What's up fellas....so I've been going through countless threads about the vortec engine and engine builds and diving into the science of these parts etc....but yet there are still specifics I'm unsure of because of polarizing statements and so forth.. but what I wanna know is what intake and base works well with the vortec heads so that I don't have to change wiring under the hoodjust plug in the sensors? I should state that the 5.7 tpi coming out 99 vortec build is going in? I want something fast and fun to drive...a head jerker with somme horse to brag about? I won't be drag racing so I'm figuring I don't need a ton of grab and go at high rpms...just a lil maybe lol

 

The ONLY base that works with Vortec heads is the Edlebrock one. You can also get it under some other name, I forget who, might be some obscure outfit you'd never think of to get parts for cars like these, like GM, but I'm not sure, but it's the same part. Not a question of "works well" or not, it's a question of "ONLY". There is no other choice.

Now if you get rid of the TPI (highly recommended), there are several other possibilities. The HSR and MiniRam both come in Vortec versions for example.

 

Ok so say I go with the HSR or the miniram does the plugs and sensors plug right uo or I have to do rewiring of some sort?

 

They have the holes for all that, but they might be in a different enough place you'd have to move the wires. It's not too invasive though, on either of them.

 

The HSR and the miniram which between the 2 performs better with the heads? Also would porting the heads work well with those intakes

 

From your statement above , the HSR would be a better choice for you because the MR is a top end (revs) intake

Most say the Vortecs heads flow so good ,porting is not worth the $$$

 

 

Ok so I need to understand something really basic herebafter doing many hours of reading....is the intake, base, and plenum 3 different parts or same partbdifferent names?

If it is 3 different parts since I'm going to use the HSR does the other parts. Need to change?

 

Ok so I need to understand something really basic herebafter doing many hours of reading....is the intake, base, and plenum 3 different parts or same partbdifferent names?

If it is 3 different parts since I'm going to use the HSR does the other parts. Need to change?

 

A TPI intake will have 3 parts to it, base, runners and the plenum. The plenum you reuse from your stock setup, the base and runners you usually have to get separate when going aftermarket.

The HSR when you buy it comes in 2 pieces, the plenum and lower manifold.

Helps to look at some pictures.

 

Ok so going off from what you've told me the the HSR comes with the plenum and lower manifold, which means I need runners and a base right? The HSR is only the intake and the throttle body sits on that right? Where would I aquire runners and a base from Accel maybe?

 

No; the HSR is a complete package.

It's actually an old street rod tunnel-ram look-alike that Holley marketed YEARS ago as a show car piece. It came, if memory serves, with 2 little 4-bbl manifolds, and you were supposed to put 2 4-bbls on top of it, sideways. It didn't run worth a crap, for a variety of reasons; and kind of faded from view. Alot of its problems had to do with that the runners were too long and too small at the top, and got larger as they got closer to the heads; which is EXACTLY BACKWARDS for a wet-flow manifold. It was strictly a "looks" part, not a "race" one.

They designed a new horizontal cast plenum and added fuel injector bungs when they turned it into the Stealth Ram. Still looks sort of like a mini tunnel ram, since that part of it didn't change; all that changed was the plenum, and of course the bungs. But in a dry-flow setup, its fatal flaw (runners whoes size INCREASED and therefore made the mixture SLOW DOWN as it approached the head, instead of the runner size staying the same or slightly DECREASING to keep the flow velocity high and constant) became a non-issue. The runners are still too small at the top for really serious people like me, but for alot of folks, they're plenty. It's good for 400 HP easy, 425 with a little care, and maybe 435 or slightly more with max attention to detail, on pump gas. Won't go much past that. But an HONEST 400 HP car that has all the advantages of modern FI is still a pretty good deal; and their price is better than alot of the alternatives as well. All in all, a worthy competitor, for a street application. Like I said, it won't make "the most" power, and BY FAR less than the MiniRam or a down-draft single-plane setup; but, sometimes maybe it's OK to sacrifice a little unused power potential in favor of $$$$ and user-friendliness.

Instead of asking stuff like that here, go visit holley.com and look at it. Your questions will all be answered (at least all the ones you're asking now). http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=holley+stealth+ram

 

So for more power I should go with the miniram? I keep hearing the vortec heads won't flow with that without porting the heads...is that true? Sayin that the heads would be restrictive.. I want fast fun car with good low end and mid range power..also what cam would compliment this setup?

 

If you're not into the ins and outs of ECM tuning, the MiniRam is probably not for you. To get the power it offers requires a cam that's SIGNIFICANTLY harder to tune than a first-timer is likely to enjoy.

With Vortec heads, LEAVE THEM ALONE. If you've heard that they don't flow without porting, you heard wrong. (or, maybe you heard right, but it was the the wrong thing... doesn't much matter, it's wrong) All that needs to be done to them is to LIGHTLY clean up the rough edges in the bowl right behind the valves where the cutter met the casting, and some MILD exh port work much like other stock SBC heads. "Hogging em out" and such Cletus and BillyBob behavior is a good way to basically ruin a good set of heads. Most people who home port them end up with LESS flow than they started out with, because they somehow get caught up in "bigger is better". It isn't.

