Reply to "A 351C Fuel Injection Manifold is Finally Available"

Tony

Single purpose engines, like transportation engines or race engines, are easy to build, the decision process is very straight forward in choosing what machine work and parts are needed to achieve the results desired. But a performance street engine is much more difficult, there are many compromises involved, many choices that can go in two or more directions, the amount of money a person wants to spend can range from $500 to $20,000. Sometimes looks, or budget can be at odds with performance or sound engineering choices.

I personally do not like single plane intake manifolds for street engines. In general single plane & dual plane intake manifolds make about the same horsepower at about 5000 rpm. Below that engine speed the dual plane manifold will make better power, above that engine speed the single plane manifold will make better power, and extend the motor's powerband too. The average street engine is operated the majority of the time from 1000 to 4000 rpm, it only sees high rpm during blasts on a freeway on-ramp, when passing, or the occasional stop light drag race. The owner/driver will never miss the power lost by using a dual plane intake manifold, but he will use the extra power at low rpm every time he drives the car. So for me, if a person is going to use 2V heads on a street performance motor there is really only one smart choice for a carburetor intake manifold, that's the Edelbrock Air Gap manifold, because its a dual plane intake manifold.

I have always thought of 2V heads as strictly street heads; 4V heads, 3V heads, SVO heads etc all have ports that are higher than the ports of the 2V heads. The high ports will flow better at higher valve lifts and are more appropriate for racing. so I've never seen the need for single plane manifolds for 2V heads .......

BUT ... the new Trick Flow 225 CNC ported head may possibly bridge the gap between 2V heads and race heads. Trick Flow says it flows 330 cfm, but they're not saying at what valve lift ... yet. However ... 330 CFM at 0.600" valve lift would be high port head territory. In which case that would be the head to use with 2V single plane intake manifolds ... for racing, not for street. I'm sure the Trick flow 2V sngle plane manifold is a good one, the Trick Flow guys know their stuff.

Those are my thoughts for what they're worth.

-G