gbayfisher

Do you think it would be limited by the 17" runners? I would think you need some rpms to get to the 600 hp level?

1989GTATransAm

iTrader: (3)

"Do you think it would be limited by the 17" runners? I would think you need some rpms to get to the 600 hp level?"

Not if the runners are opened up enough. I just flowed my setup less the heads and I figured it was around 16" in length. Flowed 336cfm. Remember there was at least one motor in the Engine Master Contest that had a total runner length of around 21.5". I believe it had independent throttle bodies though and I believe it placed 3rd in the standings.

Yes you need rpms or big displacement. Bottom line is you need to move around 280cfm through the intake ports to get to up around the 600hp level.

Orr89RocZ

iTrader: (20)

Its easier when you have both displacement and rpms, but with todays heads and a good intake manifold, 600hp on pump gas is extremely doable. Even 650 is possible with over 400 cubes, the right heads and big hydraulic roller.

Gotta spin over 6500 to do so but its achievable.

Smaller cubes will need alot more rpm. Any 355-383 making over 550 crank hp is doing well. 575+ is abit more difficult...starting to think about solid rollers, 7200 rpm stuff, although a hollow valved 8mm LSx style valved head with the right spring and cam lobes should turn 7500 no problems. LSx boys do it just fine.

1989GTATransAm

iTrader: (3)

Some progress is being made. I got the runners and plenum back from the ceramic coater today. Another problem with the base as I have to get another spot welded up. So probably next week for the base.

Here are some pictures of one of the runners. Shows the black heat dispersent coating on the outside and the thermal barrier coating on the inside. The thermal barrier inside coating is the same as used on piston tops. Gots to keep the air cool.

1989GTATransAm

iTrader: (3)

...and 3 pictures of the plenum. I am very pleased with how well things have turned out so far. They have done a good job. So hopefully we can get this thing on the dyno sometime in September.

88fastgta

iTrader: (9)

wow... that black sure does look nice.... those runners and plenum ports look bigger than the firsts for sure.... also i cant believe how well you opened up the plenum, that also looks cleaner than the first plenum.... im jealous..... : )

1989GTATransAm

iTrader: (3)

I did shorten some of the bolt bosses in the plenum where I could to help the air flow. The holes in the plenum are about 1.90" in diameter. The upper holes in the runners are the same. The holes exiting the runners at the bottom are 1.870". Just .005" less than the opening into the base.

PipeMax says I needed to have a larger plenum runner entrance than I had for the VE I am shooting for so I opened it up some. I am still on the low end of the scale but in the ball park. It would be easy to open up the First to those dimensions and even exceed them.

TTOP350

iTrader: (8)

Getting closer!!!
looks like they sand blasted parts b4 coating, make sure you run a tap in all the threaded holes !!
Looking great! I'm soooo moist!

1989GTATransAm

iTrader: (3)

Yes they did sandblast everything. I was worried the most about the runners but as it turned out the base was the one that had the thinner areas that need some additional welding. I probably will chase the threads even though they did try to block them off but they were not 100% successful.

TTOP350

iTrader: (8)

I figured you would take care care of that.. Always good to find the thin spots b4 it goes on the motor !
I sooo want a setup like this! cant wait to see how it does!!

ASE doc

Looking great!

1989GTATransAm

iTrader: (3)

I just can't help myself but to look for ways to improve things built up on what I learned from the previous effort. Here is a shot of a mock up. With this version I can greatly increase the plenum volume and per PipeMax achieve a 3.133 square inch entry area at the plenum. Actually it will be 3.14 but close enough. A nice even radius entry on all 8 ports. Runners can be shortend depending on the dyno results from the current intake. Enough for now.

ASE doc

MADMAN!!!

1989GTATransAm

iTrader: (3)

Hehehehe, I like the name. After having built one I can see how improvements can be made. The one in this thread was built trying to stay pretty much within the confines of the original TPI layout as much as possible.

Now if I roam outside the box of the original TPI layout some more things change a lot. One thing I would do is build my own plenum entry into the runners as represented by the paper in the above picture. I can create my own radius entry which will give a sharper and more uniform wave signal with more strength to the pulse. Also I will be able to change the length of the runners by up to an inch to fine tune the runner length.

I want the peak of the 2nd harmonic wave to come in around 6350 or so and peter out at 6800 and my shift point. The dyno results with the current large tube runners should tell me what direction to go and how much to change the runner length. My current 2" runners tubes do have the correct CSA math wise but I believe there is maybe to much flow loss in the curvature. So I am thinking by upping the diameter to 2.125 inch will alleviate that situation.

