the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

B6 A4
#1

So I got my engine, it came from an 03 car and what exhaust manifolds do you think I got…

Yep the shit ones, I now have every set of exhaust manifolds for a 3.0 ;D

I snapped some pics to show a comparison between them all and it is crazy how different each one is. The engine was out of the box all of 10 minutes before I started wrenching to get the bad parts off it.

http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/979503922.jpg

This is what I found. The Horror, The Horror.

http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/792065656.jpg

http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/779954189.jpg

http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/726832242.jpg

The comparison of all 3 manifolds available for a 3.0

http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/754448153.jpg

http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/71924169.jpg

http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/653751366.jpg

And of course a test fit

http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/794211267.jpg

http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/894761506.jpg

http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/902935861.jpg

It is amazing to see them all lined up like that. My brother and believe that when Supersprint designed their headers, the car they must have had the shit manifolds due to the size of the opening of the collector. Also the gasket between the manifold and the dp is slightly larger than the one for the good manifold.

#2

God those SS headers are sexy. Crazy to see the difference between the two stock headers though. Makes ya think “wtf were they thinking?”

Glad to see youve already got a wrench in your hand

#3

nice info/pictures… the shit stock manifolds look brutal :-\

#4

Lout jnr

Could you take some measurements for me. Measure your old head exhaust ports off the heads and see if these heads are the same measurements. Then do the same on the exhaust manifolds. That would tell alot

#5

I did some measurements, however I junked my old head because it was of no use for me anymore.

The exhaust ports on the head were 36mm, I couldn’t imagine that Audi would do 2 different heads on the 3.0. Ports on both good and bad manifolds were 37mm.

The reason why the good manifolds are so good is
a) The opening is 2.5 inch, and
b) There are 3 individual runners in within the manifold. I measured the length of each, 280mm,180mm and 110mm long. This manifold is also longer than the bad one which you can see in the below photo.
c) It is noticeably lighter than the bad one as well.

The reasons why the bad manifolds are bad
a) The opening is not 2.5 inch (can be fixed)
b) there are no individual runners
c) material is not as good as the other.

I can see why Audi part way through went with the bad designed manifold, it would be a lot cheaper to manufacture as it is just on big cast log manifold in comparison to the good ones which have individual runners in a manifold casing. The amount of tooling that would have been involved to create those manifolds would have been considerable.

From the information that has come about I would think that the bad manifold were introduced late 2002 maybe early 03 and that would mean there would be a lot of cars with the bad manifolds, long tube headers might be a good idea now.

http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/515581408.jpg

#6

Awesome work! Is there an easy way for us to tell which ones we have on our cars? Eyeballing them the 2 look fairly different.

#7

lout jnr great work as always lots of great info

looks like i have a great advantage with the good ones can you take one more picture of these on there sides please

#8

I’d think poking around with a mirror sound show which one you have… look at the flanges primarily, good manifolds have one flat one

#9

Thanks Shawn - I try to help where I can. Here are some more pics you asked for

http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/975562472.jpg

http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/935992087.jpg

A mirror should do the trick and if you poke around and really cant seem to find a big lump of brown it is possible that the bad manifolds are being covered with a heat shield.

http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/330290144.jpg

I did not have a heat shield on the good manifolds, I think this is down to the design of outer shell of the manifold.

While I have an engine sitting in my garage is there any parts of it you would like to see - let me know and I can grab some photo’s for you all.

#10

yeah the good manifolds look like the standard audi air gap manifolds (the 4.2s have these as well)… good call on the heat shield, thats probably the best way to determine which you have

#11

Great job Lout, This is good info. I REALLY hope I have the larger headers.

#12

Its really easy to determine if you have a small pair of the manifolds. When you pull the Dp’s you will either see this.

http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/308188321.jpg

or you will see this.

http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/779954189.jpg

If you see the separation dividers that will tell you that you have the larger pair.

I wouldn’t get too mad if you don’t have the larger ones. You can always open up the mouth quite easy. The larger manifolds do have nice individual runners that come into the merge collector section area. While this is going to clearly be an advantage, knowing what your working with helps make for a better support system and then makes it just more of a job to find and create a great exhaust program to help make up for the short coming.

Keep in mind a proper exhaust is going to help make a larger impact in the air the car BRINGS in let alone the air the car can expel. Knowing what we are working with helps make for a better direction on all the other parts of the exhaust. Knowing that there are small manifolds is one more reason why you want to use a larger then 2.25inch exhaust.

#13

So, from what I can see, the two different manifolds are different lengths as well. The shitty one being shorter in length. If that were the case, what in that cause exhaust fitment problems? Fitment problems in general between the two manifolds, the down pipes and to the exhaust?

#14

shhhhhh Don’t tell. There are companys out there that don’t know and there talking to people about selling untested parts that they just decided to make one day. I would hate to spoil there lack of testing from pissing people off the are dumb enough to go that route vs. waiting to get the full story and results.

needless to say. This and a few other things are why there is still a little of a wait for the JHM units.

#15

Hahahahah, it pays to wait! From what I can see, while the smaller ones suck, after dremelling them out there shouldn’t be much difference in performance between the two.

I’ll check mine when the weather clears up and I can stand outside for more than 5 minutes lol. If I have the smaller ones I won’t loose TOO much sleep knowing I can make them better :stuck_out_tongue:

#16

only thing with that is, what are you going to replace your downpipes and catback with if you don’t know which manifolds you have? because they’re different sizes from the looks of it, thus won’t you need different length downpipes?

I don’t think most guys are going to pull their own downpipes before buying downpipes to replace them with, so the guys really need a method of knowing for sure what parts they have BEFORE pulling apart the car.

Any advice for the 3.0 guys there?

http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/515581408.jpg

#17

^I’m wondering if they have a way or working towards a way to verify based on VIN or production month/year. I know that’s still a bit of guess work, but may help narrow it down some anyhow.

Also, on the 3.0 is there more space in there to get a good look compared to the 4.2? I know I can get a good angle from a couple different spots to see my manifolds/headers. Granted, if the heat shield is on them like the pic Lout showed, then this probably won’t help much. From the pic right there though, I’d think you could tell the difference if you had a good look.

#18

Well if you see a heat shield, more than likely you have the bad ones.

I wish we could work it out by build date, but we dont have a large enough sample of cars. This is what i have so far.

Lout Jnr: 09/01 (good manifolds) - second engine is an 03 (bad manifolds), could not find build date from decoder
Roccity Rider - 06/02 (The guy that has the strat DP’s and Bad manifolds)
Shawn Hornet - 2002 (Good Manifolds) - Shawn can you please chime in with a build date.
Keaton@JHM - 2003 (Bad Manifolds) - Keaton if you get chance can you let us know you build date

I am going with mid 02 that Audi changed to the bad manifolds.

#19

Lol that doesn’t bode well for me…

#20

and the way that it seems to be going with the 3.0 … shawn_hornet will pipe in that his build date is 10/2002 ;D

Just to really stuff us up!