I'm looking for first hand experience of people using the GM factory crossram intake. Long story short I'm building a 302 and am curious as to whether the crossram intake would be worth re-working to mount two holley's on as a cheap-way to mimmic the Smokey Yunick cross-ram intakes.

Thoughts?

 

If you figured out a way to mount it horizontally on the garage wall, and some way to flow cold air through the runners, it would make a decent beer holder to use while you're putting a real intake on the 302.

 

do you have a complete crossfire setup, or just the intake? The intake on the CFI was the biggest bottleneck for those engines, stock form it was fine. Any upgrades and it just doesn't flow well. If you want to do a crossram look for something other than CFI for what you want to do. That being said, I'm looking for a stock unit, would you be willing to sell it?

 

I may have one for sale, what is it worth? I am about 45 min south of you to. lmk if you are interested.

 

Have you ever actually SEEN one yet?

When you get to look at one, what you want to do FIRST before you get too carried away, is set it right next to the weeniest stock carbed intake you can find; maybe something like a 80 Monte Carlo 267 Dual-Jet one; flip them both over; and compare the runners.

I don't think it'll take you long to realize that there's more to an intake than what it "looks" like when you pop the hood at a car show.

 

So nobody here has actually worked with one before then?

If we could put the sarcasm aside - I was looking for quantitative information about whether they can make power. YES I've seen one before and I wasn't terribly impressed - thats why I asked the question in the first place.

No more opinions. I want facts. And for those of you who seem to be proficient at posting invective - do NOT talk down to people on the boards. That's 2/3 of the problem on thirdgen is people who are convinced they're experts.

For those that posted genuinely, thanks.

 

What facts would you like?

The fact that the ports are about 60% the size of a 2-barrel intake and about 3 times as long?

I don't understand what you don't understand about it.

 

I'm going to apologize to Five7Kid right now because he'll be the one to have to lock this thread. And that is a genuine apology.

Good, good. More sarcasm. Perhaps is your had made your post as such originally and presented it without the condesending attitude we would have gone in a different direction with this conversation. Of course I should have understood the ports were 60% smaller BEFORE you posted the information! Or maybe I should have extrapolated that data from your original post which had NO numbers in it! haha - wow I feel foolish.

At least you're living up to your name.

 

I have worked on a crossfire intake on a 84 vette. we dynoed it with the crossfire and then with just a regular edel-junk performer rpm with a holley 650 and it picked up around 60 hp over the crossfire intake. the crossfire intake is one of the worse jokes GM ever did, that is why they only were produced for a few years, total junk to work on and for performance

 

iroc - thanks a ton. i appreciate the information. i can't say i'm surprised by the results, but at least i can look elsewhere.

TRP

 

Glad to be of service.

When you saw one, did you look at the ports? I'm trying to be serious here, just as I was above, because ONE picture (or look) is worth a thousand pages of drivel. ONE LOOK is all you need, and the question will be completely and eternally settled in your mind.

Incidentally, they are not 60% smaller; they are about 60% of the size of the ones in the smallest stock carbed intakes. Quote me correctly please.

As far as experience, I have none with working on CFI. Just like I have none with the 6-cyl motors, and for basically the same reason. When these cars first came out, I test-drove a CFI one, that being the "upgrade" "top-of-the-line" "state-of-the-art" motor at the time, and I already knew that the "base model" V8 was so pitiful. The new-car salesman was all about how modern and cool and fuel-injected it was, and how much better it was than a carb. That was the end of my personal experience with them. I took it around the block, came back and parked it, and told the salesman to show me something else. The only "something else" the salesman could show me was LG4 cars, or the 82 Vette with the mighty L48 in it. :barf:. I didn't buy a car that year.

That motor was disgusting. It was EXACTLY like driving a Citation, except there was twice as much of it (5.0L vs 2.5L, 2 TBIs vs 1 TBI, 2 tailpipes vs 1 tailpipe, 4000 lbs instead of 2000 lbs, etc.). It drove like a tractor motor... nice grunt right off idle, felt like it might at least go up a hill (although at a very slow speed) where the LG4 probably wouldn't be able to at all, but had absolutely no "pep" whatsoever. No tendency to rev. Beyond pitiful on the expressway (the dealership was right off of an exit, so that was the standard test drive there). Then a year or 2 later in about 84 or so when I first saw the underside of one at a speed shop, I immediately understood why, once I stopped laughing. I finally bit off when the L69 came out: it was actually FASTER THAN my crappy old late 70s Z28 with a rolled cam lobe that I was trading in.

Meanwhile, having no personal experience with something, doesn't necessarily mean that you can't be sure it's a bad idea. For example, I've never jumped off of a 10-story building; but I'm pretty sure it's not real wise. I think I know what's going to happen without having actually had it happen to me before. (I could be wrong, but...) Furthermore, I would advise anyone else against it, as well. Same here. The physics don't work. I don't need to have actually experienced the results, to be pretty sure I'm able to predict them accurately.

 

...jumping out of a 10 story building probably isn't a good idea...just ask John Locke. lol.

Well that settles it...time to look elsewhere.

 

An RPM Air Gap with a 750 Holley double pumper will run circles around any cross ram dual carb setup you could come up with. Or Victor Jr. if you go really high-RPM.

I hope you realize the responses that you saw as sarcasm were not intended in any way to be personal, but were intended to make a point with a bit of humor mixed in.

The Crossfire system was a joke that wasn't at all funny. TBI in general was never exploited by the factory for real performance.

 

Eh - thats the problem with sarcasm - it doesn't translate well into type. And don't tell the TBI board guys that! Shhhh!!!!

 

They know it full well. They're trying to do what the factory never did. Very similar to what LG4 owners have to do.

 

out of curiosity, could someone tell me everything involved to swap a crossfire setup to a standard single carb setup? I know someone with an 84 vette with CFI, I have an edelbrock performer intake lying around, and I wouldn't mind swapping it over for him if it'd make that big of an improvement.

 

It's basically an EFI to carb swap. There's a tech article on the topic linked from the thirdgen.org homepage.

 

thanks. I'll go take a look at it.