[s-cars] RS2 Manifold from E-Bay

[MLP-S580]

Replica RS2 manifolds have been around for a long time.  Copies have been
cast, or so I believe I have been reliably told, in Mexico and probably
other places.  One tale has it that "original" German, or Audi OEM sourced
castings/parts should have a small letter, I can't now recall if it's a
lower case "I" (my spell checker won't let me type a lower case "I" without
converting it to upper case, or maybe it was an "n", signifying a high
nickel content iron better suited to high temperature applications such as
that seen by exhaust manifolds and turbine housings.  I was warned once,
mostly inconnection with some knock off K26 dimensioned turbine houses cast
by 3rd independent 3rd party turbocharger assemblers who needed raw castings
that could be machined to retro fit Garrett turbine & compressor wheels and
parts into, what at the time, was an otherwise completely "foreigen" KKK
mounting (a square, or more accurately rectangular exhaust gas inlet vs.
KKK's circle.)  The observation was that two parts that to the eye would, or
could look, but for the material casting identification if present, could be
made out of iron with distinctly different temperature performace
characteristics.

HTH
Mike, pent the morning checking out the Circuito de Jerez, and the afternoon
sampling some fine Sherry in the bodegas de Jerez de la Frontera  ..... I
guess that's "Cheers" brian  :-)


-----Original Message-----
From: s-car-list On Behalf Of James Murray (QA/EMC)

 BB, are you sure they wheren't the knock-off's? Maybe they've been around
longer than we all think...

/JM

-----Original Message-----
From: s-car-list-bounces at audifans.com
[mailto:s-car-list-bounces at audifans.com] On Behalf Of brian bilotti
Sent: Wednesday, August 09, 2006 9:42 PM
To: James Shackelford; s-car-list at audifans.com
Subject: Re: [s-cars] RS2 Manifold from E-Bay

James,

I would would be VERY skeptical. Are those ridges on the flange/motor side?
I just pulled an RS2 mani off for umpteenth time and this time it only has
10k on it. All other times varied between 10k-30k. EVERY time it
needed/needs to get planed flat again. They tend to bow out between 20-40
thousanths at #1 and 5. It's a gradual bow that starts at #2 and 4. 

So if an actual RS2 mani does this, I wonder what a replica would do? 

Just casting my $.02 woth into the pond...

bb