A little background info first.... I bought an 85 A4 couple of years ago. It already had some mods done, LT headers, dual 3" exhaust, Crane cam-.423/.446 lift, 264/274 dur, 110 lobe sep.-, 1.5 RR's, 52mm TB. It currently runs 13.2x @ 102 at the track. And now a guy I work with is nipping at my heals with a supercharged 'Stang in the 13.3's. So know to the heart of the matter.....

I want to get into the 12's, obviously. My attention has turned towards the intake. After some reading on Vader's site (very good info, thanks) I see that the AS&M and SLP runners are still individual runners. My thought was why not turn two runners into one? Cut out the inside portion of the runner cylinders and weld some flat stock to close up the runners. Your new runners would look like the SLP runners on the outside, but wide open inside. Has anyone done this? Heard of anyone that has? Pics or anything else?

So be honest... would I be wasting my time trying to accomplish this, or do you think it might actually work? I thought it would be similar to going from a dual plane to a single plane on carb applications. To go along with this my plans also include port matching the plenum and manifold, upgrading the heads (I have the crap iron ones), and a higher stall convertor. I don't want to pull the motor so a cam swap looks unlikely.

I thought to do this so I could do something that is truly "custom", and not bought from a shelf. Any opinions or thoughts??

 

ya know, if you bought a set of AFR 180 heads, he wouldn't be able to touch you till he spent a bunch of late nights and a couple grand.............

 

Someone here did some runners like that. From what I've gathered, the stock intake can't be opened up to flow all that much. You don't have to pull the motor to change cams.

 

This has been done a thousand times. Do a Google search and pick the version you like. Lots of pictures out there too.

 

Dagrump had those SLP runners, Im looking for the pic. He did a beautiful job cutting them open and porting them before welding them back uup.

To the OP...If you can get dual 2.5s cheap I bet youll pick up some usable torque, duals 3"s are way too big for your motor.

 

You don't need to pull the motor to do a cam.

 

Anyone have a pic?

 

I no longer had it, bet someone on the day crew does, saw it posted the other day.

Edit: Here....

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show...27&postcount=9

 

I took a set of already ported SLP runners that I had on a max ported stock intake and did the following. I siamesed them about 5" down. I went as far as I could get without cutting them open. I also opened them up as far as I could go and put them back on a ported edelbrock intake. The runner length is about the same as a superram now. It added a solid 500 RPM to the useable power range and a noticeable power increase just about everywhere. Pulls to 5500 now.
I must say that it was a lot of work, definitely not for the faint of heart. Even with my well equipped little home porting shop I spent days on this combo. All worth it though!
Roy

 

just get a converted lt1 intake.. why do all that work and effort of porting when you can just bolt on power.

 

I think porting the stock TPI or adding bigger runners is a waste of time.

 

Who sells them?

 

http://www.lt1intake.com/ they sell converted ones with the distributor hole already cut.

 

Thanks for all the replies. This car has become more of a "budget" project than what I would like. Good heads and a SR or MR intake swap are just out of reach for me right now. So I gotta work with what I got. And from what I have found is that without good heads and a cam to take advantage of the runner updates, this probably won't make of a power difference. I should have done more research on the cam swap, and I know 3" exhaust is too big for my engine, and too loud for me also! By the way that 'Stang is puttin out around 370 hp at the wheels. Once he gets it to hook I might be in trouble!

Thanks again for the replies

 

i'd like to see what you have

 

i didn't think it was a waste of time. i actually enjoyed doing it.

 

Here Ya go. I had some finish work to do when I took these pics, but you get the idea.



Roy

 

well for the price of runners you are well on your way to an lt1 intake.. that is unless you enjoy pissing in the wind. mr's and sr's are way overpriced.. but power=money.. lt1 intakes work well. i had one on my 91 camaro and if you spend about a 1/16 of the time you were thinking of wasting on the tpi you will be really sweet lt1 intake making well more power.

 

The stock runners look like they would be easier to cut and weld back up and you could save the money over the SLPs. Anyone try a stock runner? I have seen pics of some of the Guldstrand C4s that they did and it looks like a Siamesed stock runner.

 

I dont know much about welding, but Can the stockers even be welded, they seem a little thin. THe Camaro runners seem even thinner although I could be wrong.