I just felt like showing off some DIY port-matching and polish work I'm doing to a 04-05 TSX manifold for a customer's 03 Accord. The TSX manifold has a larger plenum and longer runners than the other K24 manifolds, so it yields some decent low-end and midrange gains.
Just finished up the injector base and will be done with the manifold tomorrow:
Sorry for the glare... Poor lighting in the garage, especially at night.
As you can see here, I can only get so far with a dremel snake....
Having done this to my own manifold, I know I could get about 1 inch further than I did on this one... If I put in twice as many hours as I already have. This is why I didn't bother to do the same on the 2ZZ manifold. I looked at it and realized I wouldn't get far... The minimal gains wouldn't be worth the effort.
All together:
The injector base being nearly a straight line throu is what makes the effort worthwhile here. Now these two pieces are port matched to each other, and the last 12 inches of runner leading up to the cylinder head are smooth as silk. I promise it actually feels much smoother than it looks in the pics. 😛
Getting beyond this requires significantly more tools and skills. One either has to cut the manifold open and weld it back together (which leaves a seam in there somewhere still) or ship it off to be extrude honed. Last I looked at the cost of extrude honing was throu Endyn, and it was $700 to do a 1-piece manifold.
An old picture from a long time ago. This is the LR header that I sandblasted and ceramic coated using Techline coating and an air brush. It was important to have a very light coating otherwise it will bake off. It held up for many years but as time went on it lost its heat containment and you could see corrosion making its way to the top in spots but no actual chipping. I eventually wrapped in the newer DEI header wrap that uses some sort of volcanic material that its supposedly better then the previous fiberglass versions that absorbs water and is known to swell and crack headers. I have to hand it to LR, the first versions of this header were built very well along with the swap kits he provided.
An old picture from a long time ago. This is the LR header that I sandblasted and ceramic coated using Techline coating and an air brush. It was important to have a very light coating otherwise it will bake off. It held up for many years but as time went on it lost its heat containment and you could see corrosion making its way to the top in spots but no actual chipping. I eventually wrapped in the newer DEI header wrap that uses some sort of volcanic material that its supposedly better then the previous fiberglass versions that absorbs water and is known to swell and crack headers. I have to hand it to LR, the first versions of this header were built very well along with the swap kits he provided.
An old picture from a long time ago. This is the LR header that I sandblasted and ceramic coated using Techline coating and an air brush. It was important to have a very light coating otherwise it will bake off. It held up for many years but as time went on it lost its heat containment and you could see corrosion making its way to the top in spots but no actual chipping. I eventually wrapped in the newer DEI header wrap that uses some sort of volcanic material that its supposedly better then the previous fiberglass versions that absorbs water and is known to swell and crack headers. I have to hand it to LR, the first versions of this header were built very well along with the swap kits he provided.
Got any pics that aren't so blurry ...... 🙄
I have but they are old cellphone pics and the newer cellphones add that blur artificially.
You are probably the very few that I have come across that want everything clear which is fine if that is what you feel looks good to you and for landscape photography. The industry for professional photography and cinematography is all about the short depth of field and they pay big money for it with lenses that cost more then peoples houses.
This is not some sort of new style. Its been the standard aesthetic since the old German Cooke Triplet lenses from 1893. The reason for this look is to bring about the abstract quality of a painting with subject isolation.
Here is another that was shot wide open on a 85mm f1.8 in 2008
This was taken in 2009 at a local post office car show. The employees at this small post office were all car enthusiasts. The postmaster was a big into Alfas, the women that works there had her own drag car and her team was her bothers.
Here is a picture of my friends Factory 5 Cobra. I helped a little but it was all him and it has taken him the better part of 2 years until completion. I now want to build my own Factory 5 818 car some day because I do not see anything out there except for the new Corvette that would be to my liking but not crazy about its looks. They also have a great community of folks which is also a plus. I thought it would be a rough unrefined drive but actually it was really nice with lots of torque down low and not at all dangerous as people make it out to be. Just imagine that raw feeling of the Spyder doubled.
I saw one of those Cobras on the road a few months ago. It looked great, sounded great and appeared to handle well. Both occupants had the Permagrin.
I actually thought I wouldn't like it. I have driven a few vintage cars and although they are interesting, they feel old. They drive as loose as an old Buick. I think it was somewhere in the 90s cars have made major advancements in body integrity using sophisticated computers and better build.
The Factory 5 Cobra drives better from what people say than the original by a mile. It has more or less modern independent suspension options and much better frame structure. The Factory 5 guys put in the engineering to get it to modern standards and from what the owners told me they handle nice but they can be unforgiving in the wrong hands. The only problem with this one is the non powered brakes where you have to stab very hard. The owner is planing to get power brakes as a future upgrade. The other thing I didn't like about it is the manual rack as it has too many turns to lock. If it had a short ratio manual steering like what we have in our Spyders it would be perfect. Like the Spyder you don't have to be driving that fast to enjoy it, just a little push on the pedal and it instantly pulls hard like an electric car that dumps all of its torque.
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