Torker intake Question
 

I'm modifying a Torker intake to make the 4 front runners wider, and while im in there im going to even out the stepped floor. So my question is do I go with the lower floor or the upper floor level? Its for a boosted engine. Originally I was going to lower the floor for more plenum size and port size , but then I started looking at the whole picture and the lower floor/runners go so flat from the plenum to the head flange where the higher floor/runners are high and have a nice pitch / slope downward to the flange . To me it seems the lower runners kind of fall off like a cliff as the air enters the head port, where the higher ones look like the air will enter in a more smoother flowing manner. Also if it was higher would it have better velocity and throttle manners?

Thanks ...

So I decided to raise the front floor to the same level as the back because it was less work. Being its going to be used for boost I don't think 5/8 of a inch will really matter. So far I made the front runners and hot glued it together for mock up.. Next is the back ones and then to finish with the floor.

Give you a lot of credit Charlie, removing the poor runners and making your own runners to match the rear ones is a job, but possibly less actual work vs doing a split manifold. (two Rear sections like I did.)

Tom V.

Thanks Tom.

There was a moment where I stepped back and looked at this gutted what used to be Torker manifold and said to myself what have I done there's no coming back from this one.. haha. But then I just went with my thoughts and let it unfold .. Now it seems like no big deal. I have a good idea for the rest of them already. The hardest part was shaping the runner wall and twisting it to go parallel with the divider .. I had to make up a tool to do it.. I got a nice chunk of 1/2 aluminum for the floor. I'm going to try and pitch the floor to each runner with the center at a flat peak...

Is there a particular reason you are modding a Torker 1 rather than using a better manifold such as a Victor?

Hood clearance mainly . 2 1/4 inch difference.. I need hood clearance . I'm not chopping a 1964 got hood...

I've owned this manifold since I was 22 . Used to run it on a 389 that ran low 12's . I guess im a little attached to it too. haha. I probably could of got something like a Holley street Dominator or something like that but I don't see why I cant make this one work. All you really have to do is get boost into it an keep turning the knob till your happy right.. Im actually having fun doing this anyway. I like the challenge.. I have all winter ..

I guess you're not a fan of this one?

One thing I noticed about this particular Torker , not saying all Torkers are this way, but this one the driver side back runners are 1/8 wider half way down heading towards the plenum. That might just explain why number 5 and 7 plugs were always a little learner then then 6 and 8.. Idk I could be wrong , but I don't think so....

Getting another manifold and matting both back half's together would of been a better way of making this one more uniform but I didn't have another and thought it would be cool to keep the front area between the runners and water crossover looking the same as original ...

I would luv to see a picture of the one you did....

Ditching the 4cyl or just a stay busy project?

I also like one off things that no one else has..

I have a home for that victor if you are not using it! LOL
Nice job Charlie, you are motivated for sure.

You make headers yet??

Man that is a loaded question. haha

I'm not but I am. I know that makes no sense.

The 4 cylinder is like having a bipolar girlfriend its very unpredictable . Its happy one second and the next millisecond its not. I like it most of the time because its got cool factor and it gets tons of attention no matter where I bring it , the car is basically like a movie star, im not kidding everyone piles around it to look at the motor as soon as I pull in to any local car show.. .it has a reputation around here for more then one reason . But at the same time I can't afford to build it the way it needs to be built for the power level I want It to live at. If I get a crank made for the 4500- 5000 dollar's Moldex wants to build one for, a big question comes to mind that stops me quick. What will be the next weak link. In my mind its the block . I had a chance back when I started building it to buy a Super Duty block (very rare) but didn't because the guy wanted 1400 just for the block. so I went with the other block he had for 400. At the time it seemed like the better choice because I didn't know where I was going with this and how successful I would be at actually getting it built. there's not a lot of parts out there for it . So I called Nunzi and told him about it . In an earlier conversation I had with him prior to this one he assured me I would never find one , boy was that far from the truth for me. He didn't believe me at first because of the rarity of the block . But after the guy Andy that had it called him he bought it for 1000 bucks . It kills me every time I think about not buying that block. If I had the block I would get the crank made and have a 1000 hp 4 cylinder all day long .. An to rub it in more the machinist that did Nunzi's block did mine. He told me that that block was so hard to bore because of the high nickel content it had. He said he was afraid it was going to break the boring bit it was so hard when boring... he said mine cut like butter. Anyway right now the cam is out and back for the third time to the guy that made it because one of the lobes keeps going bad. Just like a pimple something keeps erupting from underneath , it seems there was a defect in the core . So when he gets back from the PRI show he's going to evaluate it and tell me what he's going to do. So there you got a short history of what its like doing a 4 cylinder. Its just hot and cold all the time.. So yeah im building a 8 cylinder for the future because of the rocky road I've had so far. It will make the same power at 12 psi then dealing with 38 psi and do it reliably .. Sorry for the long answer, you just got me thinking....

I told you last year I wanted to trade you for your warrior but you sold it..

No , but I have a good idea thanks to Tom V and Taff ... It will eventually all get done..

I'm only one poor bastard with too much time on his hands .... Lol

It does make sense especially for reliability. What cubic inch? If I were to start over I think I'd do a 3" main 440.

I'm a poor bastard with NO time on my hands!!

For me its the smallest stroke and big bore.. So with out spending a lot of money getting the stroke that id like, im stuck with a 400 .035 over with a 3.75 stroke.. it will make more power then I could ever use...

Oh believe me, I've learned that to be true....

I redid the front runners for the third and last time now. The roof was too wide and had to squash it down some . also made a divider for the two runners . It will all blend with the weld and a grinder...

If I can get some pics of my Split back-half Torquer intake I will post them up, Charlie.

Tom V.

Charlie,
I am very impressed with your work on this intake. Keep working on it.

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.

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

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

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 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.

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

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...

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

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

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...

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!

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.

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 ...

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.

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...

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?

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

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.

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.

Thank You! That's a cool idea . ill have to try that some day....

Sometimes I just don't think. I thought I had a good idea hot gluing the manifold together . Never dawned on me that when I start welding the glue would melt and all the parts would fall down like a row of dominos .. Lol

Got some of the manifold welded today.. slowly getting it done...

The problem with welding an old cast intake is its dirty metal. A lot of impurities in it.. so u get all those black marks..

Progress, looks good.

FYI,i was told by a aircraft guy that if you can find access to liquid nitrogen and put a cast alu piece in it that it cleans it where it is much more easy to weld.FWIW,Tom

Thank you Jeff..

There's a lot of areas at the short turn that still need more fill..

I didn't know that . Thank you Tom...

Didn't read every Post. I've done a few Torkers.

Give Special attention to metal removals to the ceiling blends into each runner. Only Runner 7 is at risk of break-out.

can you explain you mean?