Great, let's take our new $500 manifold (when you can actually buy one) and get the grinder out.. And it's still not the same, the only one your fooling is someone who does not know what a Buick intake looks like. Along these lines.. I just happened to talk to one of my engine customers and fellow board members yesterday.. we were discussing the difficulty in acquiring parts for engine builds right now...I mentioned the manifold deal, and desire to have a copy of the stock manifold in aluminum....turns out, his job is doing CAD design.. and he has extensive experience in backward engineering products.. he told me flat out, that if we cut up a stock intake, he could do the drawings. He lives local to me, so that part is a plus, and makes the first step here doable.. I do know another board member with a big band saw.. That's step one.. I am going to look into mold/core boxes and casting costs now.. just as a general feeler. You know, if we could do this, it would be great to rid ourselves of the big vendors that care very little about Buick parts. We have done it with converters, maybe we can do it with a dual plane intake.. this will be great for a lot of folks, especially those who really want to keep their motor stock appearing. He also mention that we could make the date code changeable in the mold... so we would probably do them in batches Need a date coded correct, totally stock appearing intake for your resto/stock appearing GS?... Maybe.. stay tuned.. JW
I'd bet a cold beer that you've taken the grinder to many brand new parts... Its an easy process- grind the edelbrock crap off with a cookie and then glass bead the runners to rough the surface up and paint it. Sure, maybe I'm only fooling the non-buick crowd. Thats only 99.956244% of the general population!
I paid 400 from TA for a B4B 5 yrs ago. You could probably cut one in half and scan and 3D print a casting mold.
Too bad all the multi millionaires and billionaires in this country arent auto enthusiasts. Im not talking the people with money and high priced new cars, most dont even know what they have anyway. If I was big money, I'd finance the "someone in the know" as far as drawings, castings, machining, etc, whatever is involved. If I invested a million, then had to wait to turn a small profit, probably years, if any profit, I'd still do it. Why, cause I like this stuff, it would employ people, it might branch out into other projects, plus If I WAS a millionaire, I'd still have millions left and yah cant take it with you. Im calling Elon Musk today and tell him "Stop your nonsense with rockets and space, nobody cares, make Buick parts" Ok, done dreaming, but I do think of this a lot I had no idea the Chevy guys were having parts issues also, is it the traditional SBC and BBC stuff only or is it LS stuff too?
Mark, The entire auto industry is upside down right now.. from the new car dealerships, to the aftermarket.. every make and model is experiencing shortages.. Delphi actually quit making flat tappet lifters, which leaves leaves us just one USA manufacturer.. And every make uses lifters.. there are shortages of every number for ever application.. I needed a special set of rod bearings recently, for a upcoming build.. this is for a 482.. so we are talking small block chevy parts here.. luckily they had one set.. because they had no idea when they might get another set in.. This is a shipping issue.. King bearings are made in Israel.. There is probably a full container of them, on a ship floating off the Atlantic coast somewhere.. It's actually a problem in all of retail.. Christmas shopping should be interesting this year.. there is no back stock of a lot of things, so once the shelves are cleared, that's it.. There are 70 some cargo and container ships anchored off the port of LA/Long Beach... there simply is not enough trucking to get the parts out of there fast enough and to the next step in the distribution chain, the big warehouses. And once they do get there, not enough warehouse workers to handle the volume.. I have heard from folks who worked there, as well as read in various articles, that this is basically unprecedented.. their might have been one ship waiting in the past, but usually they just went right to the unloading docks.. I was shocked when I walked into a Best Buy here last week, to buy a phone charger.. I left mine at home and was out of town.. most of the shelves were half empty, many many empty hooks, as a result, all the inexpensive coil cord ones were gone, cost me almost 40 bucks for a car charger for my Android phone.. Actually had to use a conversion cable from a playstation setup.. they were scraping the bottom of the barrel to fill this simple, everyday request. This is the predictable result of paying folks to not work. Couple that with increased demand for goods, spurred by a whole bunch of folks who got a pile of government payments they did not need, (aka thousands of dollars worth of discretionary spending money) and then shut the supply chain down for a couple months, and here we are... But back to the manifold deal.. Joe, as far as I can recall, other than porting intakes and heads, taking the name off Edelbrock manifolds is the only operation that I can recall, where I take a grinder to a brand new part. JW
