Phenolic Spacer for N5x/S55

[camberadam]

This is just breaking up some very good heat transfer from the head to a nice quality manifold. Never a bad idea. If you piecemeal a system and every or nearly every chance you get, you do little things like this, in the end you'll end up ahead. It's just solid practice. How much ahead? Who knows. It's not necessary, but none of this stuff is. Some guys love doing all the little detail oriented things. I get that. And FWIW, I felt one of these metal manifolds after a 1/2 mile run and she seemed like she could use a phenolic spacer. Hot hot hot. I have no dog in this fight, but it's hard to argue it's a bad idea.

Chris

^^^ Couldn't have said it better & generally how I've approached this project.

 

[matreyia]

View attachment 4315 So after doing some testing we have developed a Phenolic spacer to isolate our intake manifold from the heat of the cylinder head. The spacer is custom machined to fit all three platforms N54, N55 and S55 and will be included with all of our newer manifolds going forward. For those of you who have other intake manifolds, you may also want to consider this spacer for heat management. You can even install it with a stock manifold if you so wish. We will be selling it in three different ways:

1) 8mm thick Phenolic spacer with OE gaskets and custom studs for stock style manifold flange thickness. $129.99ea
2) 8mm thick Phenolic spacer with OE gaskets only $97.99ea
3) 8mm thick Phenolic spacer no gaskets or studs $79.99ea


There will be a link on our website to order in the coming days.

We will be releasing some data over the next few weeks. We will also be doing some testing with the stock intake manifold just for comparison.

Also for those interested the new manifold that fits all three platforms will be releasing over the next few weeks also. We will start another post on that when it is all ready to go!

Please use link below to order:

https://www.eospeed.com/collections...pacer-for-n54-n55-and-s55?variant=40327211465

Holy shitballs... I just installed this thing and it totally works. So any of you armchair engineers who don't have an aluminum intake manifold should just keep your ignorant mouths shut. Here's what I did:

1. Before install, drove the snot out of the car and tried to put hand on the intake manifold...which could only tolerate for .5 seconds.
2. After install, drove the snot out of the car, same route same engine and coolant temps and put my hand on the manifold and could keep it there indefinitely.

Before install, manifold surface temperature was 180 f at the engine/manifold connection and 150 f at the manifold main body surface.
After install, the manifold surface temerpature was 150 f at the engine/manifold connection and 120 f at the manifold main body surface.

Also, engine felt stronger after oil temps were 200F, unlike before installing the spacer. It felt like less laziness and less effort when pushing accelerator to pass cars. It wasn't really throttle response, but rather the energy build was faster after the throttle was applied... so throttle response didn't change, only the part after the throttle responded felt different - quicker build after throttle engages.

I did a log of pre-install IAT and it was 80 F ambient, sitting in traffic for 1 minute after driving for 40 minutes and the IAT was 100 f.
Today it is raining and will be for much of the week so I have to wait until it dries and gets to 80 f ambient temperature to log the after install IAT, then I will report if there is any difference in IAT temps... logic dictates that IAT 'shouldn't' be affected since the temperature sensor happens before the intake manifold, but perhaps the lower intake manifold will help IAT because engine bay heat is reduced do to reduced manifold radiant heat.

Stay tuned for the updated IAT at 80 f ambient temperatures report.

Wow... I would have gotten this thing when I installed the metal manifold but I had no idea it existed. Shows how ignorant I am.