[jhein]

OK, so I've been thinking about a Repro RAIV intake for my car. The only reason I haven't already done it is because of the machining that will need to be done to it. Can all of this be done and swapped with the motor in the car?

[steve25]

If your Edelbrock D port heads are stock then their intake port openings are 1/8” shorter at the top than the ports in the repro intake you are checking out.
This would make the swap counter productive since you can’t grind your E heads ports taller while there bolted to the block no less in the car.

[Formulajones]

Mine was fine out of the box. You'll probably be fine.

[mgarblik]

Originally Posted by jhein

OK, so I've been thinking about a Repro RAIV intake for my car. The only reason I haven't already done it is because of the machining that will need to be done to it. Can all of this be done and swapped with the motor in the car?

Yes, you can install it without engine or head removal. I fully expect it to fit poorly and perform even worse. I know it's so tempting to want one of these iconic light intakes on any 4bbl. Pontiac. But the bad news is, the reproduction intakes are really, really bad castings. I have personally worked with 2 of them so far. One was just so, so bad, it really couldn't be fixed. The owner sent it back for a refund. The other one took $600.00 worth of welding to fix the ports and leave enough sealing area at the top for a gasket. After all that work, the engine felt exactly the same as it did with the iron intake. So with the crossover, repairs to the intake, gaskets and labor, the poor guy had north of $1500.00 in this changeover that accomplished absolutely nothing. Plus it was an early TA so the intake was almost completely covered by the air cleaner and shaker anyway. I hate to see anyone waste their money.

Also as Steve correctly mentioned, to get any slight performance gain, maybe 5 HP, port matching work would be needed on the heads requiring removal and the port alignment on the new intake has been horrible on the ones I have seen requiring substantial port work on the runners and entrance to try and line everything up. Not much upside to them IMO.

If you DO decide to try one please post some pics when you get it as delivered. Possibly, the castings have been improved over the last couple years. Couldn't be much worse. Good luck.

[jhein]

Hmm. So it sounds like it may work, may not, and if it does "fit" that ports aren't the right size for my heads.

I guess if I really wanted to do it, the right way would be to pull the heads and have everything matched up. Another, much more expensive option would be to get a pair of round port E heads (assuming they have the proper size ports, they may need less work than D-ports??) and then sell my D port heads.

So it seems like sticking with the D-port heads it will give me a cosmetic upgrade only and will be a lot of work. Going to round ports would be a decent performance upgrade but still a lot of work and much more expensive.

Ugh. My iron intake is starting to look better and better.

[BILL BOWMAN1]

I was going to go this route until I heard how bad the castings were. I’m going with a stock iron intake. Still kicking myself for selling my mint original RA4 unit.

[grivera]

You can always paint your iron intake with “cast aluminum” paint for the look…

[mgarblik]

Originally Posted by jhein

Hmm. So it sounds like it may work, may not, and if it does "fit" that ports aren't the right size for my heads.

I guess if I really wanted to do it, the right way would be to pull the heads and have everything matched up. Another, much more expensive option would be to get a pair of round port E heads (assuming they have the proper size ports, they may need less work than D-ports??) and then sell my D port heads.

So it seems like sticking with the D-port heads it will give me a cosmetic upgrade only and will be a lot of work. Going to round ports would be a decent performance upgrade but still a lot of work and much more expensive.

Ugh. My iron intake is starting to look better and better.

I will make a few more comments and then shut up about this. The cast iron Pontiac intakes from the late 60's, early 70's may be among the best factory intakes ever put on a muscle car engine. Not as sexy as aluminum, but really not that heavy and they can support great street power. Many members on this board make well over 500 HP with an iron dual plane intake. The Ram Air IV/455 HO aluminum intake is cool, no doubt about it, but only a small HP increase if any on a mild engine. That's assuming you get a good one fit wise. The D-port Edelbrock heads make really good power too. Yes the round port version has more potential and is easier to work on the exhaust side but now your into new headers or exhaust manifolds too. I ended up having to switch from round port to D-port E-heads on my 62 Catalina because of the endless problems getting exhaust manifolds for several years. Didn't want tube headers and wasn't willing to spend 4-5K for a set of long branch round port manifolds. I am happy with the CNC ported D-ports and manifolds. It made 487 HP and 527 ft. lbs of torque with a mild cam that idles at 1000 RPM's and will run my power brakes. So you have allot of options.

