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Looking to help with your dyno mule in exchange for information.

shoestring

shoestring

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 20, 2009
Location
Swampscott, 01907
Kinda.

Here's the schtick. I want to know if the way that I port an F intake makes any kind of difference in power or power curves. Based on feedback I've received I have reason to believe it does, but I have been around long enough to know that just because I've done something doesn't make it better and very well may do nothing or may even make it worse. I'm looking for someone to help me with an apples-to-apples dyno test. It can be something you've already run, or something you're planning to.

So what's in it for you?

I port this intake and you get to have it for free. I pay to ship it to you. You keep it. It's yours. Keep it. Sell it. Make it a door stop. I don't care.

Why would I do this? What's in it for me?

Well, it's Winter, and this is when I go after factual information. Duh. Have you not been around long enough to know that it's what I value most? Yup, that's it. At this time, I have no interest beyond that. It takes too long and not to be impolite, but my time is too valuable to me to charge what would be fair compensation to make them to sell. Plus I've seen what it takes to source cores and crap and I have no interest in doing that.

HERE'S WHERE I GET PRICKLY

The dyno Cam and I used has closed its doors, and we haven't found another one yet. We won't have the rapport we had in the past where we could do all sorts of stuff on the dyno with a 4 cyl Volvo that makes less than 150 N/A or 250 turbocharged. I want this done the way I would do it. That means Scientific Method. Everything, within your control, must be THE SAME. And I mean THE SAME. Acceptable variables include the weather (if it's a different day, or if it's much later the same day) and if you want to run a different throttle body but THE SAME KIND OF STANDARD B230 throttle body. In fact maybe I'll include one, with the TPS so that I know it's right.

Same head.
Same compression ratio.
Same cam.
Same injectors. Not "Well this one had yellow tops and I had another set" THE SAME ONES.
Same tune
What about...YES THE SAME ONE.

Make sure your shit is right. By that I mean it starts. It runs well. All the factory components are in place and functional. When someone asks you "How far would you drive this" your answer is "How much gas is in it" I don't want to send this off to somebody and then get a long list of malarky as to why it couldn't be done in this manner.

I'd like to work with someone who has some typical mods: 1mm off the head. Any cam beyond the M or T. If it's turbocharged, maybe 0.8bar boost or more. A set of PROMs. Stuff like that. Enthusiast level, not necessarily pro level.

Finally, I don't really want to wait for the feedback. Full disclosure, I don't have it done and probably won't until after Christmas, but it wouldn't be much past that. In my mind the best case scenario is that you already have plans to dyno or have easy access. If you think you're going to wait till Spring I can tell you that you're going to wait in line behind all the guys with real money who are going to be getting ready for race season.

WHY AM I WASTING MY TIME WITH THIS?

The first thing anyone ever says about the F intake is THE PLENUM THE PLENUM insinuating that it's too small and it very well may be but hear me out: if we're talking about plenums, have you looked into the plenum on an F intake? If you had 2 intake ports in a cylinder head that had obstructions like that, wouldn't everybody be cleaning that up as step 1? Why not in this intake manifold then? If you saw the dyno test CTuning did against the Kjet intake, the F intake was the loser, but not by as much as I'd thought it would. High single digits. I've gotten feedback from reliable sources and seen information with my own eyes with regard to these ported intakes that make me think that they may actually add performance value in the right applications, maybe enough to be comparable to the Kjet intake. Or, as I said, maybe not. I'm emboldened enough to post this though, aren't I? I'm not a defender of this intake manifold, rather, I'm a proponent of competitive advantages I can employ.

The right person to work with me on this is also probably someone who values the data first and the hardware second, but whatever.

Go ahead and hit me with your questions, either here or in a PM. I'm sure I'll have a few for you too. If this doesn't work out, then it doesn't work out, but I'd really like to know for sure. If it works, I'm just going to tell the group what I do and you can have at it. I don't want to do that yet because for me, this is ultimately about my own work and thought process and understanding.

I'm not claiming miracles, or saying that I work at Wilson Manifolds and have some inside track, or that this is the right intake every time.
 
I'm a little confused. This seems like it should be a flow bench conversation.
 
This is the next step -see if there are real world gains:
www.redblockpowered.com

Ported B230F Intake Manifold — redblockpowered

Available on an exchange basis OR sourced from me (aiming to keep lead times down here, I try to keep these on hand!) In the interest of transparency, HERE is what gets done: Ground down throttle body studs inside plenum Ground down injector bosses Intake runner long sides opened up Intake runner
www.redblockpowered.com www.redblockpowered.com
 
Understandable. I've seen improvement on my little homemade bench, but that doesn't always tell the whole story. As Paul Harvey would have said, I'm looking...for the rest of the story.
 
shoestring said:
Understandable. I've seen improvement on my little homemade bench, but that doesn't always tell the whole story. As Paul Harvey would have said, I'm looking...for the rest of the story.
Click to expand...
That makes more sense. I thought I had seen a thread a while back where you had built a flow-bench.

