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Has anyone used this intake manifold and if so what were the results?
I've just picked up one of these (with fuel rails) and am contemplating making the switch to EFI at some point.
There is little in the way of information out there.
Has anyone used this intake manifold and if so what were the results?
I've just picked up one of these (with fuel rails) and am contemplating making the switch to EFI at some point.
There is little in the way of information out there.
Yup:
Fantastic intake.
I've run it on a few cars now.
Keep in mind it's 1205 port only, does not have enough material to cover a 1206.
Thanks for that Joe.
I saw a reference to you on a Vette forum while searching for information. In a 2008 post, Orr had mentioned you had this intake. I expected to hear from you.
Interesting note about the 1205 gasket. This intake, although never installed, has been port matched. I haven't checked, but my guess it's the to the 1205.
Holley advertises the rev range to be 2000-7000. What do you make of that? Although my current carbed build, with a dual plane intake and 170 cc (ported heads), is built more around lower engine speeds, this single plane may be the step towards a more race orientated engine than what I have now.
It may be difficult to say with what you having forced induction, but how would you describe the low engine speed characteristics? I cruise on the highway at about 2400 and am curious as to how it would behave. My shifts are 6500 now with a little room for more RPM but this engine package says there's no benefit. Maybe this intake would change that.
Thanks for that Joe.
I saw a reference to you on a Vette forum while searching for information. In a 2008 post, Orr had mentioned you had this intake. I expected to hear from you.
Interesting note about the 1205 gasket. This intake, although never installed, has been port matched. I haven't checked, but my guess it's the to the 1205.
Holley advertises the rev range to be 2000-7000. What do you make of that? Although my current carbed build, with a dual plane intake and 170 cc (ported heads), is built more around lower engine speeds, this single plane may be the step towards a more race orientated engine than what I have now.
It may be difficult to say with what you having forced induction, but how would you describe the low engine speed characteristics? I cruise on the highway at about 2400 and am curious as to how it would behave. My shifts are 6500 now with a little room for more RPM but this engine package says there's no benefit. Maybe this intake would change that.
I don't know about the RPM capability, I've never ran it over 6200 or so based on the cam in my combos.
I ran it naturally aspirated for a little while on a firebird years ago, like 2003/2004. What I can tell you is it needed a lot of AE, and it didn't like low speed (sub 2000 rpm) with a manual trans. Mid range, wot it was a great intake.
Throttle body selection will really impact things too. The progressive linkage 4bbl throttle body was hard to tune around but worked well once tuned. Monoblade LSx throttle body with an elbow worked quite well.
I'll be considering this swap however the single plane intake in general has always been counter to my approach in building a street orientated SBC. Now that said, this has been in a carbed application and I'm aware that the intake's characteristics are somewhat different with multi-port EFI. The Monte Carlo has a Victor Jr. and one of Holley's EFI kits and it's driveability compares to my current combination. Performance and fuel economy are about on par. And it's the latter that has my attention as much (or perhaps even more than) outright performance. If I really wanted to be faster, I wouldn't have installed 60 lbs of Dynamat and I'd have long ago given up on the weak single exhaust system.
It would be really interesting to see how this intake would compare in a head to head dyno or track run against an RPM Air Gap.
Imo that's too much intake for your combination. If a dual plane is the right intake for your combo with a carb then it's the same with EFI. That's right from Keith Wilson of Wilson Manifolds.
Imo that's too much intake for your combination. If a dual plane is the right intake for your combo with a carb then it's the same with EFI. That's right from Keith Wilson of Wilson Manifolds.
IMO you don't know what you are talking about, but anyway.
I've been using these manifolds for over 15 years in dry flow. Perhaps you should try one and give us your feedback.
I did, that's how I know. Have you? I'll bet not.
Your two builds aren't the same. You have 60ci more than he does and a blower, apples to oranges.
I did the switch on a mild 355 similar to his. I went from a Holley street dominator, which has an even smaller cross section than the intake listed, to an RPM Air gap. Both done by Wilson, with no other changes. Night and day difference, night and day, from idle to wot.
Not saying your doesn't run fine. But I contend anything COULD run better with a more appropriate intake.
At this point there are too many complexities to incorporate this into my current platform.
The intake is up for sale locally. If that doesn't work, I'll probably post it here at Thirdgen.
Thanks for the input gentlemen. Much appreciated.
I've run a bunch of these cutler manifolds on a number of engines. Again, you have no idea what you are talking about. You're a salesperson, pushing your Accel dfi and other crap on the forum without being a paid vendor. If you want to pretend to be an expert, do it elsewhere. We have standards here.
