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Need help deciding on an intake

3K views 17 replies 7 participants last post by  Chevymetal 
#1 ·
Hopefully someone can help me make a good decision on an intake because I've read up on intakes till I'm about to puke. The plan is upgrade to get a solid roller cam (.640 lift range) and while I've got things apart I thought I'd look at upgrading the intake if needed.
Here is the current setup:
66 Chevelle
400 SBC
11:1 Forged Flat tops
Dart Pro 1 Heads 230cc
Weiand Team G w/1" raised plenum
4.56 gears
7.38@92.13 in the 1/8th
Do you think I'd see any difference going to a Motown, Dart, Bowtie, or Super Vic intake and if so is it worth the money to have someone port match the intake with the heads?
 
#2 ·
Chevymetal said:
Hopefully someone can help me make a good decision on an intake because I've read up on intakes till I'm about to puke. The plan is upgrade to get a solid roller cam (.640 lift range) and while I've got things apart I thought I'd look at upgrading the intake if needed.
Here is the current setup:
66 Chevelle
400 SBC
11:1 Forged Flat tops
Dart Pro 1 Heads 230cc
Weiand Team G w/1" raised plenum
4.56 gears
7.38@92.13 in the 1/8th
Do you think I'd see any difference going to a Motown, Dart, Bowtie, or Super Vic intake and if so is it worth the money to have someone port match the intake with the heads?
The reason you want to puke is that in your readings what they aren't telling you in so many words is that the intake becomes another tuning tool. They all react differently on different engine's at different times and in different places depending on weather, altitude, tilt of the sun and stuff like that.

The Team G is a good choice, it like any-other selection, will be an exercise in figuring out how to make it work at its best on your engine.

Port matching is another one of those places where there might be a benefit or not. One can argue both sides a smooth transition aids flow, or a slight mismatch presents a disruption that reduces reversion, thus increasing flow, or at least not diminishing it. If you have a fuel cloud hanging above the carb, the engine has a strong reversion and keeping a step at the manifold to head joint is probably working to minimize that effect. If the engine doesn't have a stand off fuel cloud then reversion probably isn't a problem and perhaps the overall flow could be improved with port matching.

Again much of this is really a tuning activity, you try something and test how it works. If all the stuff you read about just worked with no "if, ands or buts" we all would be building the same engine.

Bogie
 
#4 ·
Thanks for the replies.

Bogie, you are exactly right.
Well, about 15 min. ago I was able to score a new Super Victor for $150 so I bit the bullet and got it. Too good to pass up.

I guess the next decision goes back to what you addressed and that is whether it's worth having it ported on not.

RPM's will see 6,800-7,000
 
#5 ·
Chevymetal said:
Thanks for the replies.

Bogie, you are exactly right.
Well, about 15 min. ago I was able to score a new Super Victor for $150 so I bit the bullet and got it. Too good to pass up.

I guess the next decision goes back to what you addressed and that is whether it's worth having it ported on not.

RPM's will see 6,800-7,000
Now you've started your intake manifold collection, these look so good hanging on the shop walls. Super Victor is another good selection, best of luck and fun to you.

Bogie
 
#6 ·
oldbogie said:
Now you've started your intake manifold collection, these look so good hanging on the shop walls. Super Victor is another good selection, best of luck and fun to you.

Bogie
:) Thanks. Hopefully I can share some feedback on the intake swap when I get everything put back together.
 
#8 ·
Chevymetal said:
...is it worth the money to have someone port match the intake with the heads?
Just a word or two on the subject of "port matching".

The most often performed, non productive thing you'll see in regards to "porting" a head, is gasket matching the head and intake. This isn't to be confused w/port matching- which is almost always beneficial.

Port matching is more involved than simply scribing the outline of an intake gasket port opening onto the heads and intake- but this will actually HELP the flow, as opposed to hurting flow.

The difference is that when using a gasket as the template to enlarge the ports of the heads and intake, you'll inevitably end up w/a "snake that ate a rabbit"- looking port (w/a nod to TI ;)), that is, a larger cross section will have been formed at the interface between the head and intake. This is decidedly not good- the sudden increase in cross section causes a momentary slowing of the air/fuel mixture at that point. This in turn can cause fuel "drop out" in a worst case, and will cause turbulence as the faster-moving A/F charge hits the slowed down pocket formed at that point.

Instead, what's wanted, is to match the ports to each other, only removing material from one where it encroaches on the other's ability to flow unimpeded. The air/fuel needs to be able to flow through the junction from the intake into the head port, w/o "seeing" any obstruction or creating the 'bloated snake' effect.

All sides of the port are important, but the top of the ports is where you want things to align as perfectly as possible, being as how this is where the most flow is occurring.

An article on port matching by Circle Track magazine is HERE.
 
#9 ·
I will certainly bump this thread back up when everything gets put back together and I can post some results.

Cobalt,
Thanks for the great info on the port matching and the link. Very insightful.
 
#10 ·
Alright, just got the Super Victor in and thought I'd share comparison pictures of the stock plenums of each.
The Team G looks smoother and not as rough as the SV although the SV is advertised as having extra meat in the casting for porting purposes.
Super Victor:


Team G:


After seeing the Super Victor I'm not to thrilled about running it out of the box without doing some massaging to the plenum.
 