I should mention that the one reproduction intake that was so bad, he had to return it was handled with no hassle. They refunded all his money. He may have been out one way shipping. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

[jhein]

Originally Posted by mgarblik

I will make a few more comments and then shut up about this. The cast iron Pontiac intakes from the late 60's, early 70's may be among the best factory intakes ever put on a muscle car engine. Not as sexy as aluminum, but really not that heavy and they can support great street power. Many members on this board make well over 500 HP with an iron dual plane intake. The Ram Air IV/455 HO aluminum intake is cool, no doubt about it, but only a small HP increase if any on a mild engine. That's assuming you get a good one fit wise. The D-port Edelbrock heads make really good power too. Yes the round port version has more potential and is easier to work on the exhaust side but now your into new headers or exhaust manifolds too. I ended up having to switch from round port to D-port E-heads on my 62 Catalina because of the endless problems getting exhaust manifolds for several years. Didn't want tube headers and wasn't willing to spend 4-5K for a set of long branch round port manifolds. I am happy with the CNC ported D-ports and manifolds. It made 487 HP and 527 ft. lbs of torque with a mild cam that idles at 1000 RPM's and will run my power brakes. So you have allot of options.

I should mention that the one reproduction intake that was so bad, he had to return it was handled with no hassle. They refunded all his money. He may have been out one way shipping. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

Thanks for all that. Greatly appreciated.. From now on, just call me Iron Man...

[locomotivebreath]

I really dig my iron intake and am thankful to have it . Blows peoples minds around here that I would run a ‘ crappy stock intake ‘ lol and Qjet !

[jhein]

Yeah, for the record, I think that the iron intakes do look really nice. In fact, I think Pontiac motors in general are one of the best looking motors out there.

[Sun Tuned]

Let me throw this in about the aluminum repro intake.

I built a 462 for a good friend of mine. And because I was looking for weight savings we bought a repro intake from our host 1 year ago. I did not want to do to an original what I was about to do to the repro. The money was not an issue either way.

Not saying I recommend doing one the way I did.
.030 over 455, Ross 2 relief pistons, eagle rods, same standard fare short block we are all building. All Butler sourced parts pretty much except the cam , which I bought here at home from comp. But for arguments sake it’s a Road Paver with 1.65 Crower rockers, Butler has it figured at 11:5.1 but I came up with 11:3.1.

The heads are the Butler cnc’d edelbrock 325 cc D ports.

Then I decided to put this aluminum repro intake on top.
Well the ports on these heads are very tall and rather wide. Will this work? Yes!

However, here is what it took. I had to weld up the tops of the runners on the intake , because to port match that would have completely breeches the top of the intake runners. Welding fixed this. It took a little skill to do to so that it didn’t look obvious someone has been fooling around. Then I spent 35 hours with a carbide aluminum grinding burr making the rest of it suitable for the heads it was being bolted to.

After it was all said and done, I was very proud of the end result. I was very proud of how well it works, looks and runs. The casting we received was fine. It was off just a bit, but nothing like what I’ve heard some make mention of being bad quality. This one was pretty nice. After I got done I removed 5.2 lbs of aluminum from the plenum and the runners. Yes, I broke through the ports in 2 places… so it’s kinda thin in the port runners.

It can be done. I wanted it to look as close to oem under the hood as I could. Mission accomplished there.
Not sure most would stand there for 35 hours but that’s what I did.

These guys that hand port heads and intakes are not just billing folks, I assure you they are earning their money. It’s not hard work , but it’s damn sure tedious. And worth it especially if they know what they’re doing.

[PAUL K]

Not sure how one can blame an intake manifold for not fitting heads that have a large intake port. I'm also not sure why all the ports are made "so big"..... Maybe if they took away their CNC machine and the metal was removed by hand, the guy operating the the grinder would learn to remove metal from areas that help make power rather than just put the head in the machine and hit the "go" button..... But then again maybe not.

A few things to think about:

Jim Hand's wagon and his brother Floyd's GTO ran mid 11's using ports that matched a standard gasket.

My 318 CFM head's ports are matched to factory RAIV gasket and ran 10.71 @ 125.7 on the third pass down the track in my 80 Trans Am weighing 3800 lbs. using a basic pump gas 455 , tight 10" converter and 3:42 gears.

My brother's 464 engine makes 720 HP and uses a port that is about .060 taller than a RAIV (2.28) and flows over 330 CFM.

All the combinations above use very efficient ports and perform well at the track and have excellent throttle response. I'd maybe be questioning the guys selling these tall port heads why are they so tall that I can't even fit an intake manifold on them.

Btw for what it's worth the Hand heads used 2.11 valves, my 318's used a 2.15 and my brother has 2.125.

[PAUL K]

If it's helpful, the proper order of building a sensible performance engine is to size the port in the head and then match the intake manifold to the port in the head. Changing an intake manifold does not require removing the heads or modifying the heads to match the intake manifold. The "professional" shops actually base port location off the intake manifold bolt hole centerlines.

[65madgoat]

I am still tripping over the 35 hours soent on an intake ��

[Nobuddy]

I don't own a set, but I recall the intakes on the stock Edelbrock D port heads are the same dimension as their round ports. Which they claim to be same as the SD455. So the stock Edelbrock intake ports would be higher than both the stock iron or repro aluminum manifolds. Like .050" or .060" compared to RAIV if my memory is correct. So run either intake stock or match them to the heads. Shouldn't need anything done to the heads unless I'm missing something.

