A 351C Fuel Injection Manifold is Finally Available

I scanned these on my way through the new products section. Very cool stuff. Mind you there was A LOT of cool stuff at the show.

George, I noticed the new manifolds during my trip to SEMA on Friday. Can you comment on the single plane manifolds' application to your old post for a 500hp 351c with stock crank and rods? Assume using the 190 Trick Flow heads.

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

> 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.

Its not so simple. The port and plenum sizes, along with the cubic inches
and compression play into which intake will be better. In practice, the
variation within either group (single or dual plane) is very large.

> 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.

In my flow bench work, 3V, 4V and high port heads outflow 2V heads at all
lifts, not just high lift.

> 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've not published the results yet but we built and tested a 393C with ported
Aussie 2V heads. The Holley Street Dominator, Parker Funnelweb and Weiand
Xcelerator single plane intakes all bested the Edelbrock Performer RPM Air Gap
dual plane manifold which had done so well during 351C-4V and 408-4V testing.
Even at 2500 RPM (the lowest RPM we tested), the single plane Funnelweb made
more power. Across most of the pull, the difference was 20 HP or more, not
just at the peak. At 5000 RPM, the difference was 36 HP. I thought the
Funnelweb would do well but the Street Dominator and Xcelerator single planes
surprised me but not my dyno guy. He's seen the same results on big block Fords
as well. Due to the cross-sectional area of the intake ports and the cubic
inches, the velocity in the ports is high enough that the dual plane plenum
effect is not needed and only serves to act as a flow restriction.

> 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.

I've not had a chance to independently test either of the new TFS 351C-2V heads
but one of the 335 Series forum members posted the results of his bench test.
The 190's flowed 271 CFM intake and 199 CFM exhaust at 0.600" lift versus an
advertised 299 CFM intake and 232 CFM exhaust. Not as good as advertised but
still better than the Edelbrock 351C-2V heads.

> However ... 330 CFM at 0.600" valve lift would be high port head territory.

Based upon the independent test of the 190's, I expect the 225 CNC 2V's will
still be short of the high ports but should still be pretty decent. Also,
you really need the flow over the entire lift curve (and the areas) to assess
the heads. Recently, we've tested some heads with very strong exhaust ports
but only fair intake ports. With the right cam timing, these heads made
surprisingly good power. The Aussie 2V's only flowed 220 CFM on the intake
but 200 CFM on the exhaust. On the dyno 393C, they weren't that far off the
408C with 4V heads that flowed 322 CFM on the intake side.

Arno, I got your email. After installing the floor pans, I had to go to China
Lake for some flight testing. I'm back now and have a few things to catch up
on. Remind me early next week and I'll see what I can do.

Dan Jones

I began my reply to Tony with the following caveat:

quote:

Originally posted by Cowboy from Hell:

... a performance street engine is much more difficult, there are many compromises involved, many choices that can go in two or more directions ...

A dual plane intake manifold would remain my recommendation for most people based upon intake manifold vacuum at idle, idle quality, low rpm drivability, and issues like that. By now everyone knows I'm conservative in that way. Unless a motor is a dedicated race motor I expect it to be drivable 365 days a year.

Hi Dan

[quote]I had to go to China
Lake for some flight testing.

Now you make me curious

Dan,

totally off topic, but you must like this, 100 % home build .40 Cu 38.000 rpm 5.3 Bhp !!!!

41 G turn 350 KM/HR

Well gentlemen, it looks like the cat's out of the bag. In the 2011 Trick Flow catalog, one can find all of the new Cleveland and Clevor EFI manifolds. Nice! I'm considering EFI if I stay with the Cleveland.

As a side-note, it appears that the manifolds & bases are 11" tall. Does that fit under a stock engine screen?

quote:

Originally posted by Corey Price: As a side-note, it appears that the manifolds & bases are 11" tall. Does that fit under a stock engine screen?

Not likely but it depends. If it was under 10" I'd say much more likely. On my car, it's 9 3/4" from the rear valley rail on the engine to the rib on the bottom of the deck lid. I have a 9.5" deck block so you probably pick up .2" or so for 9.2" deck and maybe a few tenths more depending upon the age of your rubber engine isolators. This point, and the location where the front of the engine screen curves down is usually where the interference occurs first. If it's 11" tall in these areas you're not going to make it. In between these areas under the screen you pick up a little more head room.

Best,
K

Well, so much for Cleveland EFI nirvana with a stock deck lid.

If you can get over the idea of keeping the stock engine screen or modifying it some, then it would be very easy to adapt a single plane spider manifold to EFI without doing anything to the stock hood. One of those TFS manifolds has the bosses for injector bungs from what I saw. There are people out there who will fabricate fuel rails for a single plane intake regardless if it has the injector bungs cast into the manifold or not.

http://www.hotrodsolutions.net/EFI2.html

Wilson Manifolds also does the conversion. I was quoted between 450-650 for this work.

They have plenty of throttle plates that adapt over a 4150/4500 flange or you can run a 4150/4500 elbow and then a traditional 5.0 mustang 90mm throttle body from someone like Wilson or Accufab or BBK w/e. Run an elbow that routes the conical air filter back under the decklid somewhere. Tap some holes in either the manifold, the elbow etc for vacuum provision and reference for the various efi sensors.

