Bill, Jim Burek is doing the work on them. Presently they flow 243 with the small valves. I am going to the Larger TA Valve and do a little more massaging.
This test should really not come as any surprise to anyone. The TA intake is internally a touch bigger, sacrifices a few pounds of torque at lower rpm, for a couple HP up top. Buicks have always had very good factory intake manifolds, for a moderate buildup. I have made 500 HP with a 462 with an untouched iron '70 intake, and the B4B/Performer make about 10 HP more. Big difference here is weight.. I would be surprised if the car did not run faster, with 40 or so lbs removed off the front end. Also of note... Tim's motor is a very typical moderate performance buildup, that is fully streetable, with a 230* intake duration cam in it. I would not want any bigger cam in a 350, with and auto trans, AC, and power brakes. You would not want that single plane intake that everyone is after on this motor. That's a peice much better suited for race motors, or "street motors" with race motor specs. Even being still a dual plane manifold, TA's lost some torque, from a reduction in flow velocity thru the manifold at lower rpms. Plop a big honkin' single plane on this motor, and it would be a lot weaker at the lower rpms. JW
Something to think about, isn't there a conversion for amount of weight removed from car to a lower et? With street strip porting on stock heads, what size of exhaust * on the cam are people running with headers and 2.5" duals?
Ta 350 Intake Test This is pretty much what I've seen in my pure stock effort. No difference in MPH or ET with my mid 14 sec car.
In all fairness, the TA undoubtedly flows better than the stocker, and if so, the carb should be rejetted accordingly. Just my opinion.
This information about the TA manifold is a little disappointing, now that I purchased one, ground off the logo, grit blasted it to match the "casting" texture throughout, then painted it Buick red to match the rest of the engine. All this was to hide what I thought would be a performance upgrade on a mild street engine. Hmmm... Maybe the advantages of the TA intake come into play on an engine with a cam and porting work to support power production in the 6000+ RPM range. Does that sound reasonable? Dan G.
i like my T/A manifold I built my engine in 1988 with 10.25 pistons and a GS114 cam. All else was stock. My next step was the T/A manifold and all I know is the car felt quicker. Maybe the difference between the the t/a and the iron gets smaller when you port the heads. Either way the weight savings is great.
I have a fairly radical setup. The last real mod was the TA intake. It made a big difference. More power added than my Hooker Headers - that's for sure. I can agree that maybe stock guys won't see much difference, but come on - the thing flows better than stock. Flow = HP. My $.02
As it sits right now, from top down: Holley 750 Double pumper 3/4" open carb spacer (1" caised the air cleaner to rub the underside of the hood) TA Intake with port matching to ported heads, 3 angle valve job with 30 degree backcut to valves. Heavy valvesprings. New rockers and shafts. All heat blocked off. Polished combustion chambers. Speed Pro 10.25 forged Pistons. O Ringed Block, Copper Head Gaskets 1973 Rods, polished beams, ARP Bolts, Shot peened, weight balanced Cross Drilled Crank. Head Studs and Main Studs. Block is align bored and entire assembly is balanced, right down to the moly piston rings. Crane Cam, .480" I .500" E , Adv. 272 degree I 282 degree E. Cloyes True Roller Chain. KB deep oil pan. Hooker Headers. Doug Nash 5 speed which is the same as having 4 series rear end gears. I probably forgot a few things.... In Summary: the car scoots, and the intake made a big difference!
What does your car run in the 1/4? What gears are you running, did you have your heads flowed before and after the porting, if so what are your numbers? Did you have the engine dyno'd? Thanks Tim
Port size at the flange....... I have had TWO T/A 350 intakes. One before they started CNC'ing the flange and one after. If you have an eariler T/A, the ports at the flange are way smaller than stock so it would be easy to see and performance loss or just no gain. Newer intakes are "fixed" and match stock size. I would REALLY like to know which one was used for this dyno test.... :idea2: I find it hard to believe that the larger T/A made peak at a lower rpm with larger runners unless it was an ealier version with the necked down ports at the flange. I like the dyno comparison between the intakes but people need to know which version it was. Was the A/F matched between the intakes????? THere is a lot of power in tuning. If you have a old 350 T/A intake, get it port matched so it will work like it is suppose to.:TU:
Well, I borrowed them the TA intake for this test and have since sold it and went back to the stock intake. This test was done in 2004 and the intake was probably purchased in late 2001 or early 2002. Does that make it an "early" version?
You need to also consider the "effective hp increase" you get everywhere by cutting 40lbs or so off the car's weight.
You'd have to ask TA. I just seen the two types. Just because they changed it a curtain year, doesn't mean you didn't get an old version sitting on the shelf.
This was a good article on the intakes. I do think though that taking 40 lbs off the front end will get a few more ET's over the stock intake. The key to the TA intake is the fact that you can run just about any carb you want that you like. Everybody has a different preference here. I was wondering what the car did run in the 1/4 mile.
