FE Intake dyno shoot out............

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by 496fe

Once again, (for the five thousandth time) it is proven that changing one part of an engine proves nothing. He said that his Victor added 30 Hp. to a 600 HP motor but yet, lowered the Hp. on a 400HP motor. The bottleneck on an FE engine is in the HEADS, not the manifold. He probably would have gotten the same results (or lack of) by changing the cam only, or the carburetor only, or the air cleaner only.

He did a LOT of work, but bolting anything more than a Performer or a medium-riser on a 390 is a waste of time. Just ask KC, Gessford, or Southern whar their opinions are. Now if he had done all this work on a Chevy big block that comes with heads that breathe, the tests might mean something.

A Victor 427 manifold with ported heads is worth 83 HP over a Performer manifold with stock Edelbrock RPM heads on a 608HP engine - dyno sheets in my gallery.

I hate to sound negative after all his work, but I also hope that people don't rush out and buy one manifold or the other based on these tests. Try doing a CC search on "disappointed". The venerable FE, along with virtually every engine ever made needs power improvements as packages, not piecemeal bolt-ons.

Just my ever-so-humble opinion after going through all this myself.

From what I have "read", not much practical experience, with the FE , the heads are the limiting factor, which is also the limiting factor on most other engines as well, whether you're talking sbc's, sbf's, bbc's, bbf's, mopars, as the most restrictive area in engines is the turn by the valve into the cylinder.

maximum power is determined mainly by the capability of the heads. What I am not sure of is with the engine Jay tested, a ?stock 428CJ, whether the 5200 rpm limit on power was mainly a factor of the heads or the valve train, or a combination of both. Anyways, no matter what, I would think an open plenum single plane intake would not be the ideal intake for this engine set-up, so comparisons would be better between the dual plane intakes for a somewhat milder engine.

Now if you have a very healthy engine, on the verge of max power, the intake comparison would be more interesting. What I found interesting was a comment that Barry made about a "worked" dual plane making more power from 2500 - 6500 than his "worked" victor. Very interesting.