Weber IDF intake manifolds

The "old" manifold	Printed Rapid Prototype
Designed to fit on S&S E manifold;	Prototype on my Shovel
Prototype on my Evo	Grey is cast, blue is machined
Those that have been following this website longer will know that we made quite a few Weber IDF manifolds since 2003. Those were fabricated from homemade bends (the correct radius was not for sale) and CNC machined flanges. As they were very timeconsuming (and expensive!)  to make we stopped doing them but people kept asking me for intake manifolds. So, last year in October I decided to design a cast aluminium version, a plenum manifold in fact! Rapid prototypes were printed to test the fit and EMD machined the tooling.    As I was running out of time, and the casting company was very busy, I decided to have a go at casting the manifolds myself. As I might have expected casting hollow parts is a LOT more tricky than casting solid parts! First step is making a core for the hollow part, using fine sand and 3% sodium silicate and then hardening this mix with CO2. For the first try I discovered that there is actually still a lot of moisture in sand that looks dry, so on the next castings I dried the sand in the oven before mixing. I made a lot more cores than castings in the beginning as they are very easy to break, in fact just getting them out of the mold in one piece is a challenge.
The core after hardening with CO2	The molds for the core
Ready to pour some molten aluminum!	Have to let it cool now
A bit rough, but not too bad	After welding and cleaning up