[steve]

Ok. Thanks for the info. I assumed he meant to say perfromer rpm because the regular performer is not up to the job for that many cubes. I just swapped from a T2 to rpm because I felt the low end respose wasn't there and I was gettin poor port velocity at idle with the aggressive port job on the heads. Since I don't race I am willing to give up a few tenths to get some streetabliity back. Ill be bolting it on this weekend. And yes, I too had to remove a lot of material to get the T2 gasket matched to felpro 1233s. The ports were still a little smaller than the head ports. Did not leave much room to seal !

[roadrage david]

Like i said he could be wrong just used it as a aczample to show people that good parts come from where you find them.
And thats the world over just as bad parts.

Have stated resendly that i bought and paid lots of money for made in the USA parts that where compleatly useless!!, and far from Not direct bold on!!!. overhere people are just as weary about the USA part manufacturers about these claims!!. as americans have with chinees parts.. there is a flip side to every coin.
Now unles your ignorend and ore have ""never"" left touwn state ore country i can understand these (Why in hell would you even consider a Communist Chinese intake manifold when there are alternatives made in the USA?)
kind of statemends...

[2002TA]

Originally Posted by Steve C.

"will have 467 engine 550 est HP 580 torque using E-heads flowed to 300."

Curious, and to add fodder for conversation, how about providing more info to help determine those numbers above. Cam type and specs ? And where do you expect the combo to make peak power rpm ?
A friend built a 4.250 stroker with "cleaned" up 87cc Edelbrock heads, no port work, probably about 288 cfm or so at .600", RPM intake, 236 hyd flat tappet cam, Holley 750.... 570 ft.lbs torque and 508-518 hp. It made peak power at 5200/5300 rpm. Similar torque number but shy on the big hp numbers.
My previous 462 with 87cc Edelbrock 313 cfm heads and a XE 254 solid roller and Torker II made 576 ft.lbs torque and 566 hp. With RPM intake the torque jumped to 589 ft.lbs. torque and 580 hp at 5800 rpm.

Very important- what's missing with my personal 462 examples is how the two differant styles of intakes effected the TQ/HP curve. I'm a one finger typest

TY for your response. At this time the exact cam has not been determined, Jim Butler is my builder I am going to go see him Nov 15th in person to finalize the engine specs. I want the power to kick in at around 2000 ish and see no real need to go over 6500 PRM's. He just metioned a couple diff intakes and I was just trying to get a feel for what folks have tried, etc.

Thanks to all who have provided input/ideas.

[GTOLou]

Originally Posted by 66bonne

All I can do is offer my real world experience regarding the T2 and RPM: I ran the RPM for about four years on the combo listed in my signature. Liked it a lot, very streetable and did well at the strip with a best of 11.64 with 60 foots in the 1.6s.
I had heard the caveats regarding the T2 - ie loss of low end and loss of streetability.
I wanted to try a single plane T2 and got one from a friend. Put it on the motor and headed for the strip. If I had not changed the intake myself I would not have detected any difference from the RPM while driving it on the street. So much for a loss of street manners.
First pass out of the box and 60 foots were in the mid-1.5s. So much for a loss of low end. Time was 11.50; an improvement of .14 seconds and the only change I made was to the T2 [with 2" open spacer]. Stall on the convertor was 2500. Not too far above stock.
And that is why my own experience favors the T2. But to add another caveat: "Your results may vary." Both the RPM and T2 are good intakes, you really can't go wrong with either.

Jim

Steve - when I posted NOT using the RPM, I knew someone would ask. I've got no beef w/ the RPM, I just posted what "I" would use.

I just haven't noticed much if any off-idle improvement with the RPM over a TII and I've run better track times w/ the TII and a 1/2-1" spacer on top. The RPM is about the same height as a TII with a 1" spacer. I've found when I use a nitrous plate AS the spacer - I do even better! lol!

No complaints about the RPM, I just like the single plane intakes w/ a large cube poncho motor...I'd prolly run a qjet/HO type intake OR the RPM with a warmed over 400cube motor.

[steve]

i gotcha. i wish more intakes fit under my stock 1st gen hood. i cant fit a T2 with a 2" spacer under mine

[Old Goat Racer]

OK, can't judge a book by its cover, but the last performer rpm I saw had very pourous SP, holes. I just wonder about the quality of the whole intake? Where was it cast? My Victor doesn't look like that.

[Steve C.]

"I want the power to kick in at around 2000 ish and see no real need to go over 6500 PRM's."


If your obtaining a 550--600 hp combo from Butler don't have too much concern about the torque/power level at 2000 rpm ! With the amounts on tap it will have little impact on your driveability.

