Another HA intake cut-open and flowed

Hey guys and gals


Since there seems to be some discussion about the hot air intkae and how it flows. I have cut-open another completely stock intake and flowed it. I have learned a great deal over the last few weeks.


Stock untouched intake. Stock intake That has the center wall cut down 2/3 out and zip tubes removed. Egr still intact.


1--132 2--136 ------------ 1--149 2--160

3--140 4--113 ------------ 3--157 4--144

5--141 5--137 ------------ 5--157 6--151



The #4 port is the worst flowing port. In the other intake i worked on (Mark S) this port even gasket matched flows bad.

But as you can see that just by removing the zip tube walls and the center divider that the flow goes way up.


I have enclosed some pic of this intake( it looks just like mark's intake from the other thread). But you will see that i have done nothing but remove the walls no port work at all. The egr runner is still intact.

more pics

more pics

It was great seeing the insides of a HA intake manifold, can't believe all the bends that air has to travel around.

Glad to have been a vacuum jocky while you were working on this one, look forward to seeing how far you can go with this.

Thanks for the info,how did you cut the intake with a reciprocating saw?

Hey Eric you been missing in action! Any up dates?

Still working on it, took it to the track 2 months ago and really embrassed myself. Spooling the TA-63 without a 2800 stall converter, half ass tune, 12 lbs of boost and not knowing anything about launching with a transbrake netted me a 2 second 60 foot, 89 MPH and 8.6 ET on a eight mile track. The car was slow as all get out until half track and then it started pulling like hell. Pat looked over my tune and made a few adjustments and I ran a 87 MPH at 8.7 ET with footbraking (would not hold but 2 lbs of boost). Packed my stuff up and drove home completely pissed off.

Since then I had the converter re-stalled to 3200 , brakes worked on and working on the tune and upping the boost and alky. Tracks are closed, so I will probably try to dial it in on Richard Clarks dyno and try to figure out what this new combination likes. Also a new intake looks like it’s in the future

It almost feels like I’m starting all over again and in some ways I am. This is a whole different car and I have to relearn it.

That is a great number Eric!
You definitely earned all the success you are about to embark upon with all the hard work and $$$ you put in!

Mark,
First off, I think it is AWESOME that you are doing this and hope you take the feedback as constructive criticism to get to a common goal.

To answer the previous question;
There are some really old posts from previous HA cars/owners that indicate the flow distribution problem.
Boost 231 just confirmed that as well in his other post.

Let me share some of my speculative thoughts on the "why".
What “I” think . . . . . . the stock intake limits the HP to a given number.
We all know to “back out” when there is KR. With the stock intake, this level may be 400HP . . . we see 2 degree KR but may "stay in it".
(Pulled those numbers from the bowl . . . . . :biggrin: )

When you gut the intake, and flow increases, and the setup may can get to 500 WHP at the same boost level and the same 2 deg. of KR will not be tolerated at this level. Combine that with alky injection, that the now puddles at the bottom . . . . . same 2 KR . . . . something breaks . . . . . the manifold was the only change.

Continued speculative discussion . . . . .
During previous testing . . . . the set-up ran 23 psi before any KR . . . . and now shows KR at 15 PSI. We may deduce that the % of alcohol we are used to spraying in the HA cars can no longer make it into the cylinders and puddles at the bottom.
It requires some serious D.O.E to get to the truth on this.

Your previous posting (somewhere . . :tongue is 100% correct. You need EGT’s to get to the truth, but I doubt anyone will spend that amount of $$$ and effort for free, especially not for such a mediocre HA market.

Lastly;
You probably don't care what I think, but it is very important to express my appreciation for sharing the trials so that we may all gain understanding of the barriers and constraints in this HA application. THANK YOU!

Jerryl

I really think that the main issue with a gutted a intake is when using the alky injection. The biggest advantage the HA has is the amount of heat in the manifold to help vaporize the alky. IF all of the alky gets vaporized and the air flow is pretty equal across all ports and the heads are equal then there shouldn't be a problem. Also if you look at the way the intake is made the ports are actually in the middle of the intake (top-bottom) so if there is any puddleing it would be on the floor and and it wouldn't make it to the ports. (unless if flooded in a extreme case. This would also be true on a not gutted intake. The only difference a gutted intake makes is less turns and a larger common plenum area. I still for the life of me can't understand why they divided the plenum in the center.

On I/C car this is a problem of puddling due to the less heat in the manifold and the ports are directly conected to the floor of the intake when it could pool and run right into the ports the most rear 2.


