Thread: Intake question

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Hey guys, I'm helping a friend build a injected, stroked 5.0. He has a Performance Products Typhoon intake manifold. This is going to be mated to a set of Trick Flow heads. The difference in the size of the intake runners to the head runners is substancial. Is this common on Fords/injected vechiles? I am GM/carb guy. I am planning to increase the intake runners to match the heads, leaving a small barrier on the intake side. Also what about polishing the intake since there is no fuel mixture until the combustion chamber.
Thanks for any info you can provide.

Nope, but it is common on the import junk intakes... All the big bucks on the good heads and top it off with a POS intake??? He'd be better off with a stock from Ford GT-40 intake, or the Trick Flow intake that matches the heads. The runners are too long to be able to do anything more then match porting, which will do little to improve the overall flow capabilities of the intake...

Hey Dave, thanks for your reply. I thought there was something wrong. Performance Products makes a decent intake for carbed engines so I didn't take this into consideration. My friend has no problem spending the money on a better intake. Any suggestions? Also what about polishing the runners.
P.S. How's that 383 build coming?

you can polish the runners and it might help the cause a little. But you still will not get the full volume of air for the haeds to work at thier capacity. Honestly I would save wasting your time, if he has the money for a new intake. And go with the intake matched to that set of heads. Trick flow designs thier heads to work best with thier intake, no one elses brand will work better then the matched set. A lot of people mix part brands then say well the heads are junk, or the intake is junk, well niether one is junk. They are just not designed to work together like a matched set is. Go with the trick flow or you will never get the optimal performance the parts were made to do.

Learned years ago when messin' with two-strokes that a port can be mirror smooth or as rough as a fingernail file and make no difference in flow because of the boundary layer on the surface of the port. Do some research on fluid dynamics.

An example of this can be found in nature. Stand on the bank of a swift-flowing stream or river and observe the flow down the middle of the channel compared with the flow at the shore.

Don't polish the runners!!!! The intake charge needs a bit of a rough surface to remain atomized correctly... I'd say go with the matching intake from Trick Flow.....Like Moon said, this is the intake specifically designed to work with those heads...Give Trick Flow a call and they'll give you the low down on everything you need to make the whole package work as it should....Again, the key word is package....There's a reason the companies like Edelbrock, Trick Flow, Brodix, Dart and others sell their heads and intakes as a package...it's what they've done the R&D and dyno testing on...Heck, they'll even tell you the best gaskets to use, FI tuning info, plug selection, timing and a whole lot of other guesswork stuff.

Haven't done a thing on my engine yet, got to get my pickup done and gone first...then on to other things.....

Hey you know what? Just do what you want to it, try it. Its a cheap enough intake that you can experiment with it. When you mess it up get a good one.

Hey guys, thanks for the input. Here's the plan. I'm going to match port and polish the intake. Mostly just for practice. Stick it back on, test & tune on Thursday night. Make decision on ride home.
Again thanks for being here for guys like me.

Originally Posted by Rgtrough

Hey guys, thanks for the input. Here's the plan. I'm going to match port and polish the intake. Mostly just for practice. Stick it back on, test & tune on Thursday night. Make decision on ride home.
Again thanks for being here for guys like me.

Theres a couple of good books that can help before you start cutting away. I dont think I would try "extensive" porting with out a good flow bench.

Sounds good RGTROUGH, its always good to practice on a part thats not up to par, just to experiment. You really have nothing to loose, Just remember the rule of thumb on polishing. You can make it as smooth as glass before the fuel touches the metal surface, after fuel is applied to a surface within an engine its best to leave it rough.

The last Ford I (attempted to) port match became obvious it was a wast of time. I got the felpro gasket, market it out and started on the C9 429 heads. I had an old offy intake the po had port matched to a felpro. As I realized how much material I needed to remove and looked at the intake runners I realized all I would have was a big enlarged section in the intake flow path where the head/intake intersection was.
I have no substantial proof but I always took the advice against the mirror smooth intake finish too.