[HWYSTR455]

I've gone back and forth on the whole dual plane / single plane thing, and finally decided to get a single plane and try it. The driver has Butler 310cfm E-heads (which they now call 315s), and I ordered a Hurricane. Was ready to do a swap one weekend, and started mocking things up. Well, there was no WAY enough meat on the Hurricane to make it seal on the head ports, period. (And forget gasket/port matching). Called Butlers's, and believe it was Rodney I spoke with, and he was like "Oh, right, only had about 1/16" gasket contact, huh?" . So, I went back to the RPM. (Did a better gasket match on it prior to tossing it back on).

Ace- Any chance there may be a revision on those Hurricanes that have more meat for contact/porting?

Steve - Curious how the RPM does for you, been thinking about it! Trace the contact area of the head ports on the gaskets for comparison/reference. (Or use new gsakets).

.

[ho428]

I've been thinking of using the Tomahawk on my 365 Road race engine instead of the T-2.
Looks to be a little lighter without the heat cross over, and straighter runners without all those tapped holes the T-2 has.
I run a 3/4" spacer on the T-2 under a Holley and 3" drop base cleaner, barely fits under a FGF 400 VFN hood.

My head ports are RA-IV size, I'd assume there's enough meat to port match those?

[Steve C.]

I use the SCE 128103 intake gasket that has about a 2.320" tall port opening ( the catalog suggests a differant smaller figure and is incorrect) the ports on my cylinder heads are a tad bit smaller or about 2.300" tall. My Tomahawk intake is able to port match to my heads with about 1/8" over the ports to seal. I bought the Tomahawk out of interest to see if it would be ok for my current 505 combo, that and it looks so nice in the polished version. But on the dyno it only produced 611 hp about the same as my Performer RPM intake with 615 hp. The Victor was king with 635-640 hp. It was not hard to make the decision which intake to use. Later we milled 0.650" off the Victor intake carb flange for hood clearance issues, refined the cam (3 degrees smaller but more lift) and put it back on the dyno, this go around it made 660 hp with the cut down Victor intake. It has no streetability issues with lack of torque

Track tested.....
With Performer RPM intake = 10.99
With cut down Victor intake = 10.63
With factory intake = pissing into the wind

[Steve C.]

Forgot to mention... refining the cam specs included less seat duration to help with my low 10:1 compression. And I also upped the seat pressure by about 15 lbs with the cam swap, always wondered if that had much influance with better valve control

And a side note, not to 'knock' the Tomahawk intake in anyway. The test I did was done with obviously more cubic inches in mind and the "300 cfm" heads it was marketed for. It was port matched to my 2.300" tall port openings with some runner blending, no plenium work to speak of. Cliff Ruggles helped out and it compared very favorably with my Dave Bischop modified Holley Street Dominator intake, a very, very nice intake by itself.

[Cliff R]

"My appoligies for the confustion, I had it on my mind the Hurricane was the "copy" of the Performer RPM intake. Got it confused with the Crosswind."

Steve, I have episodes of CRS myself, daily!

A few years ago I tested the Tomahawk intake, which was newly released at that time.

We did the testing at Norwalk in hot/humid weather for a "Shootout". It is a very good intake, and I couldn't detect any real loss of low end power or driveability running it around the pits and a quick trip down the County roads outside the track. It actually "felt" much stronger than the iron intake it replaced at full throttle, really pulling hard in the upper mid-range and top end.

The track results weren't quite as good as I expected, but it ran almost 2mph faster than the iron intake. It gave up nearly a tenth is 60' times, and still ran a couple hundreths slower for ET.

This was with a 1" spacer, it didn't like the q-jet without the spacer.

This brings up an important point with these intakes. The T-II for example really responds well to at least a 1" spacer. We've used them for dyno testing numerous times, and it can rival the Victor intake on engines to at least 600hp. The Tomahawk would be equally as good, being of similiar design with slightly larger runners.

Some set-ups lack the room for spacers, so keep this in mind when selecting intake manifolds. The RPM is already almost 1" taller than the T-II or stock intakes, and requires some "cobbling" to get them to work with factory Shaker assemblies.

The taller intakes also raise up the throttle linkage, and move fuel lines higher as well.

I've also noticed some quality control issues with the Edelbrock intakes in recent years, poor port to gasket alignment, having to remove material to get them to sit on the heads, etc. One would think as long as some of these intakes have been in production, they would be getting better, not worse?......Cliff

[HWYSTR455]

Interesting, and that sounds about like the contact patch I was getting, though thought it was like 1/16", and that also was the number quoted to me (so I just accepted it). The port opening on my heads were matched to an SCE gasket that from the best I can tell by measuring is 2.3125, but is probably the same as yours, and the port is just a hair smaller than the gasket. I wasn't comfortable with the contact area, especially on a 'street' car I would be driving a lot. The area of the intake at the top of the port would be too thin in my opinion to last as long as I would like (for one).

