I have just begun a venture of 6 major upgrades to my car. The first is an Intake Manifold. I know a 'ported and polished' manifold is a must. What kinds are there out there that are good but still in a good price range. I have seen a few on eBay, but wondering what you guys think.

 

The stock manifold is a pretty good piece. With ported heads it's worth about 10hp or so more. If you are not porting your heads I wouldn't waste your time until you are.

 

Well, i was planning on purchasing a brank new manifold that was already ported and polished. How much is it to get the manifold i have now ported and polished?

 

what are the other 5 upgrades you are planning?

 

When Loyd ported my heads he said he would port my Manifold for $100. He also said with my proposed mods (see sig), it wasn't worth it.

 

More then it will be worth rite now. Im guessing a few hundred labor for a cheap job.

If I was in your posistion rite now, I'd do full bolt-ons first. Then go with heads/cam at the SAME TIME. However plan ahead, if your gonna boost it, you dont want to get an insane NA cam like GM847 or CC306 ... You'd need a higher LSA cam, like 112 114ish for a streetable cam for Turbo/Super charged applications.

If however, your going naturally aspirated, GM847's and CC306's are great off the shelf cams. Ideally though, no matter what direction your going with major upgrades, its better to take the extra time ( And Money ) Get your heads ported and polished, or aftermarkets ... Whatever, Then have them flowed, and have a knowledgable cam shop grind you a custom cam to match what the heads flow, youll get the most power this way.

Also, dont get machine work done at the cheapest place, it rarely pays off. If there is a local oval track near you, stop by on a friday night and see what shops the local race teams have do their machining for them. They know who is reputable and who is not . You dont wanna sink all that money into an engine and have it blow cause someone didnt do THEIR job rite ... Been there, dont that, with my bike A sleeve, new piston, rings, and MORE machine work later ... Its not a fun thing.

The stock intake manifold is really sufficient inless your after the absolute most power available. Do the other things first, inless your building a complete racing engine. In which case SStrokerAce may have a AWESOME intake for you.

 

You know what people always say....."you get what you pay for"

 

so i can get me a srt-4 and be unbeatable?

hehe

 

This is in response to no one specific, but i have done plenty of research, outside of hear say and the forum chat. Everyone has a different theory on cars and the engine, because everyones car is different and they take care of it different. I just haven't found a lot of different type manifolds, and was wondering what are the good ones out there. As for cam, headers, etc. i can only respond by saying, thats why this is my 1st major upgrade of 6 planned! thank you and i'm sorry if i hurt anyones feelings.

 

Headers are actually my second major project. I want to make sure i get enough air through the engine to get to the headers. I don't want to start choking my car my adding power to it and not enough air flow. Trust me i looked into this. And water pump... well, i just don't know where to begin about that. I wait for that to break before i fix it Half of me can't wait for my engine to blow so i can redo it.

 

but you're already choking it w/o having headers, might as well let it breath first...IMO

 

The only bolt-on manifold available is the LT4 style one- and I think there's a carbureted version or something? - Saw it in summit

The options for the manifold are limited because it is one of the more capable pieces on the LT1. A better manifold won't really net you much of a gain because the heads and exhaust manifolds are what is choking everything up.

Headers, a cam, and a good valvetrain are probably what you're looking for.

 

Out of 6 planned mods, intake should be number 6 or even way later. Better do some more homework.

 

Think about it.... you haven't found a lot of different type manifolds.

1. What ones did you find?

2. Why do you think no one makes them?

Edelbrock came out with a replacement LT1 intake manifold in about 1996. It was no better than the stock intake, so they never even tried to sell it.

If you want a serious intake, consider a single-plane conversion. Or, do a "search" for posts by "kmook"... he has a thread on a custom built LT1 intake. Or do a search on Hogans or Wilson, because they have built custom LT1 intakes... $3,000 minimum... but they will allow your engine to "breath".

Since you have an automatic, look at the Lingenfelter/Accel Super Ram... it might actually add a llittle low end torque, but won't help you much later on. Some conversion work required, may not fit under the hood.

Or, maybe you'd like to take this approach....

http://cjcfo.fbody.com/members/injun.../DCP03825a.jpg

 

Another vote here for not messing with the intake, except for moving it out of the way to get the heads off . All you can really do is a bigger throttle body and that really only helps after the headers-heads and cam and a good program.