While not the same thing as a dyno, I imagine if you get some usable data if did a back-to-back tuning session on a car with aftermarket EMS... and because I have megasquirt permanently on the brain... I'll assume the person is using MS...

Let's say you tune your VE table to specific AFR's... say you have a well-tuned setup with a nice looking VE table... (smooth transitions, no massive jumps or holes) imagine it's a NA setup you tune your VE to be 12.5:1 at everything above 100kpa...(or whatever) you'd quickly see which bins picked up VE (and those that lost VE) after an auto-tune session in tunerstudio with the new intake. Don't change anything but the intake manifold and retune it... It wouldn't be the same as actual dyno hp numbers but it could get you closer to what you're looking for.

Knowing where in the load-rpm map the intake picks up or loses VE would correlate nicely with your flow bench data.

I don't have an 8v setup right now but this would be really fun to take a crack at.

I imagine you'd see a similar phenomena in other engine management systems.
 
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Aftermarket EMS would be nice as it could provide additional information, I hadn't thought of that. I'd geek out on it, but it's not necessary.
 
I ported away the TB stud castings in the plenum and ported near the injectors.
No increase in VE nor logged acceleration. (Change in RPM over time)


Mind you that this was a near stock setup. (230F with D cam).

Also, I back to back tested with a stock vs 59mm throttle body.
Difference not measurable with logging.

However,
Keep in mind that the results might differ for different setups with larger airflow demands.

This is also my problem with the CTuning tests.
Tests were done on a near stock engine.
The difference between F and E intake might be a lot more pronounced if engine air demand is increased.
Not to mention he got 12Xhp with a KY128 camshaft, which is will do 200 crank on a well adjusted engine with the necessary mods.

One could easily draw the wrong conclusions from tests like this.

My point being:
You can not simply judge individual mods like this.
The engine works as a whole concept where everything interacts with each other.

If anyone in Belgium/Netherlands wants to try the manifold, you can have it.
 
Sjeng said:
I ported away the TB stud castings in the plenum and ported near the injectors.
No increase in VE nor logged acceleration. (Change in RPM over time)


Mind you that this was a near stock setup. (230F with D cam).

Also, I back to back tested with a stock vs 59mm throttle body.
Difference not measurable with logging.

However,
Keep in mind that the results might differ for different setups with larger airflow demands.

This is also my problem with the CTuning tests.
Tests were done on a near stock engine.
The difference between F and E intake might be a lot more pronounced if engine air demand is increased.
Not to mention he got 12Xhp with a KY128 camshaft, which is will do 200 crank on a well adjusted engine with the necessary mods.

One could easily draw the wrong conclusions from tests like this.

My point being:
You can not simply judge individual mods like this.
The engine works as a whole concept where everything interacts with each other.

If anyone in Belgium/Netherlands wants to try the manifold, you can have it.
Click to expand...
I agree 100%, which is why I'd prefer to have someone with typical mods participate.

As always, your results will vary.

The only way out of this is a 377 inch small Chevy screaming at 7500 rpm.
 
shoestring said:
I agree 100%, which is why I'd prefer to have someone with typical mods participate.

As always, your results will vary.

The only way out of this is a 377 inch small Chevy screaming at 7500 rpm.
Click to expand...
I think you’ll have better luck with a 5.slow spinning that high :)

I’m mostly past the F intake being used as you can’t get enough runner CSA in it. When you want to hit 42mm diameter at the intake flange… the 35mm F just isn’t going to make it 🤣

Then there’s the issue with runner length and plenum coming.

But for a 130 NA b23f… it’ll do just fine.
 
250@0.050 solid roller and a set of AFRs with good valve springs'll get you there.

I'm talking the 4.155x3.48 one, not the 4.00x3.75 one, also.

Look, this intake thing is really an exercise in ways to optimize what you have. You know. Hot rodding stuff. I don't know if it actually does anything. I'd like to KNOW, you know? It's just how I work.
 
OK I found my old testing sheets. At .500" lift 28" max flow was 203.4. With the ported intake it cut the airflow down to 187.1. This ported efi intake did not have the bosses from the throttle body stud relieved. That might make the numbers higher. At the time I didn't know about that and the shop wasn't a Volvo oriented shop. This was my 531 head getting tested.
 
Very good result.

Any before numbers?
Have read that it flows 160cfm combined to a (200cfm 405) head in stock form, but it would be cool to verify.
 
NA? I could I reckon set the other 242 up to be a test mule for that, but it'd be a little while. bonus points: I wouldn't really want to keep your stuff lol. would be hilarious to come up with some sort of test rig that was basically an engine on a stand, a transmission, and a rear axle, and just strap that down semi engine-dyno style.
 
Sjeng said:
Very good result.

Any before numbers?
Have read that it flows 160cfm combined to a (200cfm 405) head in stock form, but it would be cool to verify.
Click to expand...
My fuzzy memory seems to remember the shop telling me it was about 150cfm but I couldn't find a before number on the sheet. I'll check again to be sure.
 
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