Weiand Intake Manifold

Art I can't comment on the Weiand intake. 20 years ago I ran the Holley Strip Dominator on my single plane engines, it was recommended by the Ford engine builder who's shop I relied on for my Ford work & hi po Ford parts. The strip dommy worked very very well. It is no longer manufactured, but it is still a popular manifold, they show up on ebay regularly, bidding is aways heavy, they normally sell for $300 to $350. The manifolds reputation is apparently still very good, it's nearest competitor, the Edelbrock Torker, goes for about half that much on ebay.

your frend on the DTBB

Thank you George,
The Torker just looks too darn tall for what I want to do, which is maintaining the screen and running a round air cleaner. It looks to be an inch and a half taller than the Performer and I would imagine the Dominator is similar in height?
Art

Art, here's some data

Using a carb with a choke, a carb mounting pad with a B height measurement of 4" is about the highest you can go and keep the air filter below the L engine screen.

If you use a carb with the choke milled off, you should be able to stretch that at least another 0.5" higher, the limiting factor then being the height of the fuel bowl vents.

The best "dropped" air filter bases I know of are the ones for the big block Corvettes, late '60s, early '70s.

Art, you may want to wait until Dan chimes in. For 2V heads, he highly recommends the Weiand X-Celerator.

I had a Torker on my car and with a Moroso air filter and a 650 holley it just touched the screen with a 1/4 - 3/8 thick gasket to eliminate heat transfer.

And as luck would have it its for sale ??? LOL

Ron

Check here for a look at intakes by Dan Jones:

http://www.panteraplace.com/page35.htm

Here's the post I just made on the other forum:

> It is a Weiand X-Celerator single plane part #7517 for our Cleveland 4V
> engines. It is supposed to be good for 1500-7000 rpm. Comparing its
> dimensions with the Performer manifold, it appears to only be about a half
> inch taller. It looks like I could fit this manifold under my engine
> screen.

For comparison, here are some height measurements I made of 351C intakes.
The measurements represent the drop from a straight edge laid across the
carb pad to the closest point where the end rail bends inward (each end).
Measurements are in inches:

Holley Strip Dominator 4 5/16 5 3/8
Blue Thunder 4 7/16 5 3/8
Edelbrock F-351 Performer 2V 3 1/2 4 3/8
Ford aluminum 4V 3 1/4 4 3/8
Offenhauser 360 4V 3 1/2 4 1/2
Weiand Xcelerator 2V 4 3/16 5 1/8
Weiand tunnel Ram 9 1/16 9 3/8
base 6 1/4 6 1/4
top 2 3/4 3 1/8
Motorsport A351 (Roush) 6 3/4 6 3/4
A331 (Edelbrock version, not Roush) 4 3/8 5 5/16

I believe the 2V and 4V versions of the Xcelerator are the same height.
The difference between my Xcelerator and a Strip Dominator is a quarter
inch but it sure looks like more than that to the naked eye. I used to
run the Weiand Xcelerator 2V with a 14" diameter drop base air filter case
and 2 1/4" tall K&N element:

http://www.bacomatic.org/gallery/album03/TOF00002

It's about as tall a combination that will fit under the a stock Pantera
engine screen. The top just clears the Holley choke tower (probably hurts
high RPM breathing) and the bottom just clears the distributor. Some drop
base air cleaners will rub on the distributor (some distributors are taller
than others) and a Carter AFB has a lower choke tower which might give you
a bit more room to play with.

> Does anyone know anything about this manifold or have experience with it?

See below.

> All I know is what Dan Jones has written. He says that the Xclerator 2V
> and 4V are two very different manifolds. He says that the 2V is a good
> match for the aussie heads and my engine build confirmed that.
> The 4V Xclerator is a reported dog of a manifold and was *not* recommended.

Affirmative. Below, is a summary I made of a couple of 4V intake manifold
tests by Pantera owners. Both of these were on stock displacement but
modified motors. Things could well be different on a big cubic inch
stroker engine. Single plane intakes tend to be more configuration
dependent than dual planes and small differences like dividers or spacers
can make a difference on some combinations.

Dan Jones

Despite the name, the Torker is a big port single plane, as are the
Weiand Xcelerator 4V and Holley Strip Dominator. My experience is the
Torker is weak down low and the Weiand 4V is worse (the 2V version of
the Weiand Xcelerator is often a better intake on 4V heads). The Torker
pulled well at high RPM but around town, the Torker would stumble and
just wasn't as smooth. One of the guys in the Pantera club got pretty
serious about testing intakes and documented similar results. He did a
bunch of road and drag strip intake testing with his Pantera. The engine
consisted of an Erson hydraulic flat tappet cam (232 deg duration @
0.050", 108 LSA, 0.545" lift), Rhoads lifters, 4V quench heads, flat top
pistons, 735 Holley, coatings, C&A rings, MSD ignition, wrapped headers,
and MPG Stinger exaust port stuffers. Intakes tested included an Edelbrock
Torker, Weiand Xcelerator 4V, Offy Port-o-Sonic 4V, Holley Strip Dominator,
along with a couple dual planes. Tim spent a lot of time optimizing the
carb for each intake. The Holley Strip Dominator was 4 tenths quicker in
the 1/4 mile than the Torker and had, by far, the best driveability (smooth
with no flat spots) of the single planes. It rivaled the dual planes down
low, as far as driveability was concerned, and by 3000 RPM was pulling away.
He could never get the Torker to smooth out at lower RPM, despite a lot of
tuning time. Unfortunately, he didn't have access to a Blue Thunder high
rise dual plane for those tests. Note that the single planes tend to be
more sensitive to carb tuning due to the weaker metering signal.

Several other Pantera club members have tested 4V intakes, as well.
One test was a road course test between a Torker, a Weiand Xcelerator 4V,
and an Edelbrock Performer 4V. In a Pantera (3100 lbs, 4.22:1 final drive,
5 speed) with open chamber 4V heads, domed TRW pistons, 230-something cam,
the Performer was faster around the course because the Torker was so dead
below 4000 RPM. The Weiand 4V was worse dead. I offered up my spare
Strip Dominator but it didn't make it in time to be included in the test.

Art,
I ran the 7516 (2v intake) on my Pantera. It was a great intake. I had no problem with it fitting under the engine screen with the stock Ford air cleaner and a 600 cfm Holley. Later I changed the 600 for a 650 cfm double pumper and I could no longer use the stock air cleaner. A drop base 14 inch air cleaner cured that problem. I hope this helps.

General rule. Single plane manifolds are great for higher-end RPM horsepower. Dual plane manifolds perform better for more torque and lower end pull.

This said, one needs to gauge the size of the carb and cam to determine which RPM band that the engine best performs. Big cams and reasonable carbs will do great with an open manifold.

If you are looking for off the line, seat in the pants pull, the dual plane manifold would be a better choice with a shorter duration cam and smaller carb.

Your answer depends on the cam you run, the size of carb and where you like to spin your motor. Sorry not a clean answer, but knowing your internals would help gauge the best solution.

Miss-matched components WILL lead to unhappy performance.

Art - My friend uses the Weiand X-Cellerator on his Cleveland with CHI3V heads. He has milled it slightly and has it plumbed for fuel injection. It just fits under the stock engine screen with a low profile filter set-up.