Robbie C's Ibiza Cupra

[jamiebennett81]

removed ina manifold, which was poor fitment, caused by the drilling being offset so the access to 2 of the nuts was very difficult.. you can see the extent of the offset the bolt holes caused by the exhaust manifold gasket witness :thumbdown: Previous ina one i have fitted did not have this fitment issue, but did need the usual grinding off the top flange face.. erratic quality between batches from china perhaps.. who knows

JBS one lines up, although I have to reject one of the supplied mounting bolts for turbo as its rolled threads were "wonky" - new replacement should land tomoz

jbs manifold fits well
also have to replace a damaged stud which no doubt was caused during the ina manifold installation.

You know if I ran a business trying to make a good name for myself, especially with one of the largest UK forums I would ensure a bit of quality control, with products that actually fitted. Poor show in this case

hope the JBS Manilfold lives up to what it's meant to do Robbie, especially after all this attention to detail by yourself

 

[Robbie C]

Thanks Bill for all your continued help, makes me even more confident about choosing to swap this for the JBS mani now.

For sale: one INA manifold

You know if I ran a business trying to make a good name for myself, especially with one of the largest UK forums I would ensure a bit of quality control, with products that actually fitted. Poor show in this case

hope the JBS Manilfold lives up to what it's meant to do Robbie, especially after all this attention to detail by yourself

Cheers Anton - it's all in the detail

To be fair it's just a case of having spent so much money on the car buying all the perceived best parts I want to be sure that nothing lets it down

 

[INA]

removed ina manifold, which was poor fitment, caused by the drilling being offset so the access to 2 of the nuts was very difficult.. you can see the extent of the offset the bolt holes caused by the exhaust manifold gasket witness :thumbdown: Previous ina one i have fitted did not have this fitment issue, but did need the usual grinding off the top flange face.. erratic quality between batches from china perhaps.. who knows

Thanks for letting me know about these issues on a PUBLIC FORUM Bill. If this is a poor attempt at damaging the rep of a great product then you are a little late....bad batch or not.I have sold over 300 of these high flow manifolds and EACH AND EVERYONE of them perform above par.
Sorry but for a K03/K04 turbocharger you do not need a $900 manifold.

From the pics I've seen of the THS manifold they look very similar to me... so much so you could almost suspect they're imported from the same Chinese manufacturer or similar...

Ok Ok...these kind of rumors need to stop.
Couple of points:
1. Mexico != China ....Chinese manifolds have much rougher castings and the flanges are not machined as flat. Know your competition
2. It is VERY easy for someone to buy a product from your eshop and in 6 weeks (YES 6 weeks!) have a copy of it built to the EXACT same specs.
3. I have been selling the highflow stock manifold for 4 years and counting....long before I was a member of SCN and LONG BEFORE any other companies out there offered a similar solution. After we did our manifold,Kinetic came out with theirs and then ebay started getting FLOCKED with them.I can tell my manifold from ANY of the others due to the finish and the and the tooling used on the flanges.The only difference between our manifolds and ATP's is I have not CNC'ed "INA" into the top of the collector.

Why is our manifold so cheap? Because the Volkswagen Golf/Jetta guys in 2006 allready paid off for the initial investment.....so YOU benefit from it. If you want me to raise the price so that they do not seem like "chinese quality" or "chinese pricing" I can easily do so. Like I have stated before in a previous thread.....there are places in North America where you can manufacture products for as cheap as the far east and STILL maintain that quality.Not everything that is cheap comes from China.

Any other questions I am more than eager to answer but I do not carry manifolds from the far east. You will realize to save long term there is really no point....

 

[jamiebennett81]

Ok Ok...these kind of rumors need to stop.
Couple of points:
1. Mexico != China ....Chinese manifolds have much rougher castings and the flanges are not machined as flat. Know your competition
2. It is VERY easy for someone to buy a product from your eshop and in 6 weeks (YES 6 weeks!) have a copy of it built to the EXACT same specs.
3. I have been selling the highflow stock manifold for 4 years and counting....long before I was a member of SCN and LONG BEFORE any other companies out there offered a similar solution. After we did our manifold,Kinetic came out with theirs and then ebay started getting FLOCKED with them.I can tell my manifold from ANY of the others due to the finish and the and the tooling used on the flanges.The only difference between our manifolds and ATP's is I have not CNC'ed "INA" into the top of the collector.