As said, sometimes "the most" HP isn't necessarily the right goal. "Enough" can be better. Especially for those who aren't in competitive racing of some sort or who aren't just track junkies chasing another couple of hundredths off their ET.

A good combo for a street car IMO would be something about like a Comp XFI268 cam, Vortec heads, HSR, 30 lb injectors, a good set of headers, and 3.42 or 3.73 gears. That should be farily manageable to tune, get decent gas mileage, but still put plenty of power to the pavement. That's assuming of course that you aren't in California, because the HSR (or the MiniRam for that matter) isn't legal out there. No CARB EO #.

 

 

No emissions for me I'm in michigan so I can do whatever I want to a car....lol when tuning I assume u mean changing specific specs within the ECU correct? With that combohow much rwhp would that produce? Just curious

 

Mini Ram is great if you have a large cube engine or one hell of a reving one but other then that the HSR will be more then enough for most people on this board, especially if your just running a street engine and not planing to rev past 6500 RPM.

 

Ok I figured that...all I want is low and mid range power...I won't be drag racing...now with the HSR the runners that come with it do they need porting at all? Does the whole setup come ready for fun or need some touch upp here and there

 

Of course. I always stick with the truth; call em as I see em. Why should I stop? You want me to lie, or what? The thing IS what it IS.

As I said, and as even Tony himself choes, the HSR will work fine for a nice hot street motor, especially just a little 350 with stock heads where the port size isn't too much of a limit, and where "max power" isn't the sole object. Sounds like you may fit into that category.

It doesn't have "runners" like TPI; it's more like a tunnel ram, as you can see from the pics. I suppose like most things, in some situations it could stand some "touch up" here and there and that might even make a difference if EVERYTHING ELSE is ABSOLUTELY PERFECT, but I doubt there's much even available there to be done. Frankly you should probably leave it alone, bolt it up, see what you get, and go from there. It's just an intake; only takes a coupla minutes to pop it off and have your way with it anyway.

Be aware that it has fitment issues in some Firebirds; since it was never designed to be what it has turned into, it kind of points the TB sort of upwards toward the front, which make the TB interfere with some Firebird hoods. People sometimes cut out a bit of the reinforcement in the hood to fit it. Hard to say what you'll find with yours.

 

With the cam u suggested in an earlier post do I still need to have the springs done on the vortec heads? Was gonna go with the beehive springs..guess the vortec heads stock have a restrictive lift to about .480. True?

 

firehawk1724, since you only want low and mid range power sofakingdom is right I would just use what you got, your TPI intake will do that for ya.

 

Well from my knowledge the TPI IS restrictive as far as flow goes without porting t and machine work...since I'm dropping the vortec motor in I wanted to upgrade...If the HSR will give me more than mid range power cool but I have no intentions on racing that's all...figure I will eventually do a manual swap so I can have fun with it...want 350hp and powerful torque or if a little more than that cool

 

Yes TPI is restrictive, but that's not what limits its potential. Its problem is the "T" in its name: "Tuned". What it does, is it relies on the cam having its valve events set up so that the int valve closes somewhat early during the total cyl fill flow event (which is why it HATES big cams with long int durations); it has those super long runners, such that during the inward flow into a cyl, there's a WHOLE BUNCH of stuff in the runner that gets up a pretty substantial velocity; then, when the int valve closes, all that "stuff" that's cruising down the runner bounces off the back of the int valve. This creates a large "pulse" of positive pressure (compression) in that runner starting at the far end, but since the int valve is closed, it has nowhere to go. The pressure pulse (aka "sound") therefore travels back up the runner, wanders around in the plenum however much, and some of it finds its way into the runner feeding the next cyl that's filling. If you work out the numbers, you'll find that compression waves in air (aka "sound") travel at just under 1100 ft per sec; which is to say, they travel just over 1 foot per millisecond. Since the runners in a TPI system are 22" long, or just almost exactly 2', that means that the sound wave created by one cyl when its int valve closes, reaches the plenum about 2 msec after the closing event. Then it bounces around a bit, and possibly travels down another runner, and arrives just at exactly the right instant to provide a bit of "supercharging" (positive pressure) at that cyl's int valve. Surprise surprise, it works the best when that next event is about 4 msec (2 msec back up the one runner, + 2msec down the next) behind the other. Surprise surprise surprise to anyone who has ever driven a TPI car, 4 msec between cyl fill events occurs at exactly 3600 RPM. Which is why whenever you look at a TPI motor's torque curve on a dyno, it has this "Mount Everest" thing at 3600 RPM, and then COMPLETELY CRATERS at any RPM above that; such that the torque curve falls off rapidly starting at 3600 RPM, and you get that "flat HP curve" that TPI is known for.

TPI sucks. It does what it does, quite well. Which is, AMPLIFY the torque peak at 3600 RPM, while DESTROYING the torque at ANY RPM above 3600.

If you want to go fast, get rid of it.

