This month I set myself the target of refurbishing one of my STi manifolds to the best of my abilities without cheating, i.e. shot blasting and powder coating were out. I wanted to achieve a decent result in as short a time span as possible, by spending as little money as possible and with as little talent as possible!

After removing what was left of the original red paint i threw the manifold in my dishwasher (no parents now!) to fully degrease it. After that it was a case of masking up, etch priming and applying the red crackle-effect paint. If you fancy having a go at refurbishing your own manifold i've written a guide here.

Also this month i received the first prototypes of my billet alloy fuel rails. I've spent a few months working on the design and i was delighted when they bolted up nicely to the MY00 manifold. However, there is still room for improvement so more prototypes will be required.