Why is our manifold so cheap? Because the Volkswagen Golf/Jetta guys in 2006 allready paid off for the initial investment.....so YOU benefit from it. If you want me to raise the price so that they do not seem like "chinese quality" or "chinese pricing" I can easily do so. Like I have stated before in a previous thread.....there are places in North America where you can manufacture products for as cheap as the far east and STILL maintain that quality.Not everything that is cheap comes from China.

Any other questions I am more than eager to answer but I do not carry manifolds from the far east. You will realize to save long term there is really no point....

and this explains how the manifold doesn't fit because.......?

 

[INA]

and this explains how the manifold doesn't fit because.......?

Anthony how am I supposed to know there is a fitment issue if i am NOT TOLD About it?
I have had to modify the manifolds 4 times now to fit properly onto various Seat motors.
If there is an issue LET ME KNOW.
That is the only way a solution will be found.I am not a difficult guy to deal with as you have dealt with me in the past and you know I am always willing to work with customers to solve there issues.

 

[jamiebennett81]

Anthony how am I supposed to know there is a fitment issue if i am NOT TOLD About it?
I have had to modify the manifolds 4 times now to fit properly onto various Seat motors.
If there is an issue LET ME KNOW.
That is the only way a solution will be found.I am not a difficult guy to deal with as you have dealt with me in the past and you know I am always willing to work with customers to solve there issues.

you missed the point, didnt say you were difficult to deal with and have always sorted my issues very well , but....

should it not fit right from the outset?

 

[INA]

you missed the point, didnt say you were difficult to deal with and have always sorted my issues very well , but....

should it not fit right from the outset?

Of course it should.
They are test fitted before shipment.Think about this for a minute,why would I have a manifold shipped half way across the world only to have the customer tell me "nope sorry bud this thing dont fit please send other". That would mean I would then have to ISSUE a call back tag for THAT manifold and ship ANOTHER manifold at ME expense.

That is shipping 2 packages that I did not need to pay for SO if there are issues I NEED to know.
Coming on a forum and telling everyone about the issues BUT the person who is selling the manifold does both the person and the product no justice.
I have said this time and time before. You have an issue...send me an email and Bill knows better.
He wouldn't like someone to do that to one of his products so why do it to someone else?

 

[cupramillo]

dont mean to stick my oar in, im happy with my manifold but its been 4months now and apart from a paypal reciept i still have no actual invoice for my manifold. Also when AMD Essex fitted my mani they infored me that the 3bolts that came with the mani were all different lengths and different threads! These had to be replaced at my cost! Not having a go at INA but it will make me thinj twice about buying something else from them. Yes it only happened to me but it still happened. That said im happy with the product and its a great price and does the job well. Just my 2p

 

[INA]

the 3bolts that came with the mani were all different lengths and different threads! These had to be replaced at my cost! Not having a go at INA but it will make me thinj twice about buying something else from them.

I showed Philip (and will happily show you) the invoices for where I buy the hardware. I do not buy Imperial threaded bolts - only metric so for you to GET 3 different length bolts with different pitches is obviously going to raise a red flag with me.When I buy bolts it is in a box of 100 pieces, not 10 or 20....
Why would I ship 3 different bolts knowing its going to give you issues....

Sorry for being defensive but some of you really need to be realistic with these claims.

 

[cupramillo]

Sam i know you wouldnt send them if you knew they werent right. Im just pointing out facts that happened to me. Im happy with my manifold, i run a business so i know how important customer service is. Yes you have always replied to me, but when you say things like "im really busy and i havent got round to your invoice yet", that just doesnt cut the mustard for me.

Anyway this is Robbie's thread and i dont want to clog it up anymore.

