looking for a suitable intake manifold to go with TA heads

[MrGibbs]

Hello,
 I am embarking on a Buick 300 engine build with newTA heads, I have everything figured out except for an intake manifold, I would like to get a single plane from Hufaker or wilpower but cant even seem to find any info on how to order one. I know i will have to make spacer plates or buy a Leyland P76 intake and cut it down. if i cant find one my only other option is to have one built at great cost. any suggestions?

[minorv8]

Hi,

I bought mine in 2009 directly from Australia. I hope the details are still valid:

Wilpower

Bill Laney
Max Wedge Performance
Australia

williaml@hotkey.net.au


best regards

Jukka

[roverman]

Welcome to our forum Bob, but first things first. Ported heads ? Port size is ? Unless "someone" has a Wildcat stage II, 4 bbl manifold, I know of no other available manifold, with large enough runners You might ask TRS?.They are rumoring 600 hp on gas. I plan to build a vertical split,hi-rise 4bbl manifold, that will accomodate ported TA heads. My heads might arrive next week. What is your time frame ? Cheers, roverman.

[MrGibbs]

Thank you for the Welcome Art. my intention is to turbocharge the engine so large runners are not as important as in a normally aspirated engine. this is uncharted territory and once i get the intake situation figured out i am going to start ordering parts. does anybody make an intake that fits the leyland p76 engine?

[minorv8]

I would imagine Bill Laney can help you since he and the infamous P76 both originate from Land of OZ.

[Dan Jones]

The Harcourt single plane can be procured from TR8 Specialist Woody Cooper at
the Wedgeshop (http://www.thewedgeshop.com/).  The Willpower can be ordered
directly from Bill Laney in Australia.  Both the Willpower and Harcourt have
Rover sized ports (sized to the gasket opening).  Huffaker no longer makes the
Rover intake manifold but a copy of it is available from England.  It's
slightly different than the original.  One discriminating factor is the
Huffaker has larger Buick 300 sized intake ports.  The Willpower tested
better on the flow bench than the Huffaker but I've not verified that with
the dyno yet.

Another option would be to have a 1964 Buick 300 aluminum 4 barrel intake
Extrude Honed.  A local circle track shop had a stock Ford 351W intake
Extrude Honed as the engine ran in a class which had to use the original
intake manifold.  They tested it against several aftermarket high rise
dual planes and found it to compare favorably.  Being a one year only
deal, the Buick 300 intakesare relatively rare but I've got a spare here
if you decide to go that route.

Dan Jones

[MrGibbs]

Thanks for the info, I have a 65 cast iron intake which has larger ports than the 64 version.  Dan, I bought an intake from you on the V8 board a couple years ago and then got tired of waiting for the TA heads to materialize and sold it. i'm kicking myself now because that intake had 300 size ports and was for a tall deck motor.

[roverman]

Bob, Did this just "happen" to be a Wildcat single plane 4bbl ? Just curious, roverman.

[minorv8]

Dan,

could you provide more info about the Wilpower flow tests ? Did you measure all ports i.e. how even the flow was port to port ?

Jukka

[MrGibbs]

Art,
 yes it was a wildcat. attached is a picture. I hope it shows up. Bob

[Dan Jones]

> yes it was a wildcat. attached is a picture. I hope it shows up. Bob

That thing has been around the block.  I got it from Art.

> could you provide more info about the Wilpower flow tests? Did you measure
> all ports i.e. how even the flow was port to port ?

As I recall, we only tested center and end ports but the same nes on each
intake manifold.  Dave may have done a quick spot check (valve stem only
or valve open to a large lift) of the other runners but we only recorded
flow data for one end port and one center port.  My orignal post is included
below.  As always, the forum software will screw up the formatting.

Dan Jones

After the heads were ported, I spent a little time evaluating a couple of
Rover V8 single plane intake manifolds on Dave McLain's flow bench in Cuba,
Missouri.  I wanted to know which of the intakes would flow best when bolted
to the ported 1964 Buick 300 aluminum heads.  The two intakes tested were a
Huffaker:

 http://www.bacomatic.org/gallery2/v/hidden/dan/dan-cars/album10/album13/Huffaker_front.jpg.html
 http://www.bacomatic.org/gallery2/v/hidden/dan/dan-cars/album10/album13/Huffaker_side.jpg.html
 http://www.bacomatic.org/gallery2/v/hidden/dan/dan-cars/album10/album13/Huffaker_bottom_side.jpg.html

and a Willpower:

 http://www.bacomatic.org/gallery2/v/hidden/dan/dan-cars/album10/album13/Willpower_1.jpg.html
 http://www.bacomatic.org/gallery2/v/hidden/dan/dan-cars/album10/album13/Willpower_2.jpg.html

Note the Willpower intake pictured is not the actual intake tested.  I've
not yet taken pitures of the intake we tested but it differs from the one
pictured in that it has EFI injectors bungs in each port but the injectors
were not installed for these tests.  The Huffaker has larger ports which
better match the Buick 300 heads:

 http://www.bacomatic.org/gallery2/v/hidden/dan/dan-cars/album10/album12/Buick_300_Huffaker_ports.jpg.html

