Dannysyncro1.8i have found somewhere that sell a syncro specific manifold, i was searching on ebay for golf mk2 8v manifolds, found one from a company called hot-tuning MK2 MANIFOLD 1.8 2.0 8V + G60 STAINLESS STEEL item number 170265375906
i sent them a message saying do you have one for the syncro 4×4 RHD, i also mentioned it differs from the normal 2wd and differs from the lhd model, the reply was as follows
Hi,
I have that manifold for you, the price is 345gbp shipped.
It is specially made at a german company for the MK2 Synchro.
if you’re interested, i can send you a direct paypal invoice.
So let me know
Best regards,
Louise
i will ask for pictures and a few more questions to make sure its the right one, but £345 is a high price, im sure if we got 5 or 10 people together and did a group buy we could all make a decent saving, lets treat our syncros for x-mas
no such userI’d be massively surprised if a German company was offering a tubular manifold for the RHD Syncro.
LHD, yes that would be expected, but RHD I doubt very, very much. It may well be that they don’t appreciate that there is a steering column in the way.
Having personally resolved the manifold and downpipe issue twice on two separate RHD Syncros, in different ways I would be shocked if they had a sound solution that worked out of the box, without being swathed in heat-wrap and that didn’t rattle against something on the way down.
Have a look over Danny and my project threads to get a better understanding of the problem and the solutions.
Dannysyncro1.8yeah i would rather make my own than pay 350 quid if we got em to do them same price as the normal golf ones 150 and they fitted right it would be good i would have thought, i will have a look at your project threads.
Dannysyncro1.8ive looked at yours and well it looks like you may have done it with the engine out, good work though looks like its well up to the job.
my engine is well fixed in and not coming out unless i win the lottery i need to use it daily, a company in the uk will custom make one for £250 so for many others like me would be a huge help for engine tuning although the space is restricted its not that difficult to pro’s with mandrel bending equipment and proper tools.
the main criteria for a good exhaust manifold is to flow well all 4 tubes should be the same length and designed so that Each time gas is expelled from an exhaust valve a pressure wave occurs in the exhaust manifold. These pressure waves often interfere with those from other cylinders creating turbulence or stalling the air flow in the manifold and thus impairing performance. By designing the manifold tube lengths such that these pressure waves do not interfere and in some cases create a vacuum to help draw gas out of other cylinders you can see large power gains.
this is especially important when you have one carburettor feeding 4 ports through a single inlet manifold if port 1 is getting more fuel than port 2, but port 2 is able to expell less air than port 1, the ports are fighting against each other making it very hard to tune the engine. every port should flow the same this can be done on a gas flowing bench, take your head down to someone with one complete with manifolds and they can measure the air flow of every cylinder.
heres where compression comes in to play if the piston rings are not in tip top condition, there will be significant differences in cylinder compression reslulting in blow by gasses varying between cylinders affecting the mixtures and gas flow further.
volkswagen designed the engine as a whole piece, everything works well with each other, you put a 4 branch on and match the exhaust port and you create a bottleneck in the system, on the intake side this then needs to be suibtably modified either twin downdraft carbs or a custom manifold for a single carb. you do that and next up head work & cam shaft, you do that and you have a serious top end of your engine botom end now needs botom end mods being forged balanced internals. never ending list
making my own i think is really not worth the hastle i wont gain much in terms or performance compared to one done properly if a uk company will do a one off for 250, if 5 of us wanted one price would drop significantly.
no such usererm i very much dought you’ll get anyone to custom make good a manifold. i did lots of reserch into this and rang quite a few companys who were very keen to do me a custom exhaust from the “cat” back but once manifold was mentioned they became a lot less intrested. there are off the self downpipes avalible for the rallye and lhd cars these were about £495 but wouldn’t fit RHD and no way of modifying them to do so. people have had manifolds custom made for 16v’s in syncros but all of them but one has had very short primaries leading into a 4-1 collector behingd the block and following the original exhaust route from there. i don’t see that as a very good soultion but it is the easyest the exhaust on TC’s and mine were both done with the engine going in and out. if i was to be invloved in makign another it would befantly be done the way mine is with 1 downpipe ether side of the prop in a 4-2-1 arrangement if possible but this isn’t an option with the rod change gearbox as gearlinkages are in the way, hence it’d have to be done like TC’s whitch is a bit of a bitch. as getting length on the primaries and secondaries is what ghelps torque. as for volkswaged desinging the system as a whole this ain’t so on the RHD syncro volkswagen manifolds and downpipes normaly flow very well. compare the flow from the exhaust of a PB enigned 8v gti to the syncros. the pg and gu are basicly the same engine there is a few diffrences in the head and cam but pb head fits straight on and sorts that.
as for bottom ends they are very strong enignes. they are ok for 8000 rpm and ok for quite prolened streches of high rpm running compared to most engines the first issue you get is valve float whitch pops it’s ugly littel head up if revving above 7.5 k for more than a few moments
re2ive struggled to find anyoine prepared to take on a custom manifold and d/p. My less that perfect soln is using a Rallye manifold and a stumpy downpipe. Its not as good as a a custom complete system, but it will be miles better than a standard syncro manifod and d/p. I will also be very surprised to find a german company offering RHD systems. Even the systems over here have been critasised from time to time as being poor quality and they are all LHD anyway
re2