 

[INA]

Sam i know you wouldnt send them if you knew they werent right. Im just pointing out facts that happened to me. Im happy with my manifold, i run a business so i know how important customer service is. Yes you have always replied to me, but when you say things like "im really busy and i havent got round to your invoice yet", that just doesnt cut the mustard for me.

Anyway this is Robbie's thread and i dont want to clog it up anymore.

I didnt say I was "busy"
I understand how important an invoice is for you.Check what time this reply is being put in....Ive been doing that since December started.

If these "facts" are happening I need to know.I need to know the guys in shipping are doing the jobs they are assigned to do.If I went back to a 1 man operation there would be NO time for product development which would mean I would last all of about 12 months tops.

 

[ibizacupra]

Anthony how am I supposed to know there is a fitment issue if i am NOT TOLD About it?
I have had to modify the manifolds 4 times now to fit properly onto various Seat motors.
If there is an issue LET ME KNOW.
That is the only way a solution will be found.I am not a difficult guy to deal with as you have dealt with me in the past and you know I am always willing to work with customers to solve there issues.

I have removed this manifold with some difficulty, and it was not consistent with the one I fitted to Jamie's Leon, which was the same manifold (INA supplied) - There is significant inconsistency between these 2 for whatever reason.

You have been informed months ago by me of the top flange needing grinding down to clear heads, yet many months after, people on here reported the very same problems, so even when things are reported, nothing was done.

There is clearly some manufacturing inconsistency on the alignment of the bores to the mounting hole drilling, which results in this instance of very difficuly access to a few nuts, and this offset nature of the ports. When centred and machined correctly, like JB's was, it was a good fit, once top flange was ground down to clear the head.

 

[ibizacupra]

Of course it should.
They are test fitted before shipment.Think about this for a minute,why would I have a manifold shipped half way across the world only to have the customer tell me "nope sorry bud this thing dont fit please send other". That would mean I would then have to ISSUE a call back tag for THAT manifold and ship ANOTHER manifold at ME expense.

That is shipping 2 packages that I did not need to pay for SO if there are issues I NEED to know.
Coming on a forum and telling everyone about the issues BUT the person who is selling the manifold does both the person and the product no justice.
I have said this time and time before. You have an issue...send me an email and Bill knows better.
He wouldn't like someone to do that to one of his products so why do it to someone else?

I would suggest the "test fitment" is no more than do the holes line up with a jig, not are they centered against the port runners, which is the issue on this example pictured.
If you give them this feedback they can check and amend their process and fixtures and this issue should not occur again.

 

[Robbie C]

Thanks to everyone for their contributions. I'm really not interested in turning my thread into a finger-pointing slanging match but it's helpful for everyone to realise any problems I encounter to help people make their own informed decisions about the products they choose to buy.

I know I keep saying it but thanks once again to Bill for all your efforts and professionalism here, I couldn't have left the car in better hands.

 

[INA]

My apologies Robbie

 

[cupra gti]

Robbie do you know what bhp your running? i have just about the same mods on my cupra with a ko3s and had it rr and its running 306bhp at the wheels, a first for jbs i believe

 

[Damoegan]

Robbie do you know what bhp your running? i have just about the same mods on my cupra with a ko3s and had it rr and its running 306bhp at the wheels, a first for jbs i believe

306bhp on a normal k03s or is that a hybrid k03s?

 

[-pseudonymous-]

Robbie do you know what bhp your running? i have just about the same mods on my cupra with a ko3s and had it rr and its running 306bhp at the wheels, a first for jbs i believe

Must be a hybrid surely, and i assume you mean 306bhp at the fly.....

 

[jamiebennett81]

was that result pulled from JBS's rollers per chance?

 

[Robbie C]

Interesting...

I haven't had mine RR'ed yet but with the INA manifold Bill logged a maximum air flow of 227 g/s from the MAF which, using a conversion factor of 1.25 translates to 284 BHP, with 8.25 degrees of additional ignition advance achievable through water/meth which accounts for another 15-20 BHP.

So.... potentially running 300 BHP or very close to with these mods.

Bill's going to see if the turbo has anymore to give now the rods are in and once the JBS mani is fitted so we'll see