1.9L TDI Intake Manifold Flow Testing / Comparison

bhodgkiss

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I presume there isn't a handed BRM version for B5 Passats?
Was there a longitudinal version of this? I guess not
 

hey_allen

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So, assuming use of either a Malone/Darkside or homemade EGR assembly adapter fit this intake on an ALH, how much of a difference is this likely to make to responsiveness on an existing map?

In my case, I have a Malone stage 3 tune for PP520 nozzles and an 11mm pump, so I wonder if I would see any gains as it sits, see less smoke possibly, or would it cause everything to go crazy and require development of a new tune?
 

ToxicDoc

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I would think you'd need a cam to take full advantage of the manifold swap. At maximum stock lift (~ .350" I believe) the BRM has about a 12% greater flow rate. Earlier in the ramp lift not as much.
 

Owain@malonetuning

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They were intact and held open.

Agreed on the cam, this manifold will shine on big turbo setups with cams. On a stock setup your turbo is the main flow restriction.
 

Mike_04GolfTDI

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My BEW manifold has the flaps removed. Switching to a BRM manifold seems tempting, but without knowing how much difference it will make vs a BEW without flaps, I don't think I'd take the plunge.

With a VNT-17 and stage 4 tune it's pretty good anyway. I wouldn't expect a world of difference.
 

ryanp

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Were the intakes all perfectly clean? How about a test with the adapters and an 90 degree elbow like installed in the car? Or EGR delete and elbow?
 

Houpty GT

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Ryan, It looks like the PD150 intake was tested without an EGR on it in the 3rd picture. They added some clay to help airflow around the corners.

I have a 2 piece SDI long runner intake I could send for testing. Send me a PM to coordinate if you are going to retest. I have built an aluminum intake adapter for it but it has not be welded together yet. I have the block-offs for the other EGR ports ready for test purposes.
 

Yucca

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You must test also that snail type SDI manifold. But I know that it does not flow very well...
 

KERMA

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From the pictures of the manfolds mounted on the flow bench, it looks like the BRM was tested without any EGR valve or "race pipe" while the BEW had an EGR valve attached.

Curiously, there is also a picture of the various tested manifolds together on the floor, and these DO have EGR valves. Along with BEW manifold complete with egr. But were the other manifolds also tested with EGR valves installed, compared to BRM without EGR?

I understand the purpose of this test was marketing to lay the groundwork for promoting sales of the BRM manifold adapter, but was the manifold tested with the adapter attached at all? it seems to me the potential customers would want to know how the actual part performs compared to the others. Apples to apples, kind of thing. otherwise it's kind of cherry picking data to support a pre-desired outcome instead of a scientific inquiry.
 

CNGVW

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Owain took the time to get a handful of intakes to test. I see the TDI gods all have something to say (should do it this way! not real testing! trying to sell something! where they clean! could eat off them) Thank you for spending the day of your time to do all the testing Owain and letting us know the good the bad and the Ugly . As someone that has 20 years of flow bench testing and research, I know first hand the time it takes to do it.
Bob M

They were intact and held open.

Agreed on the cam, this manifold will shine on big turbo setups with cams. On a stock setup your turbo is the main flow restriction.
 

Owain@malonetuning

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Thank you Bob, do what we can. Will do a second round at some point to increase the sample size and add some other options.

If you clicked on the link Charlie https://malonetuning.com/manifold-intake-1-9l-tdi you'd see they were tested both with and without egr valves.

Of course it can always be done more accurately, meister made good points there. A PD150 is going to work just as well, this is a nice alternative if you have a BRM intake sitting around.

We don't need to sell parts, keep shaking in your boots.
 

Scott02

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Too Many
I have a long runner plastic/alum SDI manifold and a BHW manifold with all egr stuff that I'd be willing to ship to you for testing if you need it. It's all just sitting on a shelf. Email Danish8999 AT yahoo DOT com if interested.
 

senso

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Well, PD130 intakes are going for around 50-60€ in my country, saw this and started looking for the BRM intakes in ebay, snagged on for 18€ from Germany, even if its only as good as the PD150 intakes, it sure is better than my VP90 intake, and now, I can clean it, make a nice EGR delete pipe, and when I find the time to clean my intake its just a swap over, worst case, zero difference from what I have.
 

