180sx: Intake, FMIC fabrication

January 22, 2024

180sx: Intake, FMIC fabrication

Fabricating the intake and cooler piping along with mounting it wasn't as straight forward as I originally expected. A few leftover incorrect bends later we made it though.

Anyways I began by pulling the old in bay setup I made along with the front bumper. So many small bolts holding on everything.

From here I figured I should make the intake piping first. I borrowed an ARC airbox off Tony to match the ARC cooler that I kept from the s14.

Anyways the ARC airbox bolts to the SR AFM but I'll be running the haltech so I brainstormed an idea of a intake pipe that bolts directly to the airbox. I cut a 3" hole in a sheet of alloy then used a 3-2.5" transition cone as I'll be making the intake from 2.5" piping.

This is mainly for noise as smaller diameter piping produces a better "turbo flutter" from testing. There is also the added bonus of some extra space in the bay. I'm also only aiming for 220-230kw so 2.5" is perfectly fine.

For the rest of the intake I used a 30 degree mandrel bend with a 15 degree pie section.

And all welded up. Had some difficulty welding the transition cone to the plate in some spots as I was quite rusty and handn't prepped the joint the best either.

Inside view of the airbox. The AFM/Intake bolts to a plate with a velocity stack. Wonder if the stack helps at all.

Anyways with the intake done it was time to mount up the intercooler. I made the top brackets out of some 3mm steel plate.

Then I made lower brackets which the oil cooler also bolts up to.

Excuse my toes.

Time to start on the hot pipe. I used a 45 out the turbo to another 45 to clear the intake then a 90.

Busted out the bead roller.

And a bit of dab dab.

Comparing to the first aluminium pipe I ever tried to weld back in 2017. A lot of progress since then!

The other part of the hot pipe was x3 90 degree bends.

I originally was going to retain the oem intake plenum but then I felt it was letting down the hotside so I decided to get a greddy plenum. Anyways unfortunately I had already ordered piping for the cold side so I wasn't able to use all of it. I also needed a 30 degree bend but couldn't get it from a store on a saturday and just wanted to get the piping done so I had to make it out of pie. It ended up being a 60 degree mandrel bend + 30 degree pie bend.

Which then goes to a 90 + 90 donut as I needed a tight bend to reach the cooler end tank.

Donuts are one of those items too where you need to perfect the prep to make your life easier to weld.

I welded a bung for the AIT sensor and also an AN10 male bung for IACV. I've been having a little difficulty getting nice welds on alloy bungs especially when there's a gap. Just needs more practice.