[RAIV55]

Originally Posted by Tom Vaught

Quote:


He told me that the aluminum intakes like he was making for the Fuel Injection years later actually made the block fail quicker. He said that the CAST IRON intakes tied the top of the block together very well (especially on the 64 and earlier blocks).

His thought was when you put an aluminum intake on the engine you took away a bunch of that upper strength. Cutting the water cross-over off and running the water hoses to the heads made it even worse. Running the split intakes like the after-market had in the old days with the rubber tubes connecting the two plenum halves was the worst. His FI intake needed to have some way to strengthen the block which is why he came up with the deck plates.

Tom V.

I could easily understand that, given the expansion charastics of aluminum. It don't take much imagination to see that could act like a wedge pushing the banks of cylinders apart. Guess it was something I had never given any thought to before now. Thanks for the tidbit Tom.