And now for some good news......Its ON 😃 Nipped in to MPG this morning and fitted it. Not to bad a job actually, I had to grind the integral washer down on one of the nuts to the same diameter as the nut itseft to clear the top of the end runner (nearest the egr) as you screw it down the stud, the lower nut between runners 3 and 4 was an arse to get to, but one flat at a time it goes, and the heat shield needs a tiny bit of triming on the left edge to fit back on properly. Other than that is not a bad job.
Tell you what I did notice. The standard manifold is rubbish. The ports dont line up properly with the head and gasket. On at least two of the runners the holes are about 3 or 4mm out of line, which means theres about 6-8mm of the hole partially blocked when fitted. If you've gone to all the effort of porting a couple of extra mm in the TB and noticed the difference, think what effect the missalignment of the manifolds having. 🙁 However, the dbilas manifold is machined perfectly and lines up exaclty with the gasket, exactly the same size ports and bang on in position. 🙂
Anyway, the results.....Fantastic! I'm always dubious of just how much better some mods are as its quite hard to feel a few extra bhp, but the before and after with this was like chalk and cheese to me. The bottom end torque that suffered from the 2.4l inlet manifold has definatly been restored if not improved and at the same time it revs so much easier. Once the revs start to pick up it just pulls harder all the way, simple as that. Id say it must have gained around 10bhp top end, and a fair chunk of torque lower down and I still havent fitted my sports cat, so I'm chuffed to bits. cheers..
Weather you would see the same improvment on a standard engine i dont know? But it seems to compliment the cams and inlet nicey.
Exhaust noise is different to, hard to explain but that just sounds smoother, and this is weird but it might be a little bit quieter? not sure on that yet, I was using an angle grinder all afternoon so I might just be a little bit deafer. lol
Anyway, all said and done, well worth £180 or whatever it works out I paid for it! 😃