One last advantage is I can greatly increase the plenum volume. One of the things I will do is sink the EGR valve 1/8" into the intake base. Just a matter of milling the base .125" deeper in that area. That will allow me to drop the floor of the plenum some more to increase cubic inches. I have a TPI distributor from Dyno Don that will allow for me to figure the maximum extension out the back of the plenum. Oh well enough for now.

Update: I forgot to say I have all the parts on hand. However DynoDon is in the middle of moving his shop so that will delay things somewhat.

88fastgta

iTrader: (9)

excellent work... i know there are alot of guys willing to pay for what you have... cant wait to see what it does on the track and dyno...

1989GTATransAm

iTrader: (3)

One last picture before the installation.

Orr89RocZ

iTrader: (20)

That just looks evil! lol make one for my 401

Shadygrady

iTrader: (3)

subscribe!nice read!Nice work!

Long Beach Z-28

iTrader: (1)

Lookin' good Allen! Make sure you e-mail pictures to Bryce and Mike.

GTA Sammy

iTrader: (1)

Now why couldn't GM do it like that in the first place???
You won't be able to tell the difference from the original unless you did a side by side comparison.

A Multi- Billion dollar company didn't do what you just did!!!
Good on ya!!!
Can't wait to see the results, it's gonna be ridiculous!!!

TTOP350

iTrader: (8)

Can't wait 4 dyno numbers!

1989GTATransAm

iTrader: (3)

"You won't be able to tell the difference from the original unless you did a side by side comparison"

There is alot of truth in that. Most people would not notice the difference with everything hooked up to it. Just kind of walk on by with a glance and saying "just another TPI".

Thanks guys. I just got back from the machine shop today from a pow-wow. Bottom line is I will wait on the dyno results to see what and if any direction needs to be taken. If need be there are 4 areas that can be improved on to refine the product.

88fastgta

iTrader: (9)

dude... that black really makes it look badass..... u know you really should make a side business in doing those.... i would LOVE to have that on my engine... i honestly think you have THE BEST flowing tpi intake ever.....

1989GTATransAm

iTrader: (3)

Too much hand work involved for production. Now if a manufacturor would step up to the plate. Maybe Ken at First will with the new 2" runner.

I don't know of any TPI type intake that has flowed more except maybe the one BadSS did on his First. I don't know if he flowed it or not but he did quite abit of work on it and it is quite possibly the highest flowing one.

ASE doc

I agree that larger runner entries would improve performance by addressing inlet turbulence. Enlarging the plenum can also only help. What you have here already however will produce impressive results. I don't have much time for TGO lately. I keep checking every few days just to see where you are and if you've posted initial dyno numbers yet.

88fastgta

iTrader: (9)

we need dyno numbers lol..... im anxious

1989GTATransAm

iTrader: (3)

"we need dyno numbers lol..... im anxious"

DynoDon is right in the middle of moving his shop. So it will be a few weeks yet. I am anxious to.

Orr89RocZ

iTrader: (20)

When do you think you will have the intake on? Will you run it on the street first to get a seat of the pants feel? Air fuel is likely going to be skewed so may need to watch out when going WOT.

1989GTATransAm

iTrader: (3)

Probably a few weeks off before the new intake is installed. Waiting on Dyno Don to complete his move and get settled into his new digs. I will Have Kevin91Z do some initial tuning. We won't do any WOT runs until the car is on the chasis dyno.

I doubt if I will be able to tell anything by the seat of the pants at this stage of the game. With the current 32# injectors I am running around a 72% duty cycle. I hope I have enough wiggle room left that I don't have to buy new injectors.

I was looking at 88BlackZ-51's new dyno results. He has a 421 cubic inch motor with I believe a Mini-Ram. He made 434rwhp and 470 rwtq which is huge. I believe he can get to 450rwhp. Near as I can tell he has an M6 because he ran in 4th gear 1:1. He must be getting close to maxing out those AFR 195 Competition heads.

Seeing I have the same heads I wonder if I am getting close to maxing out the heads. Maybe 550 horsepower is getting close to the maximum? Mine made 420rwhp with an unlocked A4. So maybe there is 25-30rwhp left on the table.

Here is a list of a few things I am looking into in no particular order for next year. These items will depend on the dyno results.
1. Have my heads reworked. (most cost effective)
2. Increase plenum volume.
3. Probably shorten the runners. The intake manifold runners are longer than the often quoted 6.125". They are more like 6.525" or so. This kind of messed me up.
4. Redo the plenum bellmouth entry to the runners. I will make them all uniform. They are far from being uniform in the present intake system.
5. Increase the cross section area in the injecter area or first 2" of the intake runner. Currently it is smaller than it should be for optimum performance. Might have to raise the fuel rail .125".