A friend of mine wanted a chair from the local furniture store. Showroom was nearly empty, salesman said ‘if we order, we’ll have it in a YEAR’. Friend was able to buy the floor sample. (This store has been in business in town, run by the same family, since 1919 and the owner fears they may fold due to lack of supply). Patrick
We definitely would improve the flow and balance, as much as the casting will allow. Also an option for milling of the flange, under the carb, to make it look more like a B4B with the divider cut down.. I am sure if this actually happens, I would do some dyno testing to quantify the results of mods like this, and compare to the other dual plane intakes available. I would certainly tap the iron manifold experts on the shoulder for some improvement ideas. But the main focus here is that it looks dead nuts stock, and would take a magnet to find it, once it is painted.. JW
Would it be possible to use this opportunity to build two intakes? Perhaps it would be possible to design a good intake floor and have the option to cast a stock type intake and also a proper high rise dual plane? I'm envisioning a common runner floor between the two intake casting molds and then designing two top halfs?
Now IS NOT a good time grenade your engine. Jim, I’ve heard in bits and pieces the supply shortage, it’s CRAZY! Ships loaded with cargo, the cargo probably won’t be any good once it does get here if it’s steel/metal/iron
Have you thought about approaching the guy who is still doing the Poston valvecovers? I talked to him recently and he seems to have some say in that foundry.
Typically when a manifold is designed in CAD, the flow ports or negative space is created first, well, actually second, after the mating surfaces and space limits are established. Then form follows function, where the outer surfaces are just 4mm or so, thick covering the flow ports. In this particular case, the top surface can be "faked" to mimic the stock version, and the flow paths can differ a little bit, but its differences in shape can only add to the top "fake" wall thickness. There might be more of room for bigger runners if we are willing to dip deeper into the lifter valley. Flow dynamics or optimal port sizing is not in my knowledge base. This sand casting would consist of two halves (A&B), and four inlays. The inlays are the two inner plenum ports (upper and lower) and the two coolant passages (front thermometer housing and the small back one). I would guess we would eliminate the heat cross over, otherwise it would add another inlay if needed. Each of these inlays are molded and made of sand themselves. Later the inlays are broken and shaken out after the pour is cured.. then it goes off to machining, and finally inspected in quality assurance. Prototyping these is not any different than a small production run, but small changes in the A&B halves and inlays are usually pretty inexpensive, as these were usually just made of wood... Today I would assume they are just 3-D printed plastic. If I were to guess, after the design work is done, the first one would be about $20K, but it has been a long time since I did a sand casting, my price could be way off. We could use an existing cast part without any new design work or drawings to get a pretty accurate quote. Obviously, the more quantity of parts made, the lower the cost. Unfortunately, I can almost guarantee in todays limited supply / labor climate, a response from any foundry will come back as a "No Quote" due to it being a new company at a very low volume.. It will be a while before that changes, but it does buy plenty of time to build a new design if there is enough interest.
I would go anywhere but down,in the lifter valley. Picking it up would be ideal,but not likely without keeping the 50-year old appearance. Again,that’s just me and what I’ve tested.
About the part of not going further down in the lifter valley would now be more room for some type of "Air Gap" manifold to keep the hot oil off the bottom of the manifold. Just another thought. Tom T.
Most people don’t know Buick’s. Most don’t know cars and will believe what you say. You’re not getting one over on Buick racers about Buick stuff. I ground my edelbrock first thing. Looks stick to most. And a killer Rob Ross qjet. Now I’m doing all vacuum lines to look stock. Thank you Todd. I don’t think much will be done in the future for this hobby that doesn’t bring in $$$$$$$$.