The HSR and the MR and various other intake systems DO NOT rely on this "tuned" efect. Anything that retains the long runner design, which includes the FIRST system, the SuperPITARam, and any of the replacement TPI runners like the Edelbrock or SLP runners, will still use the acoustic effect built into TPI, and therefore is RPM limited. Any system that DOES NOT rely on the "tuned" runner length, which includes the HSR and the MR as well as all of the "single-plane" setups like the Accel ProRam, don't have that issue.

You can't really "port" TPI, because it's made out of REAL THIN tubing. There's not any material there to "port". I notice you're really into talking about "porting", since every single thing we talk about you seem to want to know if you can "port" it. I suggest you back off of that emphasis a bit, because just grinding lots of metal off of things isn't always the path to winning. That's one of many reasons why Cletus and BillyBob have trouble getting their pickups with glasspacks to successfully merge with traffic on the freeway, let alone win races.

As far as "serious people", I can assure you, the FIRST thing you have to do to be counted among US, is to beat (or at least, run EVEN with) a mail-order combo with a common carb on top. If you THINK you're some kind of FI guru but can't beat a carb without blowers and giggle gas, YOU'RE NOT. A typical setup that someone needs to beat or at least tie (without nitrous, blower, turbo, or the like) would be a motor with about 10:1 compression, Vortec heads, a Comp XE268 or the Lunati Voodoo that s about that size, a Performer RPM Air Gap, a Holley 750 man sec carb, and a good exhaust. That combo is good for about 425 HP in a 350 or about 450 in a 383.

The HSR on a 350 will come close to the carb numbers, with good tuning; and of course will beat the carb for driveablity, gas mileage, and all that, with good tuning. Did I mention how important "tuning" is? Tuning is ALOT more critical than "porting" everything. Just spending a wheelbarrowfull of $$$$$ and bolting up a bunch of lumps of casting and grinding until there's nothing left to grind isn't good enough. There's more to going fast than your parts list. The trick of course is to minimize the amount of tuning required, which is directly dependent on how much cam you have to use. That's where the MiniRam and those others have trouble getting to "max power": to get ALL that they can offer, you have to use a cam that sends you off into the land of VERY MUCH TOUGHER tuning. The HSR however maxes out before huge cams like that are neccessary, so it's alot less tuning-hostile, when matched with a well thought-out combo. Won't neccessarily work with a stock tune and do much, but a good combo using it will still not be "professional grade" difficult to tune.

Now my fingers are tired. I have to go teach a statistics course at one of the local universities in the morning, so I'm going to go to bed now.

 

Well that was very informational and I say thank u sincerely...also I kept mentioning porting cause that seemed to be what folks have done suggested in the many threads I've read on here...
When it comes to tuning how do I actually go about doing that?

 

Well that was very informational and I say thank u sincerely...also I kept mentioning porting cause that seemed to be what folks have done suggested in the many threads I've read on here...
When it comes to tuning how do I actually go about doing that?

 

It's best to learn on the stock stuff plus it's the cheapest, check out the stickys over on the DIY Prom section to get you started.

 

Glad to be helpful.

Tuning an EFI setup is replacing the factory's fuel and sprak settings with something tailored to a different combo. YOu could either replace the ECM wholsesale, with something that offers direct monitoring and adjustment from a PC in real time; or stick with the stock one, and learn how to write esentially machine code into a chip that contains that stuff that you plug into the stock ECM, replacing the one that's there. A visit to the PROM burning forum might be worthwhile. One thing is FOR SURE though, "mail-order" tunes don't cut it, and "off the shelf" ones even less so. Basically you have to make all the same adjustments that one used to make with jet changes and distributor curve kits and all that, except now it's in software instead of mechanical hardware.

 

The 268 cammed, vortec hsr is a pretty good combo, surprised the crap out of me when if finally put my foot into it, even with the stock tune. This isn't something you want to do if you have limited mechanical experience though, especially if your going to swap the heads too. It's not hard, just technical, you dont want water pouring into a cylinder because the intake gasket didn't seal right. The best way to learn is to do it, you just don't want to learn some things the hard way, you know

 

I see u have a simiilar combo.....how much HP are u making to the wheels? Do you smoke most street challengers?

 

Don't have any dyno numbers but I figure its making around 290rwhp, just a guess though, with a tune the combo should be good for 330rwhp. I'm not an expert so don't take these numbers to heart, it could be more, could be less. I took my bro in his 96 WS6 T/A with an auto tranny, so theres some kind of baseline. The engine and tranny aren't even broke in yet so I've had to restrain myself when pushing the gas, but it pulls hard at any rpm and revs to my 5800 rpm redline with no feeling of power falling off.

 

How do you go about tuning your car?

 

Check out the DIY PROM section here to get some info on tuning and to help you figure out whether you want to do it yourself (best method) or have some company do it for you. Having a company do it will get you in the ballpark of where you need to be, every engine is different and its hard to guess how a particular engine is going to behave, plus the person doing the tuning doesn't care about your engine as much as you do. As for doing it yourself, I only have an idea of how that goes lol