Owain@malonetuning

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I just bought a ported head from Darkside. I’d like to see what the manifolds flow on it.
might be able to work something out, adds a lot of variables though, feel free to shoot us an email at info@malonetuning.com

Will love to see how great the D24 intake outperforms the small PD intakes :)
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Definitely the way to go, wonder how close it'll be to head flow! Noticeable improvement on log style homebrew units at 30+ psi vs stock ahu/alh


So long runner SDI, ported D24, any others? Will check with Ryan about one of their units as well, also have a buddy building AWIC systems but that's not really a fair comparison since the total intake length is two feet tops.
 

turbovan+tdi

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Great job guys, I knew you had done testing but never saw this thread. Glad I saw it, was given a BRM engine last year, with an intake. :D

From the pictures of the manfolds mounted on the flow bench, it looks like the BRM was tested without any EGR valve or "race pipe" while the BEW had an EGR valve attached.

Curiously, there is also a picture of the various tested manifolds together on the floor, and these DO have EGR valves. Along with BEW manifold complete with egr. But were the other manifolds also tested with EGR valves installed, compared to BRM without EGR?

I understand the purpose of this test was marketing to lay the groundwork for promoting sales of the BRM manifold adapter, but was the manifold tested with the adapter attached at all? it seems to me the potential customers would want to know how the actual part performs compared to the others. Apples to apples, kind of thing. otherwise it's kind of cherry picking data to support a pre-desired outcome instead of a scientific inquiry.

I am sure Mark and Co are salivating at the millions they are going to make off billet adapters. :rolleyes:
 

TDIMeister

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1.6D manifold would be interesting to try. Big plenum and long, straight runners. The open rectangle accommodates the air filter and is capped with a plastic cover. This would be perfect to weld-in an AWIC.

 

InfoSec

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Awesome info from Malone Tuning and perfect timing as I am looking to begin "Phase II" as it relates to my Jetta. Now that my ML350 has been tuned/deleted by Malone, I can focus my efforts on current v. different turbo along with same and ported head v. new ported head w/ bigger values. Now I can consider a BRM adapter for my ALH or a tubular one from DD (not sure if it's worthwhile or not). Thanks again for the info. The Malone tune on the OM642 was very worthwhile and it is absolutely a blast to drive.
 

eddieleephd

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2002 jetta Wagon
Definitely interesting

As Owain pointed out earlier this is most applicable as an improvement on a vehicle using a larger turbo such as the vnt17/22 and up as they can push enough air for it to really start making a difference. Or for the person that just has an extra intake sitting around.
Owain is very knowledgeable and I absolutely respect him and his advice about what an individual should do to their TDI.


Porting and polishing of the cylinder feed tubes and inlet after an egr delete would yield excellent results for most ALH owners, however, soot quickly reduces either ones benefit on a vehicle with the egr still intact. If you were to port and polish the inlet tubes to the same ID as the BRM and increase the inlet sufficiently, you could get pretty near the same flow. However, the greatest negative impact the ALH faces to overcome is the incoming tubes 90 degree turn versus the other intakes sweeping bend.

I definitely wouldn't hesitate to put one on if I had it laying around...

An intake manifold's flow theoretically cannot exceed the cylinder head flow. We can see here that there is not a lot of room for improvement over the BRM intake manifold.

It would be interesting to see if someone wants to perform flow testing with a ported cylinder head. Find out if a custom intake manifold will outflow a BRM intake manifold (and with even distribution across 4 ports) by a worthwhile margin.
I believe that these tests are extremely flawed because their acting like a natural aspiration rather than forced air as we have. They have value in than the manifolds restriction is different between the models, however, without forced air simulation the values really show nothing other than the one that flows more has larger tubes and a sweep giving them the ability for more air to flow through them under natural aspiration.
The only real benefits to a custom intake is the ability to increase the size of the cylinder draw tubes to increase balance between cylinders that .1CFM and reducing resistance to flow moderately and would not be worth the expense until reaching somewhere between 200HP and 300 HP and intending to drive it like you stole it, especially on the track.