The Willpower has smaller Rover-sized ports but has a better radius on
the end runners than the Huffaker.  An end port and a center port of the
head were first flowed without an intake attached to get a baseline, then
flowed with the intake bolted in place.  Also, a Holley 780 carb body
with the throttle plates at full open was bolted to the intake to
represent the pressure drop across a carb or fuel injection throttle body.
I'll be using an EFI throttle body later but have not purchased it yet.
When the heads were ported, they were tested on a Superflow bench at a
28" H2O pressure drop.  The head had a clayed intake radius but no exhaust
pipe stub was used on the exhaust.  Those numbers are shown in the 2nd and
3rd columns.  The 4th and 5th columns are the same head flowed on Dave's
bench which has a 10" H2O pressure drop.  The numbers were converted
mathematically to 28" to be on a consistent basis.  Note the numbers are
somewhat lower than those of the 28" bench.  We're not sure if this due
in part to the conversion or is simply bench-to-bench variation.  In any
case, it doesn't influence the results of the intake manifold tests.
On both single plane intakes, the center runners are short and straight
while the end runners are long and curved, so one center port and one end
port were tested.  The Huffaker was bolted to the head and tested first,
followed by the Willpower.  The results are shown below and are best
viewed in a non-proportional font like courier:

 Valve  Buick 300      Ported Buick 300   Same head with     Same head with
 Lift   1964           head on McLain's   Huffaker intake    Willpower intake
 (inch) aluminum       flow bench         center runner      center runner
        ported         10" numbers
        Int    Exh     converted to 28"   CFM    % of        CFM    % of
        1.775" 1.5"    Int     Exh               bare               bare
                       1.775"  1.5"              head               head
                       Int     Exh
                       center
                       port

 0.050   --    --       26.3   22.6        26.1   99.2        27.6  104.9
 0.100   66    47       56.3   51.6        55.1   97.9        56.4  100.2
 0.150   99    82       86.8   75.0        87.8  101.1        89.0  102.5
 0.200  129   104      115.1   98.4       117.2  101.8       119.1  103.5
 0.250  155   119      140.4  114.1       141.4  100.7       142.8  101.7
 0.300  174   130      158.1  125.4       160.6  101.5       160.0  101.2
 0.350  187   139      171.7  134.4       169.9   98.9       167.9   98.0
 0.400  191   146      179.8  140.2       170.5   94.8       172.2   95.8
 0.450  194   150      181.3  143.2       172.6   95.2       174.3   96.1
 0.500  196   152      182.1  144.3       173.9   95.5       175.3   96.2

 Valve  Buick 300      Ported Buick 300   Same head with     Same head with
 Lift   1964           head on McLain's   Huffaker intake    Willpower intake
 (inch) aluminum       flow bench         end runner         end runner
        ported         10" numbers
        Int    Exh     converted to 28"   CFM    % of        CFM    % of
        1.775" 1.5"    1.775"  1.5"              bare               bare
                       end                       head               head
                       port

 0.050   --    --       25.5   22.6        26.8  105.9        26.9  105.5
 0.100   66    47       55.0   51.6        56.6  102.9        55.4  100.7
 0.150   99    82       87.0   75.0        88.2  101.4        88.6  101.8
 0.200  129   104      116.9   98.4       114.1   97.6       119.8  102.5
 0.250  155   119      143.4  114.1       132.5   92.4       144.6  100.8
 0.300  174   130      157.8  125.4       146.5   92.8       164.8  104.4
 0.350  187   139      171.6  134.4       155.6   90.7       173.3  101.0
 0.400  191   146      178.3  140.2       156.9   88.0       175.0   98.1
 0.450  194   150      180.8  143.2       156.6   86.6       176.0   97.3
 0.500  196   152      182.9  144.3       157.6   86.2       175.3   95.8

Despite the smaller runners, the Willpower is the better flowing manifold.
The center ports on both intakes are quite close to the head flow but
the Huffaker end ports are not as good.  I think it would be worthwhile to
port just the ends of the Huffaker intake end runners with a better radius
to see if the flow loss could be recovered.  There's a slight drop off in
flow as lift increases on the Willpower intake that may be due to the small
port size.  The Willpower could be ported to a larger size but given how
close the intake is to the bare head flow, it's probably not worth the
trouble.  The worst flows are at 96%.  As a point of comparison, we've
recently flow tested a couple of (non-Rover) dual plane intake manifolds
and they were in the mid seventy % flow range (unported).

The exhaust-to-intake flow ratio on these heads is excellent.  Dave thought
a bit larger itake valve, at the expense of exhaust valve size, might make
more power if it were practical.  During our tests, a 4" diameter tube was
used to simulate the effects of the cylinder wall.  To see if shrouding
might be a problem, the tube was moved around (closer to the valve) but
little effect was noted.

Dan Jones

[rover sd1 v8]

HI can you identify  this  manifold PLEASE .i have look everywhere