Cliff - the RPM I have on the driver now is a casting about a year old, and didn't need the surface angles cleaned up to seal properly. The ports also lined up where I didn't have to 'doctor' the gasket match to one side or the other. Maybe they fixed the issue(s)? (Or I got lucky!).

Guess I'll be trying a Victor in the near future, and will probably cut it down as others have for clearance. I'm happy with the all-around performance of the RPM, but curious enough to try the Victor.

.

[Steve C.]

Keep in mind during these conversations the common result in the switching of dual-plane and a single-plane intakes. I already eluded to it here, and that's how the torque/hp curve is effected. Example, on my last few differant engine combinations dyno tested we have typicaly seen the peak torque rpm move upward 200-300 rpm with the switch to a single-plane intake. Similar situation with the peak power rpm. That said, my personal engine combos of choice are in the higher power realm that any result in loss of low-end output, slight loss in driveabilty, and economy has minimal effect on my vehicle the way it's set up, and just as important it has minimal effect on my personal "mindset". Many can and do put up with a lot of idiosyncrasies in a car that some people won't deal with.... a lumpy idle at 1000 rpm, louder exhaust, vibrations, devations from a "stock" apperance, etc.... it's all part of the hot rodding game, and everyone has differant level of tolerance. A realistic apprasial of the performance goals and potential are important for each differant overall combo. So when a fellow comes along and states his car lost 0.2 seconds at the track when he swithed from his dual-plane intake to a single-plane intake and becomes critical, do remember that may not be the situation if he had a slightly differant converter and or gearing, or other variables. Or simply a differant mindset

[rad400]

Cliff that is the problem the edelbrock intakes have been around for a while and they(edelbrock) are lazy when it come to quailty control.

[Cliff R]

The last recent production Pontiac RPM intake we used had piss-poor port alignment on the front runners on the passengers side, like it "slipped" in the mold or something?

The last BBC intake we tried to install on a 454 with "PASS" iron heads wouldn't even come close to sitting on the gaskets until we removed a significant amount of material from the bottom side of it.

Makes one wonder if they do any checking of the final product during production before boxing them up?

While on the subject of poor port alignment, obtain one of the new 455 HO reproductions, they are as bad as or worse than the originals. Makes one wonder why someone doesn't take the time to fix fundamental problems with parts BEFORE going into production with them?

Steve, to "rephrase" your last response: "I don't care how well it idles, or if my new high performance parts slow it down at the track, I can always make the new parts work with more converter and/or gearing".

On a serious note, very few folks have cars that run well enough at the track right to start with, to effectively evaluate any particular part installed in search of improved performance.

Most evaluations that we read about are "seat of the pants", or from track numbers obtained on a different day in different weather, not closely controlled back to back testing.

Even though I'm pretty well done with testing parts at this point, I still remember how inefective the "butt meter" is at evaluating performance. Reminds me of the time when a guy who used to post here evaluated a cam change by how long the black marks on the pavement were compared to a full throttle hit on the same stretch of road with a different cam!......LOL.....Cliff

[Steve C.]

Cliff, I don't quite get this one.... "Steve, to "rephrase" your last response: "I don't care how well it idles, or if my new high performance parts slow it down at the track, I can always make the new parts work with more converter and/or gearing".
I've never been able to explain it as well as you do but my point was that often we need to make adjustments to optimize a parts selection, in this case a switch from a dual-plane to single plane intake. Often a looser converter will help the situation or a more gear. Did I get it wrong ?

Example on my car. As expected when we dyno tested my previous 462 it made more horsepower at a higher peak power rpm with the Victor intake than w the Performer RPM intake. And when we took the car to the track with the Performer RPM intake it ran much faster with a looser 8-inch converter than with my tight 10-inch Contemtial converter I had at the time. I knew the Victor intake would run better than the RPM intake but only with a looser converter installed, so I elected to run it with the RPM intake for the most part because I felt my Continental converter was better. This was quite some time ago, now today Continential has the ability to make way looser converters (3500-3600 and up stall) that couple well out on the street. Today this new type of Contential converter might be the hot ticket for my old combo with the Victor intake.

[Cliff R]

Steve, I was just messing with you some, we both know you don't care about idle quality and how "roudy" the set-up is......Cliff

[Steve C.]

Oh, Ok. And yes I do care about the idle quality and roudy set up very much..... I desire it, part of a Hot Rodding mind set I've had from the start and it comes along with a legitimate 10-second street car And goes back to the first article about my car in HPP magazine in the "My Pontiac and Me"" section 10 years ago when I said. ".....the novelity of a numbers matching daily driver has been replaced with emphasis on performance and drag racing." "It sports a bit more razzle dazzle".

[Cliff R]

Steve, you are allowed to like "roudy" set-ups, and can deviate from "stock" parts are far as you want to. To date I've never seen a rule book on how one has to set up a "street car"......LOL.....Cliff