Orr89RocZ

iTrader: (20)

I would think you are near the limit. I thought I heard Big Joe making 600 on a big solid roller 383 turning 7K rpms. I think a slightly larger 210 would do alot better. Getting much more than 550 hp on those cubes within sub-7K rpm range is difficult tho. REALLY need to pay attention to all the details to get VE up to make much more. Easier just to spin it another 500 rpm

1989GTATransAm

iTrader: (3)

"I think a slightly larger 210 would do alot better."

I agree with that with what I now know. I do plan on spinning it up a little higher. That is one of the reasons I am figuring the best way to shorten the runners. I want the peak of the 2nd harmonic wave to come in at a little higher rpm. So basically what I learn from the present intake system will be applied to the next and LAST one.

gbayfisher

Whats after the LAST one? lol. There has to be something after that.

Where is your second harmonic coming in at? Are you riding it for long? From what I see and read, for the most part, it would be a short lived 'ride' due to the second wave coming in at a higher rpm. I am trying to understand, what, and how these waves benefit different combos, unless I am using the wrong formulas, it looks like my 'strong' second wave is at an unobtainable (high) rpm ?

Orr89RocZ

iTrader: (20)

Boost. Wave ramming at its finest

1989GTATransAm

iTrader: (3)

"Where is your second harmonic coming in at? Are you riding it for long?"

Right now with the intake that is currently installed I don't think I am getting any wave ram tuning. The intake tract is to short. With the long tube runner intake I just made and is waiting to go on the car I beleive the runners are a little to long for the rpm range I want. The dyno will tell me.

The 2nd harmonic wave that I am using should be over a 1200+ rpm range. So I am hoping to run down the track between 5600 and 6800 rpm. With the shift extension on my Yank SS4000 converter it will keep my rpms in the sweet spot. The 3rd harmonic range should come in around the peak torque area. The 4th harmonic range should come in the mid 3000 range. Here is a chart that I found on wave pulses. From the chart I want to be in the 20.5 to 20.75" range for runner length. Again the dyno will tell me for sure. You can see that the 2nd harmonic wave is the longest and the strongest.

Rumblin70SS

Subscribing......

gbayfisher

Interesting, is the 20.5- 20.75 including the head port or not? I would think not considering the head port length is around 5 inch.

1989GTATransAm

iTrader: (3)

Yes it does include the port in the head. The runner starts at the back of intake valve and continues along until the exit in the plenum. Near as I can tell and this includes an email to Tony Mamo at AFR the length of the runner in the head is about 5.333" long.

I got that measurement from a post by Larry Meaux listing the intake runner lengths of various heads including some AFR heads. Tony said that is about right but did not give a definite answer so I am going by that length. You also have to include the various gasket thicknesses along the way. They are typically .060" thick. By the way this is a center line measurement. I think that is where the guys who measured the intake manifold made their error and posted it.

On the Edelbrock intake manifold I will use solder. I will lay a strip along the bottom of the runner and measure it and then lay a strip along the top of the runner and measure it. I will add them together and divide by two. The solder will be in the center of the top and bottom surfaces.

This gets to the bottom of why I want to change the plenum port entries into the runners on the next one I do. With the larger cross section area some of the runner holes in the plenum are right at the floor or roof of the plenum. Also the entry ways vary by a 1/4 inch on the sides. This plays havoc with the actual lengths and the strength of the harmonic wave by not having a uniform entrance/bell mouth.

gbayfisher

I can't remember which runners you are using, That's a pretty short runner length compared to stock. Did you siamese the entire runner?

How will you align the 'runner' port once you move the 'plenum' port location? That would be alot of work!

1989GTATransAm

iTrader: (3)

Runners: The ones now on the car are highly modified SLP runners that are almost fully siamesed and maybe 1" long. The ones I just built and the subject of this thread are custom made of 2" OD aluminum tubing. They are roughly in the same position as the stock runners so no problem there. The runners in this thread are 8.875" long. They are individual tubes and not siamesed.

The AFR head intake runner is 5.333" long. The Accel base is around 6.625" long. Runners 8.875" long. The 3 gaskets equal .180" in thickness. The bell in the plenum is at a minimum of .250". That totals 21.263". In actual practice the plenum may act like its .500" thick or more at the entrance. The dyno results will tell the tale on that.

With my new intake still on the drawing board and yet to be built will be done like this. I will only be using the front of plenum, the top of the plenum and the side of the plenum where the throttle bracket attaches. Everything else will be newly made. Another set of runners will have to be made but shortened per the dyno results. Yep, a lot of work but not that bad now that I have done one. One could start out with the First and it would be easy to modify and get the desired results. Just a matter of "hogging" it out.

Edit: I have attached a picture of a Swartz intake. It shows the runner entries from the plenum and that is what I plan on doing if I make a new plenum as outlined above. Of course the holes would be next to one another. It does show the nice clean and radius entry. My machine shop guy has a 1/4 inch radius cutter which would work out quite well.

