MACE intake manifold insulators for "VE" Alloytec

[LuminaME]

Just finished installing these, and starting this to share info for who might be interested and having any question about product or supplier.


A) MACE Service : Abdolutely great support, Superb customer service. Steve from MACE who's looking after their products on this forum is great in response, speed, accuracy, and you'd never have any question ignored without answer. Then shipping was almost instant after completing the order. I couldn't exepct any better. Thank you steve.

B) The Product: Very nice piece of work, perfectly cut to size, fits in place golden without any issue.

C) The Process (Install): The instructions given on MACE website are very clear and helpful if you need them. Although the job is straight forward by it's own and will be very clear for you what you need to do if you were for little any time in mechanical works.
Install went very smooth untill the last part -tightening bolts. Within 30minutes I could remove the intake manifold, clean the ports and mating surfaces, put the insulator, put manifold back and all.
BUT, the bolt which is most on back of manifold which sits under the plastic trim below wind shield. This is BASTARD ONE BOLT, It took me one full hour tweeking and manuvering to get to tigthen this bolt. Because with insulators raising the manifold, eliminated space on top of this bolt. If you are not good with your hands, I advise you either to remove the plastic trims above the manifold, or take it to someone who knows only because of this damn one bolt.

I used 2 sets of oem gaskets (on both sides of spacer) instead of silicon gasket maker. For that I thought I am going to finish the job in very short time and would need to drive before silicon gets to dry. (LOL ... by the time I finished the bastard back side bolt, silicon would have dried). Note that VZ Alloytec wouldn't have this difficult access bolt issue, because manifold bolts are placed in different points (especially this back side sucker).

Plastic engine covers fits in place golden without any issue.

The raised manifold helped to raise my CAI intact little farther away from radiotor .

One note about the longer bolts which come with the insulators kit. They came out little extra long, I had to put additional 3 washers with each bolt, to have them tightened before they reach the end inside the threaded hole. And that one bastard bolt on back side, I used OEM bolt so I can put it into hole through limited available space. IMO It should be safe as it did hold thread for more than 7 turns.

(To MACE: Although in total length your bolts are equal to OEM bolts plus like 10-12mm, which is appearantly as required. But OEM bolts are not threaded to their whole length untill tip, and rather tapered at tip with smaller diameter, this is why they might be not hitting end of thread inside the hole in OE configration. IMO you should supply bolts 5-7mm shorter than you already do ... this is for VE to be specific, I don't know if it's same in VZ)


D) Performance: Yesterday I only let her warm up for few minutes to give her time for re-learning. Today I had my first drive with insulators on the car. First impression is very good.
Yesterday I was to clean my intake filter and MAF sensor, but I on purpose didn't do them so I don't get any mixed results like drive improvment that could come from these maintenece work. Also I didn't reset ECU for the same reason.
- Throttle response: the car absolutely feel crispier in response when I push on the pedal. The usual lag of response feels much gone.
- Power/Torque Gains: Sorry, but no roller dyno around to prove any, only the old buttotronic dyno measures. So, in comparison my car now with 20" wheels (32Lb wheel+28LB tire at each corener) feels much like it used with older 19" wheel combo (was 25Lb wheel+26Lb tire at each corner) . So, I am not sure of the math, but the performance gain "compares" to total 36Lb rotating unsprung weight.
- Fuel economy: Just last week I had reset trip meter, and on a 40km combined city/highway to work the display showed me 11.6L/100km (@55km/hr avg). And today I reset trip meter again, on exactly same 40km road, display reads 10.9L/100km (@56km/hr avg). I am not too much sure how accurate are the display readings, but from my experience I know they're very close to actual (I do monitor my fillup to fillup km/L). Last thing, I know today I was little harder on the drive (to see how this thing performs).
Note: this is all in low-mid range rpm, trying to duplicate previous drive. I didnt get to WOT or anything in high end.

All in all, I am happy with it like I was when I had put my ever first CAI.

This is about it for now, if anything comes up new I'll update.

[MACE]

Thank you very very much in regards to in depth constructive feedback of the product and service

We're always open the the possibilities of reviewing our designs/products, therefore the fastener length will be looked into in due course.

Best Regards,
Steve

[LuminaME]

updated

[MACE]

Ah sweet