From the flow #'s on the stock intake the i can see how one can hurt the engine when tuning as the #4 port flow way less than the others. When using a single o2 sensor during this firing event it reads rich then the ecm pulls fuel from the entire map nit just the #4 and then the other 5 cylinders are running lean.


It's all good i'm just simpling taking it all in! I'm here to learn and share what i have learned. I'm not doing to to make any cash


BTW i'm Patrick not mark lol


Mark is O SO LO -- his intake was the first HA is ever looked at and studied.



Also on thing to mention when flowing a stock HA intake on the flow bench is after flowing for a bit the air and the manifold gets warm. I guess this is due to the amount of friction the air has making all the turns to get out.

Your welcome.

Uhmmmmm . . . . .Patrick . . . . :redface:
I see your point and agree 100% with the synopsis.
The real world indicates slightly different results on a gutted intake.
Just sharing this to move forward and not repeat any mistakes.

I sincerely hope to be incorrect and that this works but there are a few past negative experiences that were shared.
Remember the intake and all the “baffles” that we never saw installed from BigWood?

On a stock intake and the numbers listed . . . I was thinking . . . Install 50lb injectors, and in #4 install a 42lb injector to equalize he AFR. These number work out nicely based on;
Average flow (Excluding the outliers) is 137CFM.
The 113 CFM runner is 83% of the average.
50lb/hr X 83% = 41.5 lb/hr. This will allow better AFR at constant DC.

For future searches on this topic:
http://www.turbobuick.com/forums/engine-tech/363911-interesting-numbers-2.html

For the gutted intakes that have been done in the past and not yeilded any performance gains did those intakes get flowed before and after.

The reason i ask is simple. The First HA intake i flowed was Mark S intake. That intake had been gasket ported and polished pretty good. But the Flow #'s were all over the place. So what i'm saying here is just cause you gutted and ported don't mean that they all flow the same. You might be surprised at how such little changes and really make one hell of a difference in the flow.

Take port #4 for example on a stock intake 113. Mark's intake was 117. But when you compared the other cylinders there was larger improvements.

These 2 intakes i have done may not work well at all. But one thing is for sure the flow between all the ports are within a few cfm of each other.



I also finished up other intake tonight

1--174 2--175

3--175 4--177

5--175 6--175


The intake ports on this intake are ported out to use a stock valley pan gasket.



This intake is more than likely going on Eric's stroker hot-air. He currently has a gutted intake on it now. but it's a ebay speacial he bought several yrs ago. So if his intake don't do well he is gonna swap this one on.

With more power come more breakage................ With more power the level of the tune comes into play real fast.

I am unable to confirm or deny.
Hope it works!
I would like to send you a backyard intake for flow testing. PM send.

Can you also post some pictures of the flow test set-up?

Very true!

Well, it's definitely going to be interesting comparing and flowing my existing intake. To say the intake on my car is gutted is an understatement compared to all the HA intakes I've seen so far. Hogged out is a more appropriate term. It's a big open plenum and not much else, all the runners are gone.

Just have to get the motivation to pull it off the car.

I just ordered this book, hopefully it will be useful to myself, Pat and/or Richard.

http://www.amazon.com/Engine-Airflow-HP1537-Practical-Performance/dp/1557885370/ref=pd_rhf_gw_p_t_2

That looks to be a interesting book!

We finally did it yesterday, pulled the intake manifold off my car, flowed and Pat ported it some more. I was completely mistaken about the hogged out bit, it was just a semi-normal gutted intake manifold with enlarged ports.

We didn't write down the starting numbers as we should have, but the lowest flowing port (number 4) was 157 CFM and there was two (2 & 5) that flowed the highest of 182.

This is what we ended up with

1---177 2---182
3---180 4---179
5---182 6---178

We also flowed the injectors and matched the highest flowing to lowest flowing to the respective ports.

Many thanks to Pat for all his work and Richard Clark for letting us use his shop.

I also want to throw is out there, because it's has me thinking quite a bit. When Pat and I were cleaning up the intake from his porting work, we took a water nozzle and placed in it the intake/turbo hole of the manifold. Water was gushing out of the 1 & 2 ports, some coming out of 3 & 4 and very little out of 5 & 6.

I hadn't finished reading the porting book that I bought (it's now in the hands of either Pat or Richard), but it mentions air flows like a liquid. If that's the case then it seems ports 1 & 2 would get the lions share of air and 5 & 6 would be deprived. I didn't mention this while we were working on the intake and putting it back on my car, because I really wanted to have my car back on the road the same day. Also it really didn't make a difference since that's the intake I was running with before I brought the car in and wasn't going to be much different from whatever intake I left with.

So air distribution is on my mind quite a bit at this point.