Orr89RocZ

iTrader: (20)

Time for a big cowl hood. That way you will get the height needed to fit the plenum with those large runners

1989GTATransAm

iTrader: (3)

"Time for a big cowl hood"

I am trying to engineer it so I don't have to. Just looking at the Swartz manifold in the above picture again, in a way that is what my plenum will look like particularly the angled sides if I have to shorten the runners very much. Also the runners/ entance holes would be offset just like on the TPI plenum. That angle would be another area that will increase the plenum volume.

Orr89RocZ

iTrader: (20)

Extend the TB mount point closer to the front of the car to pick up the extra volume if you cant go any taller or wider. Bellmouth or radius inlets at the plenum mouth is a very good idea.

I think you should try to make a modded HUGE tube superram and straighten the runner path. Lots of losses in a curved runner system. I think you could make it at the same runner length if you went really wide with the intake setup. Sorta like how cross ram intake setups look, or the dodge viper intake system but not dual plenum, just a top mounted single. Or you could go dual plenum

1989GTATransAm

iTrader: (3)

"Extend the TB mount point closer to the front of the car to pick up the extra volume"

Right. I fact I have a 3/4" spacer that I have not shown in any of the pictures with the intake I built in this thread to do just that. If I do build a new one I will just move the plenum forward a 1/2" seeing as I would be blowing out the sides, bottom and back end and making all new ones.

"I think you should try to make a modded HUGE tube superram and straighten the runner path."

Hahaha. Yes, but I am trying to keep a close resemblance of the original TPI. With a modded SuperRam going big and using the 3rd harmonic wave would be very easy to do. I might be able to do that with a Super ram with the longer runners by having some of the runner in the plenum.

With the LSX intake manifold the entrance CSA is fairly large because they have a fairly tight curve at the beginning. I could do the same with a Super Ram with part of the runner in the plenum.

As to the loses that is the reason for my thinking of going one size larger on the intake runner tubing. However my brain trust says I should probably stay with the same size runner because dry air carriers around 7% more air than a wet flow system which is what the formulas are based on. Again the dyno results will have empirical data which is the best.

Orr89RocZ

iTrader: (20)

If possible down the road, I'd look into flow testing the heads with the intake components on the head to see how the intake manifold affects the head flow. Develop it from there til you see little to no reduction in head flow.
Could be worth something, and you may find that the intake still restricts the heads alittle, and adding more and more intake flow doesnt help head flow on the bench. At that point you'd need to dyno, because some say even tho intake manifolds may restrict head flow some, this doesnt mean you lose power. And vice versa, more and more flow may not pick up power. If adding more and more intake flow does help power then thats great! It may not show cfm gains on the bench tho but could make differences in power.

Just look at the different ways to setup flow benches and the different inlet fixtures. Different radius inlets, clay vs cnc profiled radius inlet, etc all change flow numbers for the same head, but power would be the same on the actual running motor with a fixed intake and fixed cam size.

1989GTATransAm

iTrader: (3)

"If possible down the road, I'd look into flow testing the heads with the intake components on the head"

That might happen if I have the current heads opened up some.

By the way I measured a port on the Edelbrock base as near as I could with the solder method and it is about 7.0625" long centerline. I will do the same with the Accel base and report back. By the way here is a picture of the spacer mentioned in the above post.

Update: near as I can tell the length of the runner in my Accel abase is 7.0475 inch long. Now this runner has been opened up quite a bit so a stock one would be somewhat shorter. The runner on the Accel base is straighter than the one on the Edelbrock base.

1989GTATransAm

iTrader: (3)

A slight change in plans. As some of you know I have purchased a set of modified AFR 210 heads from Joe Sherman. Joe will have them ready this week. So with Don being in his new shop and about ready for my car I have decided to do the heads and intake swap at the same time.

It is my opinion that I am running out of horsepower room with my present AFR195 heads. This will allow me to see what kind of power I can make with the long tube runners in this thread. Also as some of you know I am working on what I think will be an improved version of the long tube runner project. These will be installed at a later date upon their completion. Allen

TTOP350

iTrader: (8)

This project truly makes me moist...
I'm ready 2 see the numbers, which im sure will be very impressive. Esp with the bigger heads!

88fastgta

iTrader: (9)

i want those heads lol....

ASE doc

Good call on the head swap. I've said before that the 195s would have been your limiting factor. I trust you'll look at your cam profile with the significant change in flow capacity.

1989GTATransAm

iTrader: (3)

"I trust you'll look at your cam profile with the significant change in flow capacity."

That is and will be a factor. However I have to pass the California sniffer at smog time so I feel I am about as big as I dare go on the camshaft.