whenever I get the check in the mail, im buying an 84 camaro with a 350, its carbuerated and it has a quadrajet carb (not sure what cfm it is, forgot to ask)
my question is simply, what intake base should i slap onto that, Ive been looking around and ive seen air gap intakes and non, are there major benefits from the air gaps or is that just snake oil.
I heard the edelbrock rpm is a good choice. I just want something to wake my car up a little bit.
any advice?

 

There are other places to look first. Like, make sure it's a 350. Then, what exhaust does it have. Cam, heads, air cleaner - all of those things are much more important than the intake manifold.

And, asking the CFM of a q-jet is almost like asking when the air was last changed in the tires. If it's a stock q-jet, it's a stock q-jet. Only issue is whether the secondary air valve opens all the way, and there's a link to a tech article about that on the thirdgen.org homepage. They all have the same flow capability.

 

yeah you can obviously tell that this is my first time dealing with a carburetor.

The person im buying it from is the 2nd owner, his uncle was the first.

around 100k miles, they took out the 305 that was in it and since his uncle works for chevy he got a good deal on a new crate 350, rebuilt the transmission, and put a shift kit on it. the car now has 145,000 miles but the engine and rebuilt transmission has 45 thousand.

the guy said he doesnt know what cam is in it, but he knows its nothing really high performance, nothing really has been done except for headers and exhaust work (no cat)

he's replaced the rear suspension, front ball joints and tie rod ends, brakes are new and so are two tires.

the car is nice, but the top end is all pretty much stock.

im thinking a new intake base would be the best start, plus it would give the engine a lot better appearance.

later down the road after i do the intake i could buy a cam and get that installed.

 

Terminology: TPI = "intake base". Carb = "intake manifold".

Just the way things have gone in the "hot rod" world.

If you are staying stock-like and/or emissions-legal, the intake manifold isn't a a good place to spend money. The stock manifold wasn't all that bad. Since it's at the bottom of the stack of stuff on top of the engine, it isn't that easy to see. You'll be better off spending money somewhere else, like cam and heads.

 

I'm looking for cheap upgrades first, also, the intake base on the 84 is pretty ugly, so I would like to upgrade that, put some better valve covers on and new air filter cover just to make it nice and pretty.

I'm not engine savy enough to replace a cam, I know just as much about timing as I do rocket science.

http://waax.sacrificetheory.net/camaro/DSCF0596.jpg

Thats a picture of the engine bay, as you can see its not eye candy.

Heads are too expensive and I dont plan on buying a set anytime in the near future, if anything ill take the current heads off and get them ported/polished.

Since there is a 4 barrel carb on it already I dont have to replace it just yet, so I was thinking the intake base would be the most logical thing to replace first, plus they aren't that expensive.

Also, I live in michigan, we stoped doing the emissions testing. So emissions arent of my concern.

 

Are you talking about the air cleaner?

It that's the case, I agree that the single snorkel unit is rather restrictive. I wouldn't call it ugly, though.

 

More or less im refering to the chrome lid with the ugly "Chevy 350" sticker on it.
Whenever I have some cash to blow I will replace it with a dual snorkle but thats definently not on my top 20 list of things to do

 

Okay, that's the air cleaner. A dual snorkel would be #1 on my list.

 

Is the single snorkle really that restrictive?

 

Yes, even to a 305. And you have a 350.

 

I'll call around a few junkyards to see if they have one, if not ill just buy one off ebay, but thanks for your input