Since I got tired of waiting for the SDPC Vortec base, I figured I should just go ahead and make my own

Basically I milled out a "step" in the mounting surface of a stock TPI base and welded in an extension to seal the raised runner ports on the Vortec head. Then I welded on a set of mounting pads and re-drilled the base for the 8-bolt mounting pattern. Next came the die grinder and after some serious hogging out of aluminum, had a nice port matched, raised runner, ported & polished TPI base manifold!

I'm still a couple of weeks away from firing up the motor but it sure looks like it's going to work just fine! If I can track down my brother's digital camera, I will post some pictures of the completed set up.

Overall, the project takes quite a bit of labor and access to some metalworking equipment but is definitely do-able!



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'88 IROC that looks suspiciously like a Jeep.
It's like a 3rd-gen with the aerodynamics of a brick but that'll go about anywhere!

 

howd your raised runner manifold attempt work??
still waiting on results..
airdeano

 

I'm still putting on pieces and parts, only having one day a week to work on it is a real pain. Sorry I haven't been able to load any pictures yet, hopefully soon. I expect that I won't be able to see the true performance gains for a while because I imagine there will be quite a few prom burning sessions before I have the tuning nailed down.

Updates to follow…
-Tim-

 

< waiting for updates

 

irocCJ, sounds like we have something in common! I just finished building a TPI 383 and put it into my 1979 CJ7 quadratrac with Turbo 400. Still working out the details, but boy oh boy is it FUN!!!!!

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Dave Zelinka