Speedmaster Intake Manifold
 

I just noticed that one of our most popular Pontiac engine builders is selling the SM intakes, I’m wondering why we don’t hear more about this intake? Is it because they are more than likely a stolen design or does it not work well? Seems when I go on the SM website they offer a dual & single plane choice for pretty cheap money?

Long story short I’m building a 455 this winter & considering changing out intakes from my factory cast iron due to some really bad corrosion on mine around the thermostat that causes a bad leak unless it’s loaded up with RTV.

you will get a lot of input here ..but unless you are going to be making a lot of power . I would just get another cast iron intake. you can still get them for under 200.

Pretty sure form the pictures it is a copy of Ace's old Tomahawk based on a Dave Bisshop modified Holley Street dominator intake.

This has been talked about many times before on this site.

Speed Master does not make parts, they copy them.

Many businesses sell Speed Master parts because folks by them.

Everything from SM is cheap entry level copies. Metallurgy and quality varies. Go on E bay and buy a 40 year old HSD intake, it will be better than anything SM offers.

There’s a Torker 2 for sale locally as well as an HSD that’s semi local that I’ve been eyeing.

Agreed but what I find interesting is that one of the most famous Pontiac engine shops is using the SM so is there not a better choice or regardless of whether the design is stolen or not it must be a good product for them to sell it correct?

As I said, shops sell SM parts because folks buy them. Most businesses number one priority is profit, it's needed to survive.

A lot of people only care about SM unethical business practice fifty one weeks out of the year.

People can spend their money the way they want just don't expect a response when you try to tell me how to spend mine.

Markets dictate as they should.

I would put intakes in a different class than say connecting rods or crankshafts a few thousands here or there isn't much of a deal with an intake and materials are less important as well with a intake...... as far as copying that toothpaste has been out of the tube a very long time now

I wouldn't. The damn things are 50lbs+

I think Bulter’s ended up peddling SM products a few years ago back when Edelbrock moved the mfg out of California and got pretty behind, Butler’s needed something to sell. They are probably realizing now what a stupid business decision it was.

I guess due to the well known business practices of SM as well as them ripping off some members of this community by stealing their design I’d expect much of the response that I’ve seen here & in other threads when mentioning their products. What I’m really trying to understand is are these Pontiac manifolds good, meaning do they perform.

I’m in the parts business myself, been a manufacturers rep for the last 20 years representing multiple well known brands in the automotive & commercial truck industry, I hate to say this but as much as we all want to buy from US manufacturers that ship has sailed thanks to NAFTA many years ago, as mentioned the toothpaste is out of the tube.

I just finally took a closer look at these intakes because I’m in the market & when I did a google search for Tomahawk intake the first place that came up is the most well known Pontiac engine builder in the industry. When I looked at their pictures on their site it’s very easy to see Speedmaster on the intake so I asked the question of how these intakes are but should have specified how they perform.

Honestly to me, none of the choices are real great, so do I buy an “original” Edelbrock intake & give my money to a private equity firm that’s destroying the history of the top tier brands in the industry? Do I give my money to a Chinese clone company with nefarious business activity or do I spend my money with a good old USA based company selling Chinese clones? Like I said, not good choices all around but I’m a realist, I probably touch & feel more parts from more sources than most consumers due to the nature of my business & I can tell you quality sucks no matter where & who, what matters most is the support you’ll get if there’s a problem. The most alarming thing that I’m seeing in the industry is the consolidation of brands as well as the lack of customer support from these larger companies but that’s what it takes to survive in the industry now a days.

While the HSD is a better made intake the Tomahawk will outrun a as cast HSD.
I did some drag strip testing years back with the old TRW 455 and as cast 96 heads. The Tomahawk was better than 2 tenths quicker than the Holley.
My Tomahawk was touched up by SD a little though.
And the Tomahawk got the car down to 11 flat with the HO heads and SR cam. Its a really good intake for pump gas 455 street engines IMO.
The Warrior outran them all.

I think that is very accurate info for how the HSD manifolds compared to a Tomahawk. I recall Steve C had a worked over HSD that did really well on the one of his engines when they dynoed it.

A friend that is a machinist said the SM intakes he came across were soft, like a powered metal, broke easy, and would make a ringing sound when hit (an original intake just makes a thud noise when hit). But that probably doesn’t describe all SM intakes, their metallurgy seems like it varies widely. Soft on one thing, then on something else you”ll have grade 8 washers shatter when you tighten bolts up. People on here that like the cheap SM heads try to give SM more credit than deserved. They sell some really low grade junk.

So many good used proven intakes from American foundries floating around it makes little sense buying a cheap offshore knockoff.

A good way to salvage your otherwise good factory iron intake would be to purchase an aftermarket aluminum coolant crossover and carefully section the bad iron crossover from the intake.

Factory iron intakes make excellent power. The ‘73-‘74 EGR intakes are around 43 pounds, ‘67-‘72 range from 36 to 38 pounds.

The heaviest iron intake I’ve come across wasn’t a Quadrajet intake but a ‘64 Tri-Power at 46.25 pounds. The ‘65 Tri-Power intake is only 34.8 and the ‘66 weighs in at 38 pounds.

Holley Street Dominator intake on a previous pump gas 4.210 stroke 462cid street engine.
This intake was modified by Dave Bisschop.
The port entrance opening was about 2.300" tall, and properly port matched to the cylinder heads in use with some runner blending.
It used my custom HP950 carb.

