of info on this site about this subject. Pumpish makes manifolds for these for sale. I have made my own. If you are going to push a lot of boost then it is a must but at low boost levels the stock manifold is fine. And the resonance manifold is a benefit. There really are only two seals to the lower manifold and they do not really go bad and normally the intake to head seals do not go bad and are typically replaced when doing a head gasket.
I do not know what engine number you have but according to the epc there is not a 104032 engine. Did you mean 124032 chassis?

With a home built you will have vacuum hoses, intake to head gaskets and crankcase hoses. All you would be saving are the intake boots that never fail unless removed. ( a pair 3" ish diameter x 5" hoses )

With the home built you apparently want to make, you would be losing the dual resonance function of the intake, long runners for low speed , short for high. Are you going to build the intake long for low end power or short for high? Building for one RPM range takes away from the other.

Just find a W140 LH intake manifold?

yes, I fat fingered 124 into 104 on my phone. It could work either way though as it is a 3.2L m104 lol.

Pumpish has taken down the intake manifolds from his site.. Or if he has not, then they are in an impossible to find location.

Nevermind, I just google searched his site. Could pull them up that way.. But not through navigating the site. interesting. Still, $711 + shipping for a box style short runner IM is a little steep. I've replaced the lower intake boots twice on the car.. The original ones were hard and split. The second ones got a bit of oil on them from a leaking PS line that caused a fairly significant vacuum leak.

I've been reading threads.. Most of what I come across in searching is.. "There is tons of info, just search it". A ton of 3-4 post long threads with dead links and no real information or confirmation.

I'm no forum noob. I wouldn't be asking if I couldn't legitimately find the information.

Well, I have been a Mercedes technician both in and out of the dealerships for 17 years. In fact I was just doing a m104 head today. I have never replaced the seals between the upper and lower manifolds or seen anyone else replace them that I have worked with. Does not mean they are not getting old but still not something that I would say is problematic.
I think that 700ish is pretty good. Having a flange cut is fairly expensive in small quantities. I asked to have the one I made duplicated by a machine shop and was quoted in the 250-300 each for quantities of 10.
This is not a engine that you are going to make 1000 manifolds or more and sell them.
But if you got the skills then get to work.
You can machine the grooves for the rubber seals or use the earlier gasket that was used on the m120 engines as well.
You do have to consider that you will have to deal with the throttle linkage and transmission cable when moving the throttle body.

I made mine from spectre parts from auto parts store.I use a large cone filter.I love the way it sounds like a horn,when taking off at full throttle

Lol. No it's not sorry. Not sure how that got here actually. It was supposed to go on another thread. And just teasing someone.

aye aye! Found an m104 3.2L for sale with a broken timing cover for $50 near me. Will pick it up and start this week!

I'm no stranger to ridiculous builds..
https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.n...9d81db20df35d2