This is actually very interesting scientific data. Never did understand why VW insists on all its older TDI manifolds to have a strange unequal length design. A little more effort and it could have been perfected.
The length design was definitely figured well for aerodynamics of forced induction versus a natural aspiration engine requiring equal length for equal resistance. An oversized port has less resistance and based on the stock power expectancy, as Owain stated himself a cost benefit comparison was done, and the OEM design was the balance between performance and cost for stock means as theirs was for the value of making an intake versus adapter. Benefits of further improvement were not great enough at the time, however, as the demands on emissions got greater the value became greater. Hence they upgraded the intakes over the years as needed. Most likely they had all these designs in the 1980's and just never found it cost effective to implement.
Is there a mirrored BRM intake for Passat B5's please?
And what do we think to this log style SDI item?
https://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/VOLKSWAGEN...103399?hash=item43eebbf1e7:g:XJ0AAOSwsXVZY1Wp
This is the winner in the end because it is an equal pressure and distribution plenum, the short ram has minimum resistance to airflow. It wins over the other intakes overall because it has no intake sweep, or change of direction ahead of the draw tube ports. The plenum is four times the size of the combined orifice size which means that all four cylinders could theoretically draw an even amount of air at the same time, which will never be the case. The only real improvement is to port and polish the draw and intake inlet where it has the most resistance to flow.

Really the largest effective difference in the draw tubes length occurs on a natural aspiration engine, as the performed tests simulate. The length of the intake tube depicts the power band on a natural aspiration engine! Short ram intake has a low rpm 1500-2200ish power band, a long ram will have a power band in the 4000rpm range, while a medium ram intake in the low to mid 3000 rpm range. I used to love the Tacoma with its power sitting 3200-3800 rpm pulling a 3000lbs trailer up a hill at 80MPH, these come stock with a medium ram intake. I did a lot of research when I had that truck about aspiration and changing the power band a little so I could get it to run 65 @ 3200 in 4th because of speed limits and it being so difficult to run 45 in third versus 80 pulling the trailer. The best available option of course was the TRD super charger, didn't think I wanted to throw 2500 at one though.

The rpm of spool will depict the power band on a turbo setup, vnt15 beginning to spool well @ 1800ish rpm and up while the vnt17 is at 2000+ rpm making the vnt15 better predominantly for around town general driving, while the vnt17 is better for the highway.

A super charger, on the other hand, is direct drive and the pump/gearing has more to do with power band.

Anyone should fully understand what benefits to expect and supporting mods necessary to make an investment worth while. This takes many hours of research and still often leaves one with questions that only a few people can really answer from personal experience and research.

Seems that more often than not I see people here blindly recommend a VNT17 and PP764 nozzles when in reality they aren't necessarily what someone needs and possibly more than they would ever use. Theory is go big or go the **** home, and, drive it like you stole it because that's what they love! Granted, for turbo health, the occasional hard run will definitely do her good; however, we should be a little more objective and sensible in our advice.

Really, the recommendation should be a very strong, "Keep it stock with larger nozzles and a tune to match, unless you drive a lot of highway miles, and I mean a lot, or intend to put it on the track!" That is unless it's your toy and/or you don't mind decreased fuel efficiency.
 
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TDIMeister

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Any updates? Lots of people offered their different manifolds to test -- SDI (two styles), 1.6 IDI, and adaptations from D24, gasser and custom fabrications.
 

TDIMeister

Phd of TDIClub Enthusiast, Moderator at Large
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While searching around I recalled a thread by Fix_Until_Broke where he dynoed a stock ALH intake manifold vs the scroll-type SDI one. Unfortunately, the SDI came up inexplicably worse.

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=318784

Although not directly comparable to the flow bench testing here, I thought I'd post about it here just to add another data point. Hopefully apple-to-apples flow bench testing will start again with more different manifolds.
 
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