[Formulajones]

Originally Posted by 67Lemons

Besides the aluminum version of the RAIV manifold that has numerous complaints on poor quality and not lining up with the ports on the heads what other aluminum factory intakes are being reproduced? I’m unaware of anything else, the OP stated that he doesn’t want one of those due to the numerous issues/complaints.

The complaints are unwarranted. Weve discussed this many times how these intakes were patterned off the original pieces. Even iron intakes are documented as being the same. If it bothers someone you guys should be more than capable of spending a few minutes with a grinder to clean up the ports if desired. But I've ran them right out of the box with no discernable power difference over the iron piece. If you want stock appearance and an aluminum intake it's still the best option going, and they work perfectly fine.

In fact I've had 3 of them in my hands as of recent and I've made over 500hp and almost 600 ft lbs. With them on mild 455's in untouched unported form.

If we were talking about a max effort build I wouldn't even be looking at a dual plane anyway so you have to ask yourself what are we really doing here?

[Formulas]

Originally Posted by Formulajones

The complaints are unwarranted. Weve discussed this many times how these intakes were patterned off the original pieces. Even iron intakes are documented as being the same. If it bothers someone you guys should be more than capable of spending a few minutes with a grinder to clean up the ports if desired. But I've ran them right out of the box with no discernable power difference over the iron piece. If you want stock appearance and an aluminum intake it's still the best option going, and they work perfectly fine.

In fact I've had 3 of them in my hands as of recent and I've made over 500hp and almost 600 ft lbs. With them on mild 455's in untouched unported form.

If we were talking about a max effort build I wouldn't even be looking at a dual plane anyway so you have to ask yourself what are we really doing here?

I have never seen a OE iron intake with near as much misalignment as the repop aluminums, They do a fine job on the externals but the mold placement for the internal runners leaves alot to be desired, Its not so bad to have the material there to remove to make right but when material is flat out missing or a divider is kicked way over .. no thanks

[Steve C.]

A tidbit for interest.....

"The Iron's ports are all over the place as far as casting alignment and sizes go. Number's 7, and 8 measure right at 1.900" tall, where the rest average out from 1.950" to 2.010" tall. The picture shows the odd (1-3-5-7) side of the intake, and clearly shows that you'd have a pretty good vacuum leak at #7. Same goes for #8 on the other side."

See post number 9 here:

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...d.php?t=693767


.

[mgarblik]

Originally Posted by Formulas

I have never seen a OE iron intake with near as much misalignment as the repop aluminums, They do a fine job on the externals but the mold placement for the internal runners leaves alot to be desired, Its not so bad to have the material there to remove to make right but when material is flat out missing or a divider is kicked way over .. no thanks

That has been my experience as well. I have had my hands on 4 of them. 1 I just sent back. 2nd one took about $700.00 worth of welding, shaping and fitting to make a decent manifold out of it. 3rd one needed the tops of the runners welded to provide some gasket sealing surface. 4th one going on iron heads needed 3-4 hours of massaging to line everything up, no welding required. But the gasket sealing area was about 1/8" flange. I understand they have a very low price point. I do think most people would have no problem paying an extra $100.00-150.00 for a manifold that actually fit correctly so it could also perform well without allot of work.

[Formulajones]

Originally Posted by Formulas

I have never seen a OE iron intake with near as much misalignment as the repop aluminums, They do a fine job on the externals but the mold placement for the internal runners leaves alot to be desired, Its not so bad to have the material there to remove to make right but when material is flat out missing or a divider is kicked way over .. no thanks

You'll have to do some more searching, there have been plenty of pics posted all over this forum of misaligned factory iron intakes. Misaligned factory raIV and HO intakes. The mold for the repop was from one of those factory manifolds. So you get what you get, the same thing Pontiac did 50+ years ago.

I've messed with enough of the repops to know they work. Dividers kicked over I have never seen so not sure what you're talking about there. Port alignment sure, but nothing overly alarming or different than Ive seen on factory intakes.

I really think this stuff has just gotten so blown out of proportion everyone has gotten gun shy and most of the commenters just follow the herd so to speak without any real experience with it.
Like Paul mentions, thousands sold and only a few returned? Those few are all you'll ever hear about in a public forum because that's how people are. Ya just have to take it with a grain of salt, do your own thing and not worry about the few