#12 ·
Chevymetal said:
Alright, just got the Super Victor in and thought I'd share comparison pictures of the stock plenums of each.
The Team G looks smoother and not as rough as the SV although the SV is advertised as having extra meat in the casting for porting purposes.
Super Victor:


Team G:


After seeing the Super Victor I'm not to thrilled about running it out of the box without doing some massaging to the plenum.
Yes the Super Victor is intended to be ported, the first one you do will probably be a throw-away experimental piece, maybe the second one as well.

The Team G tells you, if you know what to look for, is that it has a wet fuel problem on the inboard ports. The ridges are there to form a small puddle to even out the flow.

Not to say that the fuel puddle is bad, the Victor could well end up needing that kind of help as well, but you won't know that without a wet flow bench or running it on the engine while tracking mixture ratios by the cylinder.

There's an old saying that "the fastest way to make a large fortune into a small one is to get a race car". Here ya go!

Bogie
 
#13 ·
I have a strong inkling that by time I'm done with this little experiment that I will have gained a bit more knowledge but it won't be free.
I feel fairly confident I can at least smooth out the plenum area of the SV while being careful not to grind away too much.
I'll be anxious to make some trips down the track if I can ever get things buttoned back together.
Thanks again for the great feed back it's all good information that people can learn from.
 
#14 ·
Head over to www.speedtalk.com to the Engine forum, there are several threads w/pictures from Pro head porters on the work that needs to be done to the plenum on a Super Vic.

Also seen at www.1320techtalk.com in the Induction Forum, very good pictures and text there from Chad Speier Racing Heads. Thread is "2925 vs modified 2925 on dyno". Also at www.yellowbullet.com in the Naturally Aspirated section of Tech forums.

The Super Vic needs a lot of work, especially on a 400 or bigger engine, there is a lot of material to be removed to get the inner runners to breathe well, but the info shows something like 30+ hp/tq gains.
 
#15 ·
ericnova72 said:
Head over to www.speedtalk.com to the Engine forum, there are several threads w/pictures from Pro head porters on the work that needs to be done to the plenum on a Super Vic.

Also seen at www.1320techtalk.com in the Induction Forum, very good pictures and text there from Chad Speier Racing Heads. Thread is "2925 vs modified 2925 on dyno". Also at www.yellowbullet.com in the Naturally Aspirated section of Tech forums.

The Super Vic needs a lot of work, especially on a 400 or bigger engine, there is a lot of material to be removed to get the inner runners to breathe well, but the info shows something like 30+ hp/tq gains.
Eric,

Thanks for the links. I've been doing just what you suggested over the last several days. There is a wealth of knowlege with Chad Speier and some of the dyno comparisons he's done with manifolds in stock form and his ported work.
I've saved several pictures from there to study and I plan on getting started myself this weekend. Maybe I'll post up some pics if I can do a halfway decent job.
 
#16 ·
For those interested here is the progress so far with cleaning up the plenum on the Super Victor.
It's certainly not as nice looking as what I see posted but maybe it's a good start. I'm trying to be fairly conservative with my approach to this so any advice is welcome.
Here are the before and after comparisons:





 
#17 ·
Intakes

:thumbup: THE WEIAND TEAM G IS A GOOD INTAKE LOTS OF GUYS USE THEM AT THE TRACK. AFTER REVIEWING SOME COMPILED DYNO SHEETS ON 355S, 383S, 400S SBCHEVYS THE VICTOR JR SEEMED TO OUT PERFORM SOME OF THE OTHER INTAKES IN THE HP CURVE. MY ENGINE BUILDER AT PROFORMANCE
RECOMMENDED ONE FOR MY 383 IT WORKED PRETTY GOOD. I AM TRYING OUT A HURRICANE THIS YEAR ON MY 406 IVE HEARD GOOD DYNO REVIEWS ABOUT THEM AND THEY ARE SUPER AFFORDABLE.

GOOD LUCK WITH THAT VICTOR" LET HER EAT" :thumbup:
 
#18 ·
Isi Ray said:
:thumbup: THE WEIAND TEAM G IS A GOOD INTAKE LOTS OF GUYS USE THEM AT THE TRACK. AFTER REVIEWING SOME COMPILED DYNO SHEETS ON 355S, 383S, 400S SBCHEVYS THE VICTOR JR SEEMED TO OUT PERFORM SOME OF THE OTHER INTAKES IN THE HP CURVE. MY ENGINE BUILDER AT PROFORMANCE
RECOMMENDED ONE FOR MY 383 IT WORKED PRETTY GOOD. I AM TRYING OUT A HURRICANE THIS YEAR ON MY 406 IVE HEARD GOOD DYNO REVIEWS ABOUT THEM AND THEY ARE SUPER AFFORDABLE.

GOOD LUCK WITH THAT VICTOR" LET HER EAT" :thumbup:
Thanks. I hope you have good success with that Hurricane, I'd be curious to hear how it performs for you.
 
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