best intake manifold upgrade
#11
im not disappointed with the Huges Air Gap but its not like your going to get crazy power with it alone, and i don't personally feel there was any significant loss of low end power. I recently pulled my flatbed trailer loaded with my 200lb tool box and a jeep wrangler on it with some gear and guys in the truck and it moved it without any problems. The engines cam is what is going to determine where your engine can make its power but thats not to say the air flow isn't going to change the curve of the band a little bit around your rpm range. (I was mainly only wanting low to mid range power to)
#14
Summit... Southeastern..
I don't notice any low end loss with FI, but I lowered gears too... I get into the FI's range pretty quick because of it.. that is something to consider as well.. the reduction of plenum is huge, and you can really tell with a vac gauge.. the plenum is reduced from the volume of say a football, to say four decks of cards (two on either side of the division).. me figures this creates a situation where velocity is actually increased, and makes port/gasket matching a very good thing.. if the air isn't interrupted but as little as possible, the engine doesn't fight for it..
With these god awful heads, every little bit helps..
I'm with lastrights, it was worth the $600 just not to worry about the plenum gasket anymore.
I don't notice any low end loss with FI, but I lowered gears too... I get into the FI's range pretty quick because of it.. that is something to consider as well.. the reduction of plenum is huge, and you can really tell with a vac gauge.. the plenum is reduced from the volume of say a football, to say four decks of cards (two on either side of the division).. me figures this creates a situation where velocity is actually increased, and makes port/gasket matching a very good thing.. if the air isn't interrupted but as little as possible, the engine doesn't fight for it..
With these god awful heads, every little bit helps..
I'm with lastrights, it was worth the $600 just not to worry about the plenum gasket anymore.
#15
I wouldn't say $600 is worth not having to deal with the plenum anymore..... For many guys here, $600 is probably pretty close to 25% of what their truck is even worth... Not worth it in my opinion unless your looking to build a proper horsepower producing engine to put the intake on.
Spend $100 and get the plenum plate off ebay and a Fel-pro intake gasket set to go with it. Yes, in some cases the "plenum plate fix" could potentially blow a second time, but you can't assume that everyone who buys it knows exactly how to properly install them (surface prep, torque sequence, hell most probably don't even own a decent torque wrench!). If we were all mechanics, it would be different story.
The stock intake is a long runner design (why it's in the shape of a "half keg" to begin with) which encourages a high inertia flow of air into the cylinders. This is great for low end torque because the inertia of the air rushing through the runners and into the cylinders helps to effectively "ram" more air into the cylinder as the intake valve closes.
An analogy:
Blow really hard into an empty garden hose and abruptly stop blowing. The inertia from the air traveling through the garden hose will cause a suction at your mouth when you stop. Now, blow through a cardboard tube from a roll of paper towels. Notice a difference?
The stock Kegger is like the garden hose and rams air into the cylinder when the piston is at the bottom of the stroke. This works pretty well at lower RPMs, but it is actually somewhat counter-productive at higher RPMs, which is why the aftermarket intakes are availble.
The airgap intakes aren't bad in low end, they were just designed for power higher up. They really start to shine above about 3500 RPMs, which is probably why most of you guys already have one!
Buck Slayer, there is a member here who posts frequently that has upgraded their torque converter with an aftermarket unit. If I can remember who it is, I'll let you know and maybe you could PM him for some feedback!
-JT
Spend $100 and get the plenum plate off ebay and a Fel-pro intake gasket set to go with it. Yes, in some cases the "plenum plate fix" could potentially blow a second time, but you can't assume that everyone who buys it knows exactly how to properly install them (surface prep, torque sequence, hell most probably don't even own a decent torque wrench!). If we were all mechanics, it would be different story.
The stock intake is a long runner design (why it's in the shape of a "half keg" to begin with) which encourages a high inertia flow of air into the cylinders. This is great for low end torque because the inertia of the air rushing through the runners and into the cylinders helps to effectively "ram" more air into the cylinder as the intake valve closes.
An analogy:
Blow really hard into an empty garden hose and abruptly stop blowing. The inertia from the air traveling through the garden hose will cause a suction at your mouth when you stop. Now, blow through a cardboard tube from a roll of paper towels. Notice a difference?
The stock Kegger is like the garden hose and rams air into the cylinder when the piston is at the bottom of the stroke. This works pretty well at lower RPMs, but it is actually somewhat counter-productive at higher RPMs, which is why the aftermarket intakes are availble.
The airgap intakes aren't bad in low end, they were just designed for power higher up. They really start to shine above about 3500 RPMs, which is probably why most of you guys already have one!
Buck Slayer, there is a member here who posts frequently that has upgraded their torque converter with an aftermarket unit. If I can remember who it is, I'll let you know and maybe you could PM him for some feedback!
-JT
#16
im not saying it wasn't worth it, you will notice some power gain but nothing thats gonna throw ya back in your seat. If you plan on keeping your truck i would do it, if nothing else you don't have to worry about that plenum gasket blowing out ever again and it will go good with other mods down the line. Now i wish i could tell ya gas mileage gains from it, but when i put mine on i put headers on, put on a reconditioned set of milled heads with performance angle ground valves. I will say before i did these things when i was towing that trailer with the jeep and camping gear i was getting around 4.5mpg with 30.5 inch tires(driving speed varying between 70-80mph and there are some hills on my trip) and im running 33in tires now (still stock 3.55gears) and it went to 8mpg which im happy with. In my 3.5hr trip it used to take me 2 full tanks of gas and then id have to fill up again when i got to where i was going, now i only had to fill up 1 time and still had around 5/8ths of tank left. Seems funny to be happy about that but im content, again i can't tell you what exactly gained me the most mpg but thats what i gained.
#17
im not saying it wasn't worth it, you will notice some power gain but nothing thats gonna throw ya back in your seat. If you plan on keeping your truck i would do it, if nothing else you don't have to worry about that plenum gasket blowing out ever again and it will go good with other mods down the line. Now i wish i could tell ya gas mileage gains from it, but when i put mine on i put headers on, put on a reconditioned set of milled heads with performance angle ground valves. I will say before i did these things when i was towing that trailer with the jeep and camping gear i was getting around 4.5mpg with 30.5 inch tires(driving speed varying between 70-80mph and there are some hills on my trip) and im running 33in tires now (still stock 3.55gears) and it went to 8mpg which im happy with. In my 3.5hr trip it used to take me 2 full tanks of gas and then id have to fill up again when i got to where i was going, now i only had to fill up 1 time and still had around 5/8ths of tank left. Seems funny to be happy about that but im content, again i can't tell you what exactly gained me the most mpg but thats what i gained.
#18
mine is at the front door now that i think about it. i have done the work on my grand cherokee5.2L and don't want the problem again... the truck I have more mods waiting to do so it was a no brainer. But will try and get before and after dyno if I can get to it before excitement ruins the chance.
#19
mine is at the front door now that i think about it. i have done the work on my grand cherokee5.2L and don't want the problem again... the truck I have more mods waiting to do so it was a no brainer. But will try and get before and after dyno if I can get to it before excitement ruins the chance.