Ok looks like they finally started appearing.

Anyone use one and see any gains? I'm going to start some minor mods to see what I can squeek out of my car without touching the heads or cam, so porting the intake, 52mm TB, usual small stuff to throw me over the 300rwhp, but then I've seen the new airgap intakes for the LT1 pop up for around $400 now.

 

NUKE, I saw the add for it a few days ago on the back of my Jeggs catalog. I'd sure hope to see gains of 20hp or more at the wheels for the price. If not,maybe bigger mods down the road will complement the intake better.

If it is no better than a ported stocker im sure some people would be

 

I'm surpised one of the car mags havent done a test on it.. (at least the LT4 version). To me this is confirming that the rags only test what the manufacturers (advertisers) give them and tell them to test..

IMHO

 

It's hard to do really meaningful back-to-back dyno runs involving a manifold change with the engine still in the car, due to the time involved changing manifolds. That being said, someone on LS-1 Tech.com claims to have tried an Ededbrock manifold, and saw only 5-6 RWHP difference. It was, however, on two different days on the dyno.

 

the car mags often do these types of tests on dyno mule engines..

I'm still waiting for GM high Tech or someone to try it out..

 

Time will tell as to how efficient the intake will be but in order to see gains from virtually anything, it has to be the weak link or a weak link. On a mostly stock car the intake is not a weak link and I seriously doubt you would see anything at all until you do quite a few other things.

I just sold a very heavily welded/ported LT4 intake that had everything to include thermo coatings and 58mmTB. Was able to make over 480 rwhp with that particular intake. The weak link on the stock intake is a pinch just above the injectors. That needs to have extra material welded on the outside so the inside can be made large enough to not be a restriction.

On a car like mine that trick is probably worth 10 hp but told the person whom purchased it to expect very little if anything at all on a stock Lt4. When you start doing extensive mods.....then things change.

Currently have a sheet metal intake with 6 inch runners and a huge air gap and don't feel I’ve been able to get the most out of it. The air gap appeals to me I'd be more interested in the air gap than anything at this point. LTx cars are notorious for loosing power via heat soak. Haven't gotten there yet, but I plan on playing with mine on the dyno to see what effect the sheet metal intake/air gap may have on heat soak. Not uncommon to loose 10-20 hp on the dyno making repeated runs getting the car hot.

 

Dead on about the heat soak.
I always ice down my manifold, ( a 2 liter soda bottle filled with ice so I don't get the opti wet ) between runs.

Any pics of the sheetmetal intake?

 

Sure....If someone can host them I'll send ya more than ya want even.

I always used to do the ice thing also but it's so damn messy and you probably got the right idea as I used to just empty a bag on the intake and get it over with.

 

Looking at the Ar Gap intake, it's quite easy to place freezer packs or bags of ice UNDER the plenum if that's what floats your boat. The elimination of heat soak would be the #1 benefit of this manifold, IMO, but looking at the overall construction of it, it looks to lend itself to some additional work if desired. also quite usable out of the box.

I've sold a bunch of these to the F-body guys who absolutely love them, and I've kept one aside for myself to use on one of my LT1's.

 

I've got an opti, so I just fill a 2 liter Coke bottle with water and freeze it the night before. Just don't fill the bottle all the way.

Go ahead and send the pics my way and I'll post them up on Imagestation.
swiftwood@aol.com

 

Guess it's because my intake was hand built and had to do some adlibbing but the biggest pain in the butt for me because I occasionally show the car, is getting underneath n inside to clean it. Man, I have to stand on my head and use sticks n stuff to get inside. Thought of the same icing trick, but if I can’t get to it to even clean it….??

The front of my intake seems to stay cool but the rear seems to heat up. Guess it's the air flow keeping the front cool. Another item on the list...check to make sure all cylinders are getting the same amount of 02.

 

I hear ya... As I said, try some freezer packs if you can find them (if you've ever ordered any perishable foods by mail/net, they pack them in to keep things cold). They're quite flexible and should fit in tight places. If you wanted, you could place them in large Ziploc bags, even.

Just a thought.

 

Yes indeed.....and hopefully they will do it soon considering they've (EB) been pushing this airgap technology for awhile - I want to see a bonafide test (same day on same dyno)

 

Here ya go
http://www.imagestation.com/album/in...?id=2092099593





Now that's an intake!
How does the runner length and plenum volume compare to the stock one?

 

that's NOT a $400 Edelbrock, to be sure! Beautiful, tho... looks like the runners are a bit longer than stock?

 

If you`re not going to touch the heads or cam,then I would probably leave the stock throttle body alone.

 

Wow i'm impressed by the sheet metal intake. I'd like to know how well it works and how to make one. I've never used an Edelbrock intake on my vette but I do have their heads and it makes for quite a bit of power on my otherwise stock engine. My friend has a ported Edelbrock intake manifold on the new engine shes putting into her truck and it looks nice, but thats about all I can say about it for now.

 

 

Cheated and did a copy n paste.

The runner length is six inches and the plenum volume (think I remember it correctly) was 232 ci. Did the calculations using the Pro version of Performance Trends and was surprised it was that much. Not sure what stock is but it has to be quite a bit less just from looks.

It’s a Hogan knockoff done by Jeb Burnett out of Little Rock and final finished by myself. The ports originally were for a large port LT1 head/58mm TB and I upgraded them by gasket matching to the off road LT4 gasket and Monoblade.

Quite a bit taller and quite a bit of material had to be added/welded on to raise the ports. Internally added epoxy reshaping the runners so they taper and blend into the heads along with raising the ports. Think Jeb told me he had 50 hours fabricating and I must have at least 40 hours into them in both polishing, porting and reshaping the ports. (Have more pictures of the ports if anyone is interested but for the most part they are uneventful.)

The overall fit and finish really came out quite nice and I should thank Jeb for his work. My small part was the easy part for sure as he did a great job of fabrication.

Was initially a little concerned about hood clearance as the intake looks a little imposing sitting on a workbench. Fits perfect with no clearance issues at all. Did require some minor fabrication to get all the hoses n stuff hooked up.

So far I’ve not realized the full potential of the intake and still looking for power. When the intake is run through the Performance Tends software it shows about a 50 lb torque gain down low with very substantial hp gains up to 7000 rpm where it’s minimal. Really fattens up the curve around 4500-6000 rpm. In actual dyno testing the dyno replicated the software exactly up to the mid 4000 range (47 lb torque gain) and then it settled down to no gains at all. Obviously this was quite disappointing but found the issue was a new set of headers hitting the motor mount upon torque causing a leak throwing the car off.

Replaced the headers and immediately ran into a MAF issue so it's still work in progress that should have been squared away a long time ago. But it's not.The header issue really was difficult to figure out and took a lot of time.

Hope that helps.

 

Thanks for the replies guys. Looks like I'll try to port the spare LT1 intake I have and see what I can see inside. i gained a few ponies by porting the intake on my stock TPI years ago, so this could help. Right now going by the dyno sheet, the car starts to drop out of the powerband by about 5500rpms, so if I can raise that a few hundred closer to the shiftpoint (just at 5800-5900rpms), it should benefit a bit from that. I've decided to not do any major work to th engine/car so i want to get everything she can out of her. The magical 300rwhp should be within reach with some porting of the intake, and when I get more money for mods, get a set of longtube headers, bullet cats and that should bring me WELL into C5 territory.