Sean I'm sure it will probably be fine. If you hook your boost gauge up to the manifold though (perhaprs you already do) you will see that there definantly is nearly constant pressure in there for as long as you hold the throttle open, that's the idea behind having such a large volume in the intake, so that it can easily fill the open cylinder without much pressure drop. In any case you still haven't eliminted a fatigue failure, over many cycles the aluminum will be more and more likely to crack. If you used thick enough material and did a good job welding then it will work, I just wanted to give some constructive input from experience on how the design could be improved if needed, or for others following along.
You are absolutely correct about the constant pressure which is why I stated that you are never building and storing pressure for long periods of time. I should have stated high pressure though and I do run my boost gauge on my manifold. I ran a p trim with a .68 and .81 a/r on a T4 flanged turbine so I was only under constant high psi from 4600 or 4800 to 6700 rpm and positive psi from 3500 rpm to redline. The manifolds are built out of the same basic thickness material as the runners are. I use 5057 rod to weld them to the cast piece and I think the aluminum is 4043 or 5057 also. Most of the time I ran a street boost level of 19 psi and have made about 10 dyno runs ( 1 @ 19 psi and 9 @ 29psi) plus about 5 runs down the track and so far so good. This is one reason I don't build and sell manifolds like Ron or Seth does. I like to test everything I build and I punish my car as far as it is either on the dyno or the track. I don't have the time to build manifolds for sale and Ron does a beautiful job on the ones he does, so the community definitely has an outlet for top quality intakes. It's always interesting when you build stuff for a car to try to figure all the forces that will work on a specific part. I have built commercial trucks for the last fifteen years and welded many frames together and dump truck beds on chassis so I know exactly where you are coming from on concerns of stress and fatigue. I am always looking for way to improve on designs so I am open to suggestions, advice, or critique good or bad and I appreciate you voicing your concerns because I sure don't want Dave having any issues. I build caps and put 60 psi of shop air in the manifolds and leave them for 5 to 10 minutes, but this of course does not test stress under operating temps.
Empera the stock alternator tensioner is used it is moved to the stud at the bottom that used to hold an a/c bracket.
Sean
You can see the stock tensioner in some of the pics.