[455GRIN]

Thanks for the pictures. Was looking at my old Torker this weekend. Kinda cool to see one all cut open. The Tomahawk looks so much more refined compared to Torker and Holley SD.

[charlie66]

Its was either find a Holley street dominator or modify this one . I had this one so I figured id give it a try . Plus I like having one off things to be different. Its working out as planed so ill keep going unless something gets in the way of progress..

Thanks

[charlie66]

I made one of the front back runners today and both tops . Was the hardest piece to make so far...Holding the piece with one hand and trying to hot glue with the other and having a broken trigger on the gun was a task all on its own.. So if you're laughing at the glue job at least you know why.. Haha

[n2ogpsj462]

don't think the glue will hold up under boost! theres a HSD for sale in the classified btw. good price and id be all over it if I didn't recently score a ported tomahawk

[taff2]

I liked the Torker 1, I ran mid 9's with one on a n/a 400, made power all the way to 7000 rpm. A friend of mine with a 540BBC turbo combo had a CSU Domi and high rise Dart single plane manifold on his engine but like you he wanted a lower hood line, so he switched to an old Offy Port-o-Sonic low rise single plane manifold and welded on a Domi flange. He thought he would lose a small amount of power but the car was actually quicker without any other changes! We put it down to the Offy having a completely open internal configuration-much like a blower manifold without any port dividing walls- this allows the flow stream a straighter shot at the back of the intake valves and probably a bigger plenum area for each cylinder to pull from. My modded Offy 360 works on the same principle but I have two carbs, I need all the help I can get with factory iron heads.

[Tom Vaught]

Just had to know what to do with a Torquer1 intake Taff2, apparently you had that deal covered with mid 9s quarter mile times and a 400 engine

Tom V

[charlie66]

Originally Posted by n2ogpsj462

don't think the glue will hold up under boost! theres a HSD for sale in the classified btw. good price and id be all over it if I didn't recently score a ported tomahawk

I just checked it out. If I wasn't knee deep in this thing id consider getting it.. Thanks for the heads up on it.... It looks like the Torker with the bigger runners...

[charlie66]

Originally Posted by taff2

I liked the Torker 1, I ran mid 9's with one on a n/a 400, made power all the way to 7000 rpm. A friend of mine with a 540BBC turbo combo had a CSU Domi and high rise Dart single plane manifold on his engine but like you he wanted a lower hood line, so he switched to an old Offy Port-o-Sonic low rise single plane manifold and welded on a Domi flange. He thought he would lose a small amount of power but the car was actually quicker without any other changes! We put it down to the Offy having a completely open internal configuration-much like a blower manifold without any port dividing walls- this allows the flow stream a straighter shot at the back of the intake valves and probably a bigger plenum area for each cylinder to pull from. My modded Offy 360 works on the same principle but I have two carbs, I need all the help I can get with factory iron heads.

I wonder how it would do under boost with those smaller runners and the step...

[charlie66]

Originally Posted by taff2

I liked the Torker 1, I ran mid 9's with one on a n/a 400, made power all the way to 7000 rpm. A friend of mine with a 540BBC turbo combo had a CSU Domi and high rise Dart single plane manifold on his engine but like you he wanted a lower hood line, so he switched to an old Offy Port-o-Sonic low rise single plane manifold and welded on a Domi flange. He thought he would lose a small amount of power but the car was actually quicker without any other changes! We put it down to the Offy having a completely open internal configuration-much like a blower manifold without any port dividing walls- this allows the flow stream a straighter shot at the back of the intake valves and probably a bigger plenum area for each cylinder to pull from. My modded Offy 360 works on the same principle but I have two carbs, I need all the help I can get with factory iron heads.

Did you cut the whole divider out of the Torker front and back runners ?