It's the same process guys have done getting 351w 9.5 deck motors into mustangs under stock hoods for years.



You don't have to use a TFS EFI manifold to have an injected cleveland. There are a lot of routes you can go.

Here is an elbow that sits even lower and helps clear a fuel rail.



http://www.6061.com/50mustangelbow.htm

http://www.cantedvalves.com/efi1.php

Just find a single plane that matches your heads. Single planes that have bosses which can be drilled out for fuel rails include TFS, AFD, CHI 3V, Parker Funnelweb, some Edelbrock etc. Someone would still need to drill out the correctly spaced opening on the fuel rails and weld some kind of stanchion to support the rail. Or just have someone do the whole process like indicated above to weld the bung and drill it out which opens up the intake availability to practically any single plane including used Holley Strip/Street Dominators, Weiand, SVO/Yates Intakes, Blue Thunder, Edelbrock, Sheetmetal, etc.

Figure
-2500 for standalone ECU+all sensors
-400 for EFI fuel pump, regulator, lines.
-900 for a converted intake with correctly sized injectors and rails included
-400-700 for throttle body

Obviously you can do better than this depending on what system you go with and whether you get stuff used and how much you get for your old carb related parts. Ford EEC out of a wrecked 5.0, holley commander, fast XFI, AEM, electromotive, haltech, bigstuff3, megasquirt, accel gen7, motec (bend over US customers), EFI Technology, sequential, b2b, batch. If you go with the Ford EEC, then you have to get some piggyback chip to program it and then have correct size Mass air flow meter.

http://www.accufabracing.com/4_barrel.htm
http://www.wilsonmanifolds.com...cts/throttle-bodies-
http://www.summitracing.com/se...Bodies/?autoview=SKU

The Walbro GSS392 is a good inline high flow EFI pump that is quiet for everyday street use. I've used SX aerospace certified pumps and they are loud. some other stuff like aeromotive can overheat with street use. Weldon makes really nice stuff as well but much of it is drag race oriented.

http://www.fuelsystems.biz

You can do everything from a Hodge Podge junkyard 5.0 EFI setup to a fully programmable Windows EFI setup with billet fuel injected pieces on various budgets and you don't need the TFS EFI Intake to do it.

I am aware of the concepts that Hustler presented. However, the TFS manifold is a very good way of installing an EFI conversion on a Cleveland cheaply. I thought about the clearance issue, and I remembered that this guy did it without a problem, using a Windsor manifold:

http://www.fordmuscle.com/arch...005/12/ClevelandEFI/

I'm sure there's another place he talks about it, but I can't find it right away.

Notice that the manifold has the same upper piece. I'll look into the height of the lower manifold for the Windsor to compare.

I would love to be able to use a Megasquirt III fuel injection computer, the TFS manifold, etc, and run throttle-body or mass air flow fuel injection. The beauty of the MS III is that with a cam position sensor, you can run all of this as well as distributorless ignition for around $600 for the computer, assembled by someone else and not in kit form. I'm not opposed to using a single-plane spider-type manifold with an elbow conversion, but the TFS just looks cleaner and has long runners for extra bottom-end torque.

As another suggestion, I showed years ago on our '72 L that its quite possible to LOWER the entire engine by 1" as well as slide it backwards by 3/4" without even unbolting the exhausts, wiring or hoses. You do need a TIG welder as I sectioned the two die-cast lower motormounts to do the lowering. The set-back only needs a big hammer to reshape the thin ZF mounts into an S and reverse the upper motor mounts.

quote:

Originally posted by Corey Price: Notice that the manifold has the same upper piece. I'll look into the height of the lower manifold for the Windsor to compare.

I wouldn't expect them to differ but comparing the lowers is a good idea. If needed you could potentially mill the lower a little if needed. That Windsor style install looked fine but not sure what he had to do if anything heightwise. The re-wrk of the lower to adapat to the C was fairly extensive.

K

Thanks Bosswrench for the idea.

It appears that the Windsor EFI intake similar to the Cleveland EFI intake is 11.5" tall according to the catalog, but the lower intakes are both 5.375" tall. What in the world? Wouldn't the EFI intakes be the same for both of these? In any case, if the lower manifolds are the same, it might just work.

It seems like most Pantera owners have very little experience with fuel injection.I have been using injection for over 14 years. It's not simple or cheap. But as far as fitting under a stock engine screen that is really no problem. You don't need to get a manifold that is made for injection just convert any manifold you like, and run a nornmal throttle body on it. The new type of throttle bodys are even lower than the one on my engine by about an inch. I'm running a weiand 2V Xcelerator single plane on a pair of CHI 3V heads with there spacer adapters and a one inch manifold spacer as well and it still fits under the stock screen.If anyone needs help or parts for this or any type of work feel free to contact me, the info is on my web siteOwner. Look around at the different links to see the type of things I do. Please let me know if I can help.

Thanks in advance, P-MAXIMUS