I've been chatting with someone who's organising a group buy of fabricated inlet manifolds specifically for the mk6 ST.
I'm putting up this thread here so members of this forum have the opportunity to get hold of one if they wish.

Some background:
The company making it is called Fusion Fabrications http://www.fusionfabs.co.uk/
There is no affiliation with the company making these, the idea to have a manifold fabricated was driven by the rarity of the Mountune manifolds (the only other aftermarket manifold made specifically for a fwd 2.0L Duratec, no longer available new and twice the price of this for a used one), and the Cosworth/Pumaspeed design that results in a loss of low down torque and was intended for a larger engine. The idea for this has been thrown around a few times in the past but never lead to anything. This manifold was designed to suit the 2.0L and the runners were chosen to give good mid range torque, which resulted in something that looks pretty similar to the Mountune inlet (see below)

For best results you will need the supporting modifications such as fast road cams, full exhaust etc and a custom remap. We've been in touch with Dreamscience and they are working on a map to work with this manifold, this should be available once a test car had been to Dreamscience HQ to their dyno.

The 1st batch FF is looking to make is a minimum of 10 inlets @ £650 each. A 50% deposit will be required Payment will not be taken yet of course, the details are yet to be confirmed and there aren't any concrete dates yet because it depends on getting enough people involved. This isn't an off the shelf product; each one is made to order by hand.

If you are interested, please contact Fusion Fabrications via their facebook page (see http://www.facebook.com/fusionfabs/posts/1009875959118013) and let them know you are interested, but only if you are seriously looking to put down a deposit and buy one. Please also post on here so I can keep track of the numbers, for the 1st batch we are close to 10 already.

A Thermal Gasket will also be needed which will work out at £25 if we get 10+ orders for the inlet (usually £43.00 each outside of group buy) http://www.ferriday.co.uk/thermal-products/

Here are some details of testing quoted from another page. The prototype manifold was tested on a 2.3 which obviously isn't ideal but the main idea was to show the difference between the Cosworth style and the Fusion Fabs inlet. There are also some pics and a video of the sound.

bit loud

Yeah, he had the mic in the engine bay for the video though

ah right

They should do an exhaust manifold too!

They do make custom exhaust manifolds but there's already plenty off the shelf ones available

For inlets there's only really cosworth or a replica, unless you're lucky enough to find a mountune or go the difficult route and adapt a rwd layout caterham one (also fairly hard to come by). None of those are cheap either, pumaspeed cosworth replica is the cheapest at around £400, cosworth are almost £1000 and mountune ones are going for over £1000 if you can even find one.

What has always put me off the cosworth/pumaspeed ones is the short runners optimised for high engine speed but losing low and mid range torque on a NA engine.

here's the graphs for all three MT upgrades v standard car, although the 165 has more torque low down and is the best of them all, having had all four variants MR200 feels easily a match low down for 165, depends on gearing too, my MR200 will pull very hard from 3rd when just dawdling no need to drop to 2nd at all just pulls immediate. Think max torque is 210nm not sure.

What are these 3 MT upgrades you speak of and where can I find them? Mountunestore.com only sells a small amount of products for the MK6

The MP165 (exhaust/induction/remap) and MP185 (MP165 + cams/remap) can be done at certain Ford dealers or at Mountune HQ in Essex. The MR200 (MP185 + inlet mani/60mm TB/remap) is no longer available, best way to get it is buying another car with the kit already on.

That's where this manifold comes in as people want an inlet to go to the next stage, but there isn't a dedicated one for our engine on the market. Lots of people have the Cosworth style but it was designed around a 2.3 duratec and high rpm, the fabricated one will give better driveability on the road up to around 6500rpm

I'm not sure any of the Mk6 kits are still available, you can ask Mountune directly, all Mk7 kits now.

MP165 could be done at a Ford approved garage, MP185 and MR200 both need to be done at Mountune as they need the car or ECU.

I've had all three kits from brand new car I bought in 2007, I'm now on MR200.

We now have 8 buyers which Fusion Fabrications have said is enough for the group buy once the £300 deposits come through.

He's aiming to make up a batch of 5 by the end of April then start on a second batch, of 3 so far, but he will be buying enough material to make 10 overall if needed

Defo not worth the 650 asking price!

On what basis? It's priced on materials and fabrication time. In terms of performance its been designed to give better mid range torque than the other available alternatives, so worth it from that point of view imo.

It's given results much better in the mid range than the Cosworth inlet and people pay more than £600 for that, and it doesn't even work well on 2.0 NA engines (kills torque)..... but hey, it says Cosworth on it.

Anyway... they're being made at the moment so I'll be able to say if it was worth it some time soon, but I already know it will be given the reports from the two that have been made.

I'd be keen to hear about the results once you've fitted it, might pick one up if there's a second batch and the results are good. But it looks like a lot of work to put it in, relocate the battery etc. I wish I could find a mountune inlet for sale!

Turns out you don't have to relocate the battery if you connect the filter straight onto the TB