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3D printed Intake, B230, help?

Louis95

New member
Joined
Nov 4, 2015
Location
Virginia Beach VA
Hello, This is somewhat performance but not sure, I'm kinda new here.
Anyway I have been looking for intake manis for the b230 engines and besides Sweden and some very expensive one I have had little luck. Today I began a cad project to make one that will hopefully be able to be printed in ABS plastic like many modern manifolds are. I am not in any way an expert with cad an the going is slow. If any one wants to help out that would be awesome and I will share the file with anyone who wants it. If I make a good printable manifold I will share that as well. Thoughts, Ideas?

This is what I have so far.

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I think you're mistaken, ABS doesn't have anywhere near the heat handling capabilities of an intake manifold. Especially bolted directly to the head. From what I'm reading, most intakes are glass filled nylon, which has way higher temp resistance than ABS.

From a design perspective, if it's 3d printed, get rid of all those sharp corners and put huge radii everywhere. Sharps = stress concentrations which will be the first failure points.
 
I think you're mistaken, ABS doesn't have anywhere near the heat handling capabilities of an intake manifold. Especially bolted directly to the head. From what I'm reading, most intakes are glass filled nylon, which has way higher temp resistance than ABS.

From a design perspective, if it's 3d printed, get rid of all those sharp corners and put huge radii everywhere. Sharps = stress concentrations which will be the first failure points.

Yeah, looking into this now, Manifold isolators like yoshifab's could work but that's more money. I may have access soon to a CNC machine so that is a possible option. Thanks for the advice, an like I said new engineering student so all help is welcome.

Also I have access to a 3D printer at little to no cost at my university so if its cheap enough and works I can just make a few back ups for when they wear out. This is for a budget drift car, track day only, experiment with old wagon car so reliability isn't to important.
 
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That looks like it would have hood clearance issues. Runners are too long/not arched. You might want to take some measurements. You also need to watch out for the brake booster.
 
ABS won't melt directly, but it will get soft. Phenolic spacers MAY be enough to keep the heat off it. For prototypes and sizing, print skeletonized samples to save filament. Another option would be aluminum runners, then a printed plenum. I suspect another thing to look into would be throttle body mounting. Assuming a 3inch throttle body, how would you mount it? Speader plates on the backside? A metal reinforced plate the size of the throttle body? How do you plan to make it airtight?


Remember no right angles in the plenum design, where air flows. Probably the best place to look for information regarding plenum design would be home AC systems.
 
A guy not too far from me printed these manifolds for his Subaru 6 that is going into a 914.

Not running yet, but I guess he has done some testing on the material with scale models and brought them up to what temperature they would see in a running vehicle.

polyamide 12 is the material.
 

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The SLS Nylon is a viable choice for manifold material, but it's going to be expensive and still have a limited service life, you could break up the design into smaller pieces and glue/weld them together.. That would reduce the cost somewhat.
However, Sound like you have access to an FDM machine.. in which case I'd say use a higher temp material if possible like Ultem and consider designing the mounting flange in Aluminum.
It's hard to beat a fabricated intake manifold, It might seem easier to make a manifold using RP, but in reality it can be a PITA and expensive.
I have access to a full range of RP processes at work and I'm rarely able to make RP materials work on engine parts.
If I were doing this, I'd seriously consider only 3D printing the plenum, and fabricate the runners and flange.
Good luck!
 
I'm with Pat. Straight runners and a plenum like that won't clear the hood
 
You could just use PLA as a plug and investment/sand cast it yourself in aluminum. That, in my opinion, would be the cheapest and most effective route. I don't think ABS will do well. It will heat up and get pliable, then deform with any real amount of boost.

Also, unless you print that in sections and glue it, removing support material will be a huge pain.

My friends who make VW parts at Integrated Engineering have 3D printed a few manifolds to test their designs. They always print it in quarters and glue it together due to size constraints of their printer. I think they ran it on a motor for a while, but not under any type of competition or daily driving scenario.
 
I do not believe that any of the several rapid prototype/3D printing processes and materials will be strong enough for continuous use. There is a sintered metal process that would work but it is expensive and there are not a lot of these machines around. The casting option would probably be more cost effective
 
This is a thought provoking thread, in that there is so much neat info on plastics! As to sintered metal, or casting, that just takes one right back to fabricating a manifold because of cost, doesn't it?
 
From the look of the 3D design you have come up with, you could probably have the flange (and top & bottom of box?) lasercut, then cut tubing and bend sides of airbox and weld the whole thing together
 
From the look of the 3D design you have come up with, you could probably have the flange (and top & bottom of box?) lasercut, then cut tubing and bend sides of airbox and weld the whole thing together

What he said. Your design does not merit 3D printing at all, its quite simple. If you were to 3D print something why not do some flow analysis on it and make it some super efficient and interesting shape.

Also printing in ABS is super Porous(most printing applications are). The ones that are probably less porous are the SL acrylics since a fluid is used instead of a powder. If you're boosting this engine, goodluck. ABS weak point is the connection between the layers, and in the direction you would be printing this would have a huge failure point("DANGER TO MANIFOLD"). Again you might get away with a SLS nylon or acrylic, but you would really have to thicken it up to get the strength needed. I could see the nylon ballooning in boosted applications, its quite flexible.

Anyways if you're looking for 3D printing check out Shapeways. They will do SLS Nylon which should be able to handle the temps you require.

I was thinking of experimenting with a 3D printed intake for a small Honda motor like a gx160, and I will probably use the acrylic or nylon.
 
Why get real when you can benchrace?

Winning. Unfortunately I think op is realizing it's a major pipe dream and his best bet is do it proper with aluminum. Btw there's company's that sell all the tubes, flanges, and plenums so you can build your own fairly cheap
 
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