HSD / no carb spacer:
577.9 hp at 5700 rpm, 581.0 ft.lbs. at 4400 rpm.

HSD / 1/2" open spacer:
589.4 hp at 5600/5700 rpm, 589.0 ft.lbs. at 4600 rpm.

HSD/ 1" open spacer:
589.8 hp at 5700 rpm, 590.8 ft.lbs. at 4400 rpm

Not too shabby considering it has the ability to approach a Victor intake.
With the same engine & carb my Victor intake with 1/2" carb spacer made 600.9 hp at 6000 rpm.

The only testing with the Tomahawk was with my 505 engine with an early camshaft.
This was an original production design Tomahawk introduced by Ken Brewer.
Port work was similar to my Holley Street Dominator intake above..

Here are were three intakes tested with this engine:

Worked Tomahawk intake

w/1-inch open spacer / Holley HP950
630 ft.lbs tq at 4400 rpm
611.6 hp at 5600

Dave Bisschop Holley Street Dominator intake

w/1-inch open spacer / Holley HP950
638 ft.lbs tq at 4400
618.8 hp at 5600 rpm

Victor intake

w/ no spacer / Holley HP950
639 ft.lbs tq at 4600 rpm
641.4 hp at 5900 rpm


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Regarding the original Tomahawk intake brought to market by Ken Brewer.

For marketing reasons, the port entrances as cast were very small. Be prepared to open them up unless used on unported small ports with factory heads. Also some of the runners need work, they are not straight
Also for those who use a tall gasket you can go as tall as a SCE #128103 intake gasket without welding ( about a 2.3 tall port), BUT there is not much meat at the top with it for sealing.

I suspect all the copy cat intakes of this design with different names are similar.

Skip Fix can elaborate on the goofy runners, I can't recall now.


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I dynoed my 455 pump gas motor in the 78 TA with Steve's 4150 modified holley vs my ported T2(i spent a LOT of time grinding way up the runners and using a snal gauge to check width and height. It was a wash almost idential numbers.
Bought a tomahawk from ACE(ken) and where they added the boss for the EFO pad the top is lower than teh Holley that does not have those. If you have a 2.300 or taller port you will need to add weld. But a T2 is getting close to needing weld also. Picture of a T2 and a Felpro 1233 showing how thin it was to match my first E heads hand ported by KRE. Last one is a welded T2 that is OK for a taller port-on SD 320 CNC heads in the TA now.

I use to work with a guy that reproduced parts. He always tried to use an original because each time a part is copied it changes. The original manifold Ken had made changed a lot from the prototype. It ran decent and was somewhere between the original prototype and a stock HSD. It's been copied a couple times between Kens original design and what SM sells. I have no idea where that puts the SM copy. Without welding none of them will work as well as Ken's original prototype..... I hope this helps

Thanks Skip for posting the pictures.

I recall years ago you reported on your Tomahawk intake the front runners were all different sizes and needed a fair amount of grinding and using snap gauges to get them close to be even in size.

A similar situation on my Tomahawk intake. Though close the work done on mine wasn't near as nice as my Bisschop modified Holley Street Dominator intake.
Also years ago Ken Brewer said there was is a very slight hump on the runner floor that could hardly be felt. I don't recall if it was all the runners though. But he did say the flow numbers would increase if it was removed.
But as Paul stated each time a part is copied it changes.

Also as brought up, Ken said the inside design was left up to Dave Bisschop and the prototype was a lot better than the end product he got.

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Same thing we talked about in the other thread. I understand budgets but damn, if people keep going for this cheap stuff then business is forced to carry it on the shelves to make sales. Market is driven by the consumer and ya get what ya pay for. Garbage in garbage out.
It's a big reason why we see failures posted all over this forum. Same thing applies to rockers, lifters, cams, etc.... you get what you pay for.

Intakes probably aren't as critical as a moving part inside the engine but it's still the same company.

I agree. I see a torker for sale here.

campared to a 20lb performer a stock intake weighs around 40...

I have a post tomahawk intake but before SM... think they were done by pro comp or some similar named brand. Mine is the polished version with EFI bosses, on the bottom where the TOMAHAWK name used to be cast in, it was clearly ground off by hand, so pretty sure this company pro comp was just using tomahawk castings & removing the name, this was before SM started making/selling them or before I even heard of SM.

I havent ran it yet, its just garage err bedroom art right now, but the ports look pretty good for a china made intake, better than many factory iron intakes Ive seen and look like they have enough meat to seal the bigger RA intake gaskets. The worst part of the intake is the plenum, lots of uneven areas as it transitions to the runners, I would have that cleaned up or possible port the runners before I tried to run it.

I currently run a SD full cnc port factory intake that uses the bigger gaskets and there is barely 1/8-3/16 on the top of the ports to seal, but it does seal OK with stock 72cc E-heads & Dave at SD said it will work on their 315cfm port E-heads too.

I never used the gauges on the Holley intake I have(bought new from Speedway and I had only mildly started working on it years ago. But here are the front runners I had done a little grinding to try and even them out. The from runners also are way closer to the carb base and why a Qjet probably has fuel distribution issues without a spacer to make the sharp turn Holley bore dumps more in center of plenum.

My flow bench revealed alot of shearing for the front runners ,installed a wedge plate and shearing was eliminated and it also puts the carb in a more level placement and makes it nicer to adjust floats

Yea it needed a spacer to help make that turn for sure