Sorry if thos has been discussed before, i'm a newb, this is my second post. Anyway, I would like to know who sells the "best" 4bbl intake. I have a '75 Century Custom with a 350 2bbl, but I'm rebuilding the engine in school. I'm not interested in making it a really powerful engine, but I do plan on going with a 30 over bore, an RV cam, and a 4bbl intake and carb. Any help would be appreciated.
I said this a while back to someone who asked the same question as you. IMHO the only main advantage for street engines with an aftermarket aluminum intake is the weight savings. The stock piece is very well designed and aside from being made of heavy cast iron is near perfect, especially when you're not looking for much power anyways, Its also a lot cheaper too. You're looking at about 50 bucks tops from ebay, a junkyard or the for sale section here. If you do want to go aluminum, most people seem to prefer the TA Performance manifold www.taperformance.com over the Poston's manifold www.postonbuick.com Keep in mind that the Poston's one has a provision for egr while I believe the TA one doesn't. Being a '75 your engine already has egr and some engines seem to ping excessively with the egr disconnected, but since you're building it up, you probably won't have a problem with that. Welcome to the board good luck with whichever you want to do. :TU:
The '75 Engine, if equipped with EGR, should be fine with the EGR unhooked if the distributor is replaced with one from an earlier, non - EGR engine, or if you change the advance weights, advance stop bushing, and vacuum advance canister on your current distributor to give a lesser advance curve. The EGR advance curve is much more aggresive, since EGR acts as a detonation suppressor and allows more timing advance. I recently went through dealing with EGR on my '76 455 installed in my '85 chevy pickup. I tried to go the 'emissions legal' route originally, but the engine runs so much better without the EGR, and gets 1-2 MPG better in town, and 3-4 MPG better on the highway with the EGR disconnected. Fuel milage in town was 10-10.5 with EGR, 11.5-12 without. Highway MPG with EGR was 14, typical highway MPG without is 17.5, with a best of 18.6. I would advocate eliminating EGR properly if emissions regs aren't an issue.
Thanks, I wasn't expecting them to be so expensive, I know someone that builds Chevy 350s and can buy performance 4bbl intake manifolds for $100-$130 all day long. Maybe, I'll be holding off on the 4bbl for now. Then again, maybe not
[QUOTE='75 Century]Thanks, I wasn't expecting them to be so expensive, I know someone that builds Chevy 350s and can buy performance 4bbl intake manifolds for $100-$130 all day long. Maybe, I'll be holding off on the 4bbl for now. Then again, maybe not [/QUOTE] No, don't hold off! Get a Buick 4-bbl manifold...arguably the same or better than an aftermarket aluminum one, and WAY cheaper. :bglasses: Use a Q-jet carburator, you'll have more power, and better economy (if you keep your foot out of the secondaries...), and be way happier in the long run.
I have just rebuilt my 72 350-2 barrel and found a stock four barrel cast iron intake for $35.00 and a rebuilt 750 quad on ebay for $60.00. I did a dyno study on the TA intake vs stock and there really was no difference. ( see post under small block tech) I would definately go the stock route. The reason the small block Chevy is so inexpensive is because of supply and demand, they are a dime a dozen! Good luck wth your project! Tim
Sounds like it's time to go scrapyard hunting again... I Guess that wouldn't be too bad since I'm not putting a whole slew of new parts in anyway. I'm still using stock heads, and mostly stock internals. Well thanks for the help, looks like I'm off to the scrap yards tomorrow, assuming it's not raining.
Go with a 4bb iron Buick intake, you will be happy. My 76 Buick Century sure was!!!!! Look in the clasifieds here, they aren't common in junkyards here.
Awesome, I'll try the classifieds, maybe hit the scrapyards later this weekend if i can't find anything.
Checkout this thread. I am going to stick with the stock 4bb till someone comes out with a better one. The TA intake just doesn't make as much of a difference as I once thought. http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?t=54585&highlight=intake
what kind of power differences are there between the stock 2 barrel 350 on my 71' skylark, if i put a stock 350 4barrel conversion onto it, no performance parts, just a straight conversion...what kind of power should i expect to gain?
I think it's suppost to be around 20 hp. The main difference for me was that I went from a shitty running 2bb to a rebuilt 4bb. It runs better on the small primaries than it did on the larger 2bb! I was hesitant but I don't know why? Go for it!
