Sunday, July 19, 2009

Deciding on a 4v Intake Manifold

Three weeks after buying the Mustang, I found a stock 4v intake on eBay. I was interested in keeping everything stock but did want the performance of a 4 barrel carburetor. This particular intake was also date coded to match my motor. I decided to go ahead and buy the intake at a final price of 68.51 (and $40 shipping).

I cleaned the intake up a couple of weeks ago after buying the Holley carburetor. I used stripper on the top to take off all the old paint and the engine decreaser to clean it the rest of the way. I then painted it with the Krylon paint I have from NPD.

The intake looks really nice. The more I read about intakes, the more it seemed the stock one was very restrictive. Since my car does not come with a 4v intake or a Holley carburetor, I questioned if it mattered if I used a different intake.

I found a Weiand Stealth intake which looks nice. It does not have many casting marks and I think they would all be covered by the distributor and carburetor. If I painted it blue, I'm not sure most would notice it is not the stock intake. However, I would not really want to take a loss on the intake I already purchased.

I decided to list my intake on eBay for $89.85 with a buy it now price of $99.95. I figured if someone bid $89.95, they would convince themselves to just buy it then and I would break even. The auction ended today and it sold for $89.95 with $40 for shipping. If I can ship it reasonable, I should get close enough to breaking even.

I took several pictures of the stock intake today, measured a runner, and weighed the intake. The intake weighs 38 lbs which is a lot. The runners are 29/32" wide and 1.75" tall. I took several pictures of the height to compare to the Weiand. It is difficult to say the exact height without it installed but the carb flange is about 2" above the top of the surface which mounts to the head.

The Weiand should be a little taller and should weight about 20 lbs less. The ports on the Wieand are 1.02" wide by 1.83 tall. They are rated to work well from idle to 6800 RPM.

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