[taff2]

Charlie, I didn't mod the Torker for a turbo combo,it was on my old naturally aspirated 400. Mods to the Torker were the usual grinding a big radius at the entries into the top of the ports and putting a smooth radius on all the dividing walls in the plenum, port matching to the heads etc and a 2" open spacer with an 800 spreadbore double pumper on top. My iron heads on this combo also had the port dividing walls ground down to just a 1/16" wide at the manifold interface- gaskets had to be hand cut to fit!
I modded an Offy 360 dual quad manifold for my turbo combo, that has the entire dividing walls between the ports cut out, the 'dogleg' top of the ports cut out and re-welded for a straight shot from plenum to the valves, a pent floor and Holley adapter flanges welded on. I use two 600 double pumpers converted to blow through style . I'm sure you've seen a pic of the manifold but here it is in case you haven't.

[charlie66]

Originally Posted by taff2

Charlie, I didn't mod the Torker for a turbo combo,it was on my old naturally aspirated 400. Mods to the Torker were the usual grinding a big radius at the entries into the top of the ports and putting a smooth radius on all the dividing walls in the plenum, port matching to the heads etc and a 2" open spacer with an 800 spreadbore double pumper on top. My iron heads on this combo also had the port dividing walls ground down to just a 1/16" wide at the manifold interface- gaskets had to be hand cut to fit!
I modded an Offy 360 dual quad manifold for my turbo combo, that has the entire dividing walls between the ports cut out, the 'dogleg' top of the ports cut out and re-welded for a straight shot from plenum to the valves, a pent floor and Holley adapter flanges welded on. I use two 600 double pumpers converted to blow through style . I'm sure you've seen a pic of the manifold but here it is in case you haven't.

I never would of thought that would be ok to do.. How is the drivability just idling and cursing around with the divider gone like that? What was your reason in doing this? Just curious , not questioning you... And do you think it works better with out them now that you've done it to compare with and with out? How does 1 not rob from the other? It must also knock down velocity no? I wonder if I did this to the Torker if it would work as good?

Thanks for the pictures , very appreciated.....

Do you have any others ? like of the process as well...

[taff2]

The driveability is fine, idles good etc, it works just like a blower manifold, it also has a large connecting passageway between the two plenums, so each cylinder can pull from a massive volume. As for cylinder robbing, in a normal manifold the flow from the carb chokes 'bends' to each manifold runner as the valve on that cylinder opens, mine does the same.,only the flow stream also has a direct line of sight from the plenum to the back of the valves, no choke point at the pushrod bulge, no swerving around a 'swan neck'. Cylinder to cylinder distribution is very good going by my plug readings. This siamesed port arrangement has been around a long time-it was used in Austin Mini engines from the '60's with a capacity of just 1.0 litre and driveability was fine with them. They could also be tuned to quite a high hp per cylinder . David Vizard did a lot of development work with these A series engines before he moved to the States.
To work with a Torker type manifold you would have to port the heads in the same way as mine- the port dividing wall between each pair of ports in the heads is cut back into the ports by around 1"- this opens up the pushrod choke area (there is now virtually no choke area there 'til close to 10,000 rpm ), and the line of sight is considerably straighter to each valve. It would take a bit of work to cut the dividing walls out of a single 4 barrel manifold, probably about half the work you've already done!

[taff2]

I didn't take pics of the mods as I went along, I didn't want a manifold that showed all the welds so my process was to weld in the runner roofs then grind back, then weld again and grind back etc,'til I got the shape of the manifold so that it looked sort of stock/factory cast, then ported the inside to the shape I wanted.

