Hey,
Has anyone heard of these or had any experience with them?
http://opgi.com/product.asp?topcatid...6652&yearrange=
They would help with a look of originality over headers for sure. But will these equal or gain any more performance over headers? What is being referred to in the comment "the smooth passenger’s side casting eliminates the need to plug the crossover pipe boss" Thanks for the input.
Rob

 

I have a set of original W/Z manifolds on my 455 and they look and work great, not as easy breathing as a good set of headers but better the other stock manifolds. You can find the repo's on e-bay for 250.00 or less and if you are patient you can find originals for less. I paid $200.00 for mine including shipping. Just remember to request good pictures of a used set if you go that direction to make sure they are not cracked of the bolt taps are broke.

Here's a craigs list ad http://phoenix.craigslist.org/evl/pts/1620372946.html

 

They do look good. Manifolds vs headers performance the header flow better.

When they are talking about plug on pass. side. The factory manifolds for a single exhaust had the crossover pipe run from the driver side manifolds and bolt on to exhaust port on the pass side. When people would go to a duel set up. You would have to plug the pass. side crossover port. These new ones are made to be true duels that look factory.

 

Is this what you are looking for? This is a pass side manifold, it's a little rusted, I think I'll bead blast it tomorrow.

I cannot read the numbers they are kinda worn off, the motor mount was broken on that side and it looks like it was rubbing.

New motor 081.jpg

New motor 085.jpg

 

This comes up every few months. I strongly suggest that you carefully compare these expensive manifolds to stock SBO manifolds. You fill find that 1) they are exactly the same size externally, so there is no flow benefit. 2) The "divided runners" are simply a plate about 1" deep between the two center ports. They do NOT have the true divided runners of the real W/Z manifolds. 3) The only difference from stock SBO manifolds is that the crossover port on the RH manifold is blanked off.

Don't believe marketing hype. Inspect them and make your own informed decision.

 

That's a Toro maifold. It will work on a RWD SBO, but the outlet flange is not in the same orientation as a real SBO manifold, so custom piping is required.

 

ram air restoration has some for bbo that have a 2.5 outlet . Dont know about sbo????

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Olds-...item1c10705155

Is this suitable for SBO use? Are these suppose to flow better than stock? I am not familiar with Ram Air Restoration products.

 

W and Z manifolds are great. I didn't know that there were reproduction manifolds. I have a set I got from a member and they work well. They are especially good if you want to keep your car "original."

 

These are exactly the same manifolds sold by OPGI and Thornton. My comments above apply to all of them.

 

Yes, W/Z manifolds have been reproduced for a number of years. These SBO manifolds are NOT W/Z manifolds, despite what the marketing writeup may say.

 

I'm glad I asked. Now I know "the rest of the story". Thanks Joe, that money saved will come in handy elsewhere...

 

im not saying joe is wrong but I do now as far as pontiac and their ram air manifolds are concerned there is a difference in vendor to vendor ram air restorations make from what I have seen personally the best one for pontiac both quality and on the dyno. The other guy to talk to would be greg gessler porting

 

Thank you, I was wondering what it came off of...

 

The biggest advantage of those manifolds is they offer a nice clean way of installing duals on a small block. There's no real performance difference since any of the log-style manifolds will be fairly restrictive. As has already been said, of the factory Olds manifolds only the divided runner BBO manifolds really flow well. If you want a significant performance advantage you'll have to use tube headers.

 

I have found from my own experience that mildly cammed Olds motors just don't need headers. They rely on torque to get the job done. Use the W/Z manifolds with confidence, they work great.

 

will the w and z work on a sbo?

 

Nope. If they did, the factory would have used them on W-31s instead of the crappy stock SBO manifolds with the cap.

 

ram air restoration make's no claim of a power gain they do say on their web sit just as your ebay add states that they are new have dividers and can be coated they are not the manufacture but are looking into maybe doing a set
like their bbo and pontiac stuff ( joe was right )

 

I have personally looked at these manifolds at Carlisle. They are NOT four separate ports like the BBO W/Z manifolds. As I noted above, there is a 1" deep divider between the center two ports, and THAT'S ALL. There is physically not enough volume in the SBO manifolds to run four independent runners, which is why the factory didn't do it. Again, you are paying $300 or more simply to have the crossover port blanked off instead of using a cap. If that's worth the money to you, have at it.

 

I agree with Joe on this one. Your can find the Original W/Z manifolds but you have to spend some time looking

 

Just like I have, thanks for rubbing it in!

 

Joe, thanks for all the advice. I have one question concerning the stock SBO exhaust manifolds. I don't have as much a problem with the cap on the crossover port as much as I do the butterfly assembly that is stuck right in the middle of the exit on the opposite manifold. It looks like some kind of contraption with a spring on it, that may be temp controlled? what is this for, and is it OK to remove it? It seems like that is restricting the exhaust flow in a major way.......Can it be cut out, knocked out? What are people doing for this?

 

That "heat riser valve" in the exhaust manifold is there to promote faster warm-up of the engine. The bimetal spring and weight close the butterfly when cold to force exhaust through the intake heat crossover passage and get the engine up to operating temp sooner. As the engine heats up, the spring expands and opens the valve.
For performance use you can and should remove it. Just cut it out and weld the shaft holes shut. Alternatively, you can cut the butterfly off and leave the shaft in place. This also lets you keep the stock appearance if that's important to you.

 

What we need is some enterprising soul that happens to have access to machine tools that can take an old, cracked, otherwise scrap W and/or Z manifold & try grinding the flange on an angle to see if they can be made "installable" on SBO.

Alternatively/Concurrently-
How about a relatively thin, angled plate, milled from steel - something like heavy blank header flange stock, angled to "roll" the manifold away from the SBO block? To my mind this might work but I have never really looked at it since I have no manifolds, machine tools, or skill to operate them. Would there be Xmbr & Uppr Ctl Arm interference? Seems to me someone w/ the pieces to this puzzle could spend 3-4 hours on this & have a pretty good idea whether it was worth pursuing.

If it worked, I would think someone could make a little side business @ relatively low cost & moderate time. I know I would pay say, $75-100 for a set of spacers that allowed me to put good manifolds on an SBO. I would guess there would be a market of at least 50 people or so who would probably be interested near term. Seems there are many that would like to avoid headers if they had a good option. Figure $400 for repop manifolds & adapter plates is still waaaay cheaper than a set of coated Super Comps. Quieter, minimal or no fit issues, stock or stock style pipes.

Only problem is, we don't know if the idea has any viability. So someone get to work on this, I'll volunteer to be a test mule & will buy the product after successful testing!

 

The W/Z manifolds will never fit a SBO due to their size. No amount of grinding will make them fit. That is why Throntons made their own version of a SBO dual exhaust manifold.

 

I picked up a right hand manifold off an olds powered cadillac fwd that is similar to the new production stuff. I haven't tried to fit it to my Olds because I don't know if it will be an improvement. Any thoughts?
George

 

George, Oldsguy and I took a driver's side exhaust manfiold off of a Toronado with a 455, modified it, and installed it in a 69 Delta 88 on the driver's side. This allowed us to run dual exhaust without the Thornton manfiold. At the time we weren't aware of Thornton. IMHO, it is better to buy the reproduction manifold.