WillRace4Food

I will be doing a full test. Before and after results on the same dyno same day. May even do a with stock TB then the NW 102. According to how froggy my tuner is feeling.

Michael_D

To make it a fair test, air flow re-mapping, spark, and WOT cal should be done with the OE stuff first. Make a baseline pull, recording AFR and also LTFT's under low speed / low load rpms across the entire MAF-Lo table. Then make one change and make a pull. Record the difference. The pull should be started at 1500 in forth, not one of these 2500 starts you see all the time. Then record the same info as the baseline. Then make calibration changes, if needed.

WillRace4Food

My tuner is going to see if he can get anything out of the current setup with stock intake since he didn't do the tune and this car has never been on his dyno. Then we will install the msd. Im not real worried about a 1500 wot pull. thants lugging things down pretty low. But he will be doing drivability changes too. Im pretty sure this will be a fair test.

fueledpassion

I might be able to do this. I have a ported one that I intend on installing eventually. It needs a 102TB but I've considered just installing the manifold itself to see what it gives me. Maybe later do the 102TB/CAI.

However, my car hovers around 500rwhp at the moment with the upgraded H/C package it has on it so it wouldn't be a stock comparison. I don't expect much without headers though...

But I only committed a fraction of the cost for this piece.

Michael_D

Do you not drive your car in fourth, at 1500 rpm now? And do you downshift at that rpm/gear to pass someone? Start it at 2000 if you think 1500 is too low then.

I'm not changing anything, this is just for anyone else that might be on the fence.

68Stang

Several people I know have had similar results even with a Fast 102. I asked about a Z/28 at that was at a shop for some work. It had the MSD who had similar results as me. Even asking around at various meets and events people have experienced the same less than stellar outcome.

My manifold looked good prior to both installations. The second time it went on with the black gaskets and the addition of a NW 102.

fueledpassion

From what I understand, MSD had several versions of this manifold before they "got it right".

The early manifolds apparently sucked pretty bad (according to my source).

WillRace4Food

I cruise the car in 6th at below 1500 on the interstate. I regularly run around town at 1500 or less..i only get surging if it gets down to 1200 or so. If i go WOT Im grabbing a gear at the same time..ha. I will just let the torque do the job if im just passing a normal car..

I know allan starts his pulls later in the rpm. But i will have before and after drivability reports to give.

68Stang

I was one of the first ones. I was first on the forum to post results as well. But visually it looked great. Little to no casting issues, it all lined up well.

Fyi to those of you with gaps in the runners tighten the bolt that runs the length of the manifold and they should close up. I noticed that when I loosened everything on mine to clean it inside and out.

Who is your source?

PeteZ06

If I purchase one.. is there a way to tell which casting I received?

Also curious who is your source.

duhveed

It's a great intake this is a back to back comparison on a mustang dyno vs a Fast 102

Dan_the_C5_Man

Compare stock intake with stock TB, to MSD and stock TB - definitely down for that, please do it.

REDZED2

Mike...

I shoulda pointed out, yes the gains below 3000 rpm were small but jumped very nice from 3K and up.The MSD's all seem to have that hiccup down low then smooth out.. I am unaware of port work or juts port matching... Yes the early ones had QC issues... didn't FAST back in the day? Comp had lots of issues early on... This MSD is a baby, give it time. Listen these intakes are for bored people with 4 digits of cash to spend that need those extra ponies to hit their 9.99 or whatever.. This would be my last NA bolt on after H/C/E etc..

Whis9

From what I can tell this performs well in the mid range and top end, I do not care about dyno numbers but performance. Like I mentioned in an earlier post my car will be road course use, getting close to pulling the trigger

Michael_D

I'm more interested in how the engine behaves with this intake off idle, up to 2500 rpm. That's something that is impossible to 'see' on a dyno sheet, but you can see quite a bit during a pull in the data collected during the pull - assuming you have the correct PID's selected.

This manifold, theoretically at least....should not perform as well as the OE or the Fast off idle. The runners are shorter, which is contrary to what you want for better off idle/low rpm behavior whenever you have a common plennum on a cross plane crank V8.