I've run a bunch of these cutler manifolds on a number of engines. Again, you have no idea what you are talking about. You're a salesperson, pushing your Accel dfi and other crap on the forum without being a paid vendor. If you want to pretend to be an expert, do it elsewhere. We have standards here.
-- Joe
I just stated my own experience and that of a true industry expert, Keith Wilson. You want to claim to know more than him then go right ahead. But I guess he doesn't know what he's doing either because he's not a paid vendor here either right? And buy the way, I've offered tuning help etc here many times FOR NOTHING.
Have a nice day.
I just stated my own experience and that of a true industry expert, Keith Wilson. You want to claim to know more than him then go right ahead. But I guess he doesn't know what he's doing either because he's not a paid vendor here either right? And buy the way, I've offered tuning help etc here many times FOR NOTHING.
Have a nice day.
Your a sales guy who spews whatever marketing propaganda is best for your business. I have no idea what Keith Wilson told you, how much of it you understood, etc. I've got nearly 20 years of posts - documenting real world tests, many of which with these manifolds. Your argument is you had Wilson build you something and felt like it made more power. Come on man..
Call Keith for yourself and ask him why and how. He's a wealth of information.
And it didn't FEEL like I made more power, I know it did from the difference in the fuel curve. But you already knew that I'm sure from your twenty years of sitting at a desk and DOCUMENTING things like this.
The differences in opinion and reference to character notwithstanding, the RPM Air Gap has always shown, with respect to combinations similar to my own (which is 6500 RPM shift point) to be about the best performer. Output off idle (1500) to 6500 has consistently demonstrated itself to be better than any single plane I've seen tested. Always better at low end and comparable top end. Once past 6500, or if the engine spec changes, i.e. displacement, induction, cam profile, then all bets are off as I haven't investigated beyond my own requirements.
It would seem to me that this Holley intake, while not as large as a Victor Jr, would still give up something at lower engine speeds. I can't say, (again not having investigated fully) whether the plenum volume and runner length would be a match for my combination. A combination which by the way, is still in a transitional period.
The differences in opinion and reference to character notwithstanding, the RPM Air Gap has always shown, with respect to combinations similar to my own (which is 6500 RPM shift point) to be about the best performer. Output off idle (1500) to 6500 has consistently demonstrated itself to be better than any single plane I've seen tested. Always better at low end and comparable top end. Once past 6500, or if the engine spec changes, i.e. displacement, induction, cam profile, then all bets are off as I haven't investigated beyond my own requirements.
It would seem to me that this Holley intake, while not as large as a Victor Jr, would still give up something at lower engine speeds. I can't say, (again not having investigated fully) whether the plenum volume and runner length would be a match for my combination. A combination which by the way, is still in a transitional period.
Your combo is kinda weird in a way, because you have moderate displacement (355) somewhat of a large cam for the street (288), yet really small heads.
Your cam is quite a big larger than what I'm running in my 412, and what I've run on 355s in the past, either naturally aspirated or blown.
If you are concerned about sub-2500 RPM performance, I think the cam is more concerning to me than the intake.
Like I said before, on a manual trans car with a cc-503 cam (224/230 @ .050") it didn't like to crawl off idle, but otherwise it was a good street combo.
You've got to remember, this is a dry-flow application, not carb. I'd expect them to perform quite differently if you ran a TBI unit on them, but I've never seen anyone run a dual-plane MPFI manifold.
I don't recall off hand how long the runner's are on the Holley/Cutler intake, but I bet they are longer than my Miniram or the LT1 in my Corvette.
I'll agree on my combination of parts being somewhat "mismatched". It wasn't my intention from the outset but it sort of went that way through a series of circumstances.
That said, the 288 in another 355 albeit with AFR 195's performed very well. Both in power output/drag strip performance and fuel economy (with carb and RPM Air Gap). My current heads, starting out as an advertised 170 cc, have spent time on the porting/flow bench and probably are equivalent to AFR's more pedestrian 190s. (Close but not quite with 250+ CFM on a small 4.030" flow fixture bore).
Were I to go with the Holley intake, it would be the full monty and incorporate the MPFI.
Still, I think that, and going with what you've described, it would lose the low speed torque production that I have now, the 288 notwithstanding. The converter hides a lot of what's below 2500 but I can't say how it would react with the larger intake.
Even with that large cam, highway mileage is north of 20 mpg (U.S. gallons) and performance is on par with the 224 @ .050" cam (I ran previously) with the 288 installed on a 102 ICL. Sadly, due to the mix of shortblock and heads, maximum compression topped out at 10.2:1 which is about a point less than I would have spec'd had I the opportunity or resources to do so. (It would make a nice 383 package though with the resulting CR closer to 11:1).
I'll agree on my combination of parts being somewhat "mismatched". It wasn't my intention from the outset but it sort of went that way through a series of circumstances.
