A recent 5.0 Magazine article had a shootout of 4 intake manifolds, which confused me somewhat. I was under the impression that the intake runner length and design give the intake a specific power band, which the rest of the engine components should match. The Holley and Trick Flow pieces are their respective company's higher rpm pieces, and the others were the BBK and Ford GT-40, which show a power band lower in the rpm range.
The test used the same cam for all intakes which surprised me. Shouldn't an accurate test use a cam that matches the rpm range of the intakes?
Well, you did say that i was an intake manifold shootout..... not a cam shootout - not a head shootout.... simply an intake manifold shootout.
They pick a base engine configuration..... to accurately compare two or more things, you need a baseline that all results can be compared to.
After that, it goes something like this... the author gathers up all the "free" manifolds he can find.... it doesn't matter if they should even be considered for the base engine or not.... the price is what he is looking at.... if he gets to keep them is even better. They bolt on consecutive manifolds and dyno the car.... whether the manifold should even be considered for the base engine or not.
They take some pics, make a couple of charts, shoot some shit and, when they get to the summation, they are very careful to avoid treading on any toes. Joe Consumer sees the cover of the rag....it screams "INTAKE MANIFOLD SHOOTOUT!!!".. Joe Consumer buys the magazine...mission accomplished.
When selecting any parts, it is vitally important to consider how the entire package is expected to work.... This magazine article was not designed to sell intake manifolds.... it was designed to sell magazines - as are MOST magazine articles...
Last I remember Summit made two different Trick Flow intakes, longer one for street and shorter for high RPM track. Same thing with the Edelbrock which runs neck and neck with the Summit.
I've taken Curmudgeon courses, and just couldn't get the hang of it, so I took a survey course simply called Prick as an elective, and loved it. (Uh-oh, that's gonna cost me.......)
But back to my inquiry; If I was building a street 5.0 for use with an automatic, I would be better served with an intake manifold setup that offered a lower rpm power band, and choose a cam that also offers lower rpm power, no? While I'm still several months away from needing to make a final decision on components, I was very interested in the "shootout".
If the magazines were more interested in offering truly useful info, wouldn't they do two different comparisons, comparing the lower rpm\higher torque against each other, and the higher horsepower intakes against their competitors using cams and heads that better matched the intakes? (or am I asking too much)
It would have been terrible expensive and time consuming for them to add another variable, a cam. Let's say they were given 4 cams to test along with the intakes. If they did not want to appear to favor a particular intake or cam, i.e. piss off a paying advertiser/customer, that's not another 4 re-builds and dyno runs. That's 16 total to look at every combination of intake and cam. It's called considering the cam and intake to be independent of each other.
Well, what if they were given 4 sets of headers. That's 64 re-builds and dyno runs to get every combination. 4 different heads? That's 256 re-builds and dyno runs! They took the cheap way out.
We'll never see the data on THE "optimum package". It's too damn expensive!
As you suggested, you have to pick the power band you want and get the pieces parts that are designed for that. Will it be THE "optimum package"? Probably not, but it'll be damn close.
Only a race team has the time and money to get to the utopian engine, but then they use Experimental Design techniques to cut the cost and time to get there.
Aren't we getting to be a bold little baggage... sending the old guy a personal message... whatever must be running through your narrow little mind..."There, I'll bet this works Warman up into a real lather...".
Sadly, the best mark you will muster is a "tedious"....
I was gonna say something like, "What if I have a different "intended application"?". Ford built for the everyday use that would get decent MPG and not spew a ton o'crap into the environment. They KNOW people are gonna mod them, hence all the performance parts they make for the SAME engine. If they'd already "optimized" it, then WHY design anything to "optimize" it even further??
You didn't post what you were trying to do with the car. As a rule of thumb low end torque, not high rpm Horsepower, is what helps make an engine more "streetable".
In that same 5.0 magazine they did a manifold shootout with several different manufacturers. The manifold that generated the most torque at the lowest rpm was (surprise surprise) the stock intake. As the original owner of a 1988 GT convertible with over 256000 miles, I can say with no hesitation I have never owned a more reliable engine.
I also get the impression that you think that the smog equipment is somehow hurting the cars performance, this simply isn't true, (for a street car). The AIR pump does cause some loss but when compared to the fan and A/C and the power steering the loss is negligible. The cats aren't hurting anything, (if they were you wouldn't see that drastic loss of low end torque when you put the big pipes on the car.) The rest of the equipment is used to dynamically optimize the engine in real time.
Now if you are going to race the car then none what I just said applies, in that case the smartest thing to do is ditch the street engine and replace it with one built just for racing. You are never going to get any really hefty power gains without doing major changes to the stock mill, it just isn't built for it.
PS Skip the K&N air filter, the normal resistance of clean paper air filter just isn't that great at cruising RPM.
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