[charlie66]

Originally Posted by taff2

The driveability is fine, idles good etc, it works just like a blower manifold, it also has a large connecting passageway between the two plenums, so each cylinder can pull from a massive volume. As for cylinder robbing, in a normal manifold the flow from the carb chokes 'bends' to each manifold runner as the valve on that cylinder opens, mine does the same.,only the flow stream also has a direct line of sight from the plenum to the back of the valves, no choke point at the pushrod bulge, no swerving around a 'swan neck'. Cylinder to cylinder distribution is very good going by my plug readings. This siamesed port arrangement has been around a long time-it was used in Austin Mini engines from the '60's with a capacity of just 1.0 litre and driveability was fine with them. They could also be tuned to quite a high hp per cylinder . David Vizard did a lot of development work with these A series engines before he moved to the States.
To work with a Torker type manifold you would have to port the heads in the same way as mine- the port dividing wall between each pair of ports in the heads is cut back into the ports by around 1"- this opens up the pushrod choke area (there is now virtually no choke area there 'til close to 10,000 rpm ), and the line of sight is considerably straighter to each valve. It would take a bit of work to cut the dividing walls out of a single 4 barrel manifold, probably about half the work you've already done!

The next time you take the manifold off see if you can snap a picture or two of the cut back divider in the head . Just curious how it looks..

Id like to try this one day and see how I like it.. Sounds like by doing this you take a lot of know how of porting the runner out of the game .. Just a straight open shot , not much to think about with that .. Thanks for explaining it ...

[Burgess]

I came across this thread by chance, clicked on it because just yesterday a buddy asked me if I had any single-plane intakes, sold him an old Torker.

Here's one I made from the rear half of two, back in the early '90's. I never really finished it up, or used it. I had collected two Torkers from who knows where, and had read about this being done probably 10 years before that. So with some idle time, I did it just to be doing something. I made the carb flange bolt on in case I wanted to use a different style.

Notice how the port and flange size changed at some point during production between the two manifolds. The end with the larger ports, but smaller flange, will barely seal the top of a tall port like on a 455HO or RA IV head.

[charlie66]

Cool thanks for the pictures . I never seen one done . Heard of it though.. You should try it some time and see how it goes...

[PAUL K]

Originally Posted by Burgess

I came across this thread by chance, clicked on it because just yesterday a buddy asked me if I had any single-plane intakes, sold him an old Torker.

Here's one I made from the rear half of two, back in the early '90's. I never really finished it up, or used it. I had collected two Torkers from who knows where, and had read about this being done probably 10 years before that. So with some idle time, I did it just to be doing something. I made the carb flange bolt on in case I wanted to use a different style.

Notice how the port and flange size changed at some point during production between the two manifolds. The end with the larger ports, but smaller flange, will barely seal the top of a tall port like on a 455HO or RA IV head.

Nice work! The flange was changed shortly after the first year of production. You combined a first year manifold with a later unit. Is this the Torker you sold your buddy?

[Burgess]

Originally Posted by PAUL K

Is this the Torker you sold your buddy?

No. He was looking for some vintagey speed stuff for an old skool 59 GMC build.

[taff2]

The 'two back halves Torker' looks like it would work well, always fancied trying one when I was naturally aspirated.
Here's a couple of pics of the siamesed ports. In the first pic you can see how little of the back of the valve that the flow stream would see if using a normal intake manifold, the flow stream has to 'bend' around the port wall to get to the valve. Every time that the flow stream has to bend around an obstacle it loses energy and creates friction/fuel drop out.
Now look at the second pic, you can clearly see that if the flow stream is allowed to move over (as in a siamesed manifold/port arrangement like mine) ,that there is now a straight shot to the back of the valve.
My ports are nowhere near optimised, the slope/large radius at the floor corner of the ports that direct the flow stream to the back of the valve are not needed anymore, so the radius of these corners could be 'squared off' quite a bit to further increase flow. A good head porter could considerably increase flow through these I believe. Port volume is massively increased with the siamesed arrangment and mine could be increased even further if I cut the dividing wall even further back towards the bolt boss. I only cut the wall back by around 1" as I was advised that cutting back much further MAY cause charge robbing. I also wanted as much strength in the head bolt area for clamping the heads down.

[Tom Vaught]

I have seen the siamesed ports work on several Boosted engines very well.

Some Blower Intakes do not even have a divider cast into the pair of ports.

Tom V.