That said, the 288 in another 355 albeit with AFR 195's performed very well. Both in power output/drag strip performance and fuel economy (with carb and RPM Air Gap). My current heads, starting out as an advertised 170 cc, have spent time on the porting/flow bench and probably are equivalent to AFR's more pedestrian 190s. (Close but not quite with 250+ CFM on a small 4.030" flow fixture bore).
Were I to go with the Holley intake, it would be the full monty and incorporate the MPFI.
Still, I think that, and going with what you've described, it would lose the low speed torque production that I have now, the 288 notwithstanding. The converter hides a lot of what's below 2500 but I can't say how it would react with the larger intake.
Even with that large cam, highway mileage is north of 20 mpg (U.S. gallons) and performance is on par with the 224 @ .050" cam (I ran previously) with the 288 installed on a 102 ICL. Sadly, due to the mix of shortblock and heads, maximum compression topped out at 10.2:1 which is about a point less than I would have spec'd had I the opportunity or resources to do so. (It would make a nice 383 package though with the resulting CR closer to 11:1).
I ran a RPM air gap, AFR 195 heads, XR288HR cam, 10.5:1 compression, and a 4bbl carb on my '79 Z28 about.. 8 years ago. Wasn't really happy with the combo. Cam wanted to rev way beyond the powerband of the intake IMO.
On my '75 vette, I ran a regular performer with a small cam, something like 212/220 and it was a fantastic fit with ported camel hump heads.
Gotta try different stuff and see what works. I've got a lot of cars I don't talk about on the forum because they are not Thirdgen. I only own 1 Thirdgen.
Imo the dry flow aspect of the single plane makes it act way different than a carb setup. If you look at the runner length and cross section, compare it to a stealth ram, miniram, or the like. You'll see the length of the runners are longer than miniram/lt1 stuff, and about near that of the hsr. On some single planes that is. Plenum volume is generally smaller than hsr but with an elbow style throttlebody setup, you can gain some volume to make them similar. This is good
I think you would like it with the auto trans and that cam. Heads would then be the restriction. Powerband will move up more overall compared to the air gap imo. But its the best way to go efi for the money.
Low off idle performance imo is all based on the cam size and tune. Manuals will always be abit more picky than a stalled auto
Plenum volume is generally smaller than hsr but with an elbow style throttlebody setup, you can gain some volume to make them similar. This is good
This is most likely why the stuff I've run an elbow on and a LSx throttle body was more responsive than 4bbl throttle bodies.
The corvette with the blower I posted earlier used to have a miniram. The car wasn't exactly friendly off idle with the 6 speed, miniram, and 224/230 cam. When I switched to the holley intake and the elbow it was great.
Stilly a little bucky under 1500rpm, but that's more the cam I'd think. I've never had a cammed manual car that you could just walk across a parking lot at idle.
I'm only building stuff with automatics now. The only thing I own with an manual these days is my bike. Getting lazy haha.
I wouldnt expect any performance cammed manual to walk across a parking lot in gear at idle. Just asking too much.
Also keep in mind that at low engine speed the miniram type stuff usually sees some sort of air distribution issue and may cause erratic performance. If you could tune sequentially and used 8 o2's lol it probably would run a heck of alot better
With so many irons in the fire car-wise speaking, this option to change to EFI is certainly not at the top of the list. It would seem though, from the input given here, that it may prove to be a wash when compared to my current setup in that what I have isn't the best from a matched component point of view. That is to say, there may be little to no difference in performance between the two considering what I have now.
That said, with the my old converter, RPMs below 2000 are basically missing. Beyond idle, I was fully into the stall (arguably about 1500 RPM over stock). The new converter adds another 500 RPM of stall to that so the effect would be even more pronounced. That would be something in favour of the Holley intake I would think.
Here's the thing. This short block of mine (good old Gen 1 355 with forged crank, Elgin rods) is soon to be in need of refresh/rebuild seeing as that I've had it for nearly 70 000 miles. Then, I would probably step up in displacement and build a 383. At that point, the RPM intake will probably have run out of capacity along with my heads. I'd give the heads a go still as they're fresh but this single plane intake may be better suited.
I'm trying to sell this intake (and rails) locally so the money can be rolled into other things (like slicks). If it doesn't sell, the option is always there to complete the EFI assembly with the appropriate injectors and a throttle body and give it a go.
I'd need a controller too although at this point, I have no idea which way I'd go in that regard. Or the throttle body for that matter although I do know I'd want to keep the centre mounted air filter assembly. It's to be incorporated into the cowl hood for a CAI.
As always, thanks for the advice gentlemen. Keep it coming if you're so inclined.
02-09-2017, 11:18 AM