Hib Halverson

I've been fooling with the MSD Atomic Air Force manifold for LS7 for several months. Actually, I had one back in February but it had some appearance problems with "casting flash" and some poorly finished seams. These problems were cosmetic but, as a result, we couldn't do any photography with that manifold.

I had MSD send me a second unit, which was made with production tooling, but it took a while to get it. That's the manifold I eventually put on the engine and, after some calibration work, ran on the chassis dyno at Westech Performance Group in Mira Loma CA. I shipped the first manifold back to MSD and it was "repaired" and shipped back to me early last summer for me to use in more photography work. Interestingly, all the cosmetic problems had been repaired.

In the meantime, because of the need to change the intake manifold volume parameter, which is not supported by HPTuners, I had to teach myself to use EFI Live. It took a several weeks for me to get where I was comfortable enough with EFI Live to begin calibrating for the manifold change. In the end, EFI Live was a better choice for doing the cal on an LS7 with an intake manifold volume change as large as you get with MSD's Atomic Air Force manifold. As with any change which affects air flow to the extend that does the MSD AAF, it took me some time to get a cal with which I could go to Westech's chassis dyno.

The engine in my car is stock except for Red Line 10W30 oil, a mix of 91-oct. and 100-oct unleaded gasolines, a Zip Products "Mamba" air filter assembly, MSD coils, MDS plug wires, Denso IT-22 spark plugs, a 2011 "two-cat" exhaust and my own by-mode exhaust modification.

The MSD Atomic Air Force test at Westech had mixed results. First, the bad news: I didn't get useful data from the test of the AAF with the stock air filter assembly because of a engine controls fueling problem which was not easily solved in the short time I had use of Westech's Superflow AutoDyn.

The package of the MSD manifold with the Zip Products "Mamba" air filter assembly did well, providing a near 22-hp SAE at-the-wheels increase in performance compared to the baseline test which was the stock intake manifold and the stock air filter assembly. The baseline configuration peaked at 453.7-rwhp@6200-rpm and 423.0-rwlbs/ft torque@4900-rpm. With the MSD "AAF" and the Mamba installed, the engine peaked at 475.6-rwhp@6050-rpm and 450.9-rwlbs/ft torque@5000-rpm. That said, looking at the power curve along with my data log from the DLC and the wideband tells me the cal still issn't quite right for the Mamba.

In addition to almost 22-hp at the wheels for a peak increase, the AAF and the Mamba increased power and torque from the low-end on up. Using the 15% driveline loss rule-of-thumb, the LS7 in the Blue Bullet II is now making just short of 560-hp. All power and torque numbers are SAE-corrected.

That much of an increase from just a change of the manifold and air filter assembly was impressive...and, from the looks of the torque curve, there's more performance to come with further calibration revisions.



Currently, I'm working to solve the problem with the AAF and the stock air filter assembly then rerun that test in the future.

Vito.A

The MSD intake is a great option for the LS7. I compared some of the dyno charts from "one of the other forums" and it appears the MSD out performs the FAST from 5000-7000rpm, but the FAST out performs the MSD below 3000RPM.

FAST has some new style runners in development that may make it slightly better at high RPM.

JMB

I am intrigued by this....I'd really like to see a comparison between a fully HPTuners calibration and EFILive back to back on the dyno with only the intake volume change......I'm having a hard time imagining how much of a real world difference that this could actually make since you are only compensating for overall airflow when tuning A/F.

Hib Halverson

Think "outside the box" and imagine what's going on with air flow and engine controls during transients...especially big transients such as when you're crusing along at 2500 rpm and you whack the throttle wide open. Or a transient such as on a road course, you exit the turn that leads onto the longest straight your hit 6600 rpm or so in third and you make a quick shift to fourth.

JMB

Hib, I understand that and I'm not trying to be coy but after spending several hundred runs tuning on the chassis dyno and tuning on the road I'm just really trying to understand the effect of being able to change the plenum size (if I could) because in theory I don't understand how the combustion chamber would know what is feeding it other than X amount of air and Y amount of fuel targeted to combust when the spark ignites. The reason I'm bit dubious is that I've played with "advanced" tuning techniques such as changing the injector timing in relation to the ignition spark all with ZERO results to show....just trying to get more educated, not trying to ridicule!