Barry

[Verdoro 68]

Every time one of these threads comes up on the repro intakes it makes me feel like I'm the lucky one. Mine fit without significant issue. Maybe it was from the same batch as SunTuned's. I did do quite a bit of port matching and modified the plenum, but no welding or other machine work required. I feel like I removed a lot of metal, but I'm not sure it was close to 5lbs. Wow!

[Dragncar]

Originally Posted by PAUL K

Not sure how one can blame an intake manifold for not fitting heads that have a large intake port. I'm also not sure why all the ports are made "so big"..... Maybe if they took away their CNC machine and the metal was removed by hand, the guy operating the the grinder would learn to remove metal from areas that help make power rather than just put the head in the machine and hit the "go" button..... But then again maybe not.

A few things to think about:

Jim Hand's wagon and his brother Floyd's GTO ran mid 11's using ports that matched a standard gasket.

My 318 CFM head's ports are matched to factory RAIV gasket and ran 10.71 @ 125.7 on the third pass down the track in my 80 Trans Am weighing 3800 lbs. using a basic pump gas 455 , tight 10" converter and 3:42 gears.

My brother's 464 engine makes 720 HP and uses a port that is about .060 taller than a RAIV (2.28) and flows over 330 CFM.

All the combinations above use very efficient ports and perform well at the track and have excellent throttle response. I'd maybe be questioning the guys selling these tall port heads why are they so tall that I can't even fit an intake manifold on them.

Btw for what it's worth the Hand heads used 2.11 valves, my 318's used a 2.15 and my brother has 2.125.

Can you tell us about your brothers 720 HP 464 ? Kinda what I am shooting for.

[Formulajones]

I did a 455 with the HO version of that intake untouched and made 507hp and 571 tq with a mild cam that ran the power brakes and AC and idled nice at 850rpm.

So those intakes have no issues making power. If you do happen to get one where ports are slightly misaligned I'm sure you guys know how to handle a little grinder and have the time to spend 30 minutes to clean it up. It's not rocket science.

I also run the RA IV repo on my bird with extensive dragstrip testing on that car. Untouched intake out of the box and it runs "identical" to the factory iron intake it replaced.

Seems like this always has to be mentioned when this subject comes up but you guys do realize these repops were patterned off a factory intake right? A factory intake was used to make the molds. Core shift is a reality with this stuff so you get variances but the truth of the matter is the factory pieces weren't all that great with port alignment either, even the iron intakes. And we've posted plenty of pics in the past of factory pieces both iron and aluminum with crappy port alignment, just do a search.

Spend a few minutes to clean it up.

As far as welding goes, if you're running heads that big trying to make HP quite frankly I'd be looking at different/better intakes to do the job anyway so that's a non starter for me. I'm not building strokers with big heads and trying to choke it with a stock intake.

[PAUL K]

Originally Posted by Sun Tuned

Let me throw this in about the aluminum repro intake.

I built a 462 for a good friend of mine. And because I was looking for weight savings we bought a repro intake from our host 1 year ago. I did not want to do to an original what I was about to do to the repro. The money was not an issue either way.

Not saying I recommend doing one the way I did.
.030 over 455, Ross 2 relief pistons, eagle rods, same standard fare short block we are all building. All Butler sourced parts pretty much except the cam , which I bought here at home from comp. But for arguments sake it’s a Road Paver with 1.65 Crower rockers, Butler has it figured at 11:5.1 but I came up with 11:3.1.

The heads are the Butler cnc’d edelbrock 325 cc D ports.

Then I decided to put this aluminum repro intake on top.
Well the ports on these heads are very tall and rather wide. Will this work? Yes!

However, here is what it took. I had to weld up the tops of the runners on the intake , because to port match that would have completely breeches the top of the intake runners. Welding fixed this. It took a little skill to do to so that it didn’t look obvious someone has been fooling around. Then I spent 35 hours with a carbide aluminum grinding burr making the rest of it suitable for the heads it was being bolted to.

After it was all said and done, I was very proud of the end result. I was very proud of how well it works, looks and runs. The casting we received was fine. It was off just a bit, but nothing like what I’ve heard some make mention of being bad quality. This one was pretty nice. After I got done I removed 5.2 lbs of aluminum from the plenum and the runners. Yes, I broke through the ports in 2 places… so it’s kinda thin in the port runners.

It can be done. I wanted it to look as close to oem under the hood as I could. Mission accomplished there.
Not sure most would stand there for 35 hours but that’s what I did.

These guys that hand port heads and intakes are not just billing folks, I assure you they are earning their money. It’s not hard work , but it’s damn sure tedious. And worth it especially if they know what they’re doing.

Nice work.... Have any pictures by chance?