Custom intake question

[skimphish]

First off, I am new here, and from the US. So please talk slow and take it easy on me. lol.

Second off, I am in no way new to the V6 scene. I have a 97 Chevy Camaro that is currently cam'd, ported heads/intakes, 34# injectors, tuned, has pretty much a full suspension overhaul done to it, and is my pride and joy. It use to be turbo'd until an oil line got cut and I spun a bearing. Had to sell the turbo to rebuild the engine, the engine shop gave me the wrong specs on the crank bearing and within 500 miles I had another 4 spun bearings. Now I have a L26 short block (powder forged rods) with all the already stated mods, and Im sure Im forgetting some. Quick pic (no longer has HID's and has some fatter wheels now).



My question for yall is that I am wanting to get one of your Ecotec lower intake and chop it up to make this:


I know I can make this fit under my hood, but I am not sure how I should run the sensors for it. I do not plan on running a MAF(s), I already do not run one and tune using SD tuning (going off the MAP). So what would be the best way to tie a MAP into this setup? Someone on my other board said I could connect the two intakes and a kind of H-pipe and put the MAP there, which I guess would also be where I would put all the vacuum lines. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[seq4x4]

Hey mate, welcome to the forum. Have you thought about the amount of heat coming off your extractors effecting the air temp? Just a thought.

The person on the other board gave me an idea, may or may not work. Join the 2 plenums together at the rear with some tubing wide enough to fit your barbs for vacuum and the MAP sensor in the centre.

[immortality]

Welcome to the forum.

I'd imagine that taking the vacuum from just one of the plenums would be ok

[ajvx01]

^^^ from my understanding thatl work...

i take it your going turbo again?
got an under bonnet pic just for my curiosity?

[skimphish]

Hey mate, welcome to the forum. Have you thought about the amount of heat coming off your extractors effecting the air temp? Just a thought.

The person on the other board gave me an idea, may or may not work. Join the 2 plenums together at the rear with some tubing wide enough to fit your barbs for vacuum and the MAP sensor in the centre.

Im thinking the crossover tube would be the best idea for the MAP sensor. Like the guys below said, one plenum may work for the vacuum tubes.

Welcome to the forum.

I'd imagine that taking the vacuum from just one of the plenums would be ok

^^^ from my understanding thatl work...

i take it your going turbo again?
got an under bonnet pic just for my curiosity?

Nope, staying N/A. I loved being turbo'd but I cant afford it right now. The reason for going to a Holden intake is that our US intakes suck. We have had a few guys upgrade to stock Holden intakes and have shown good results. Having an intake design like I posted should even further improve those results.

When I was turbo'd, still wasnt done fully but the only pics I have



And when I sold the turbo I rebuilt it to what it is now:

[ephect]

the only thing that i guess was a big factor why walky stopped making these, is coz the alternator is in the way and needs to be relocated. they only ended up making 2 or 3 of these things. never seen one on a car, but know another forum member has/had one.

you can relocate the alt to where the aircon is if your not fussed removing it.

[ajvx01]

^^ as above, alternator will need to be moved..
Only person I know who's seen one of these is my tuner who was un impressed in quality, design was sound though.
I've never seen that stock manifold before, not the prettiest..
If you build your own walker style manifold it'd be a hard project but very cool and very rewarding!

If not you could always buy a Aussie aftermarket manifold like my old Mrc performance twin throttle body or a come racing item.. No changes needed from what I can see in your engine bay.

[seq4x4]

I would have to agree with AJ on the twin TB idea. After abit of thought i came up with it would be pretty good for a turbo set up. Im unaware who you know and what the prices are like there to build that sort of thing but for a mace twin TB (if you can find one) is usually around $600 to $800AUD second hand. While the COMEracing twin tb your looking at roughly $1500AUD. Both bring good power gains. But theres also the option of running a stock plenum with a spacer, insulator and a bigger TB to produce some pretty good results as iv experienced.

Also be aware there are 2 different types of manifold. One on the VS has 2 temp sensors and the VT (and up if im correct) only have one.

[ajvx01]

^correct..
Don't forget Mrc performance either.. There twin tb isn't on there online store but there legit, I used them cause I didn't have cash for, or like the come item and couldn't find a mace item.

Not a sales plug its just an option as I imagine finding second hand gear in another country would be hard..

[seq4x4]

You wouldnt have any pics and prices on the MRC one would ya? Id be interested in seeing it, if you say its good, prob work out better then my twins on the lid.

[ajvx01]

i can only speak from experience in that i liked it and had very little issues, price wise if your genuinely keen ask mrc via e mail would be ya best bet as they changed a few things in my understanding since mine.
just say you saw mine and were interested and theyl know what your after.

[WarShrike]

The person on the other board gave me an idea, may or may not work. Join the 2 plenums together at the rear with some tubing wide enough to fit your barbs for vacuum and the MAP sensor in the centre.

I'm guessing I'm that person.

Hiya Skimpish. Looks like we're joining together in plundering the Australian salvage yards for Holden Ecotec parts since all of ours are getting scrapped!

[LETZRIDE]

I'm guessing I'm that person.

Hiya Skimpish. Looks like we're joining together in plundering the Australian salvage yards for Holden Ecotec parts since all of ours are getting scrapped!

Hey...I'm lurking round here to ...

I'm actually attached to a triple throttle body manifold I think I saw on here awhile back...I think that would distribute the airflow a little nicer to the cylinders, the only thing that has me worrying is the turbulence of the airflow in that tiny plenum.

Scott, I dont think that big UIM you have posted is gunna work for us...I remember back when I did a measurement with just the holden LIM on my car we didnt have a heck of a lot of room to go up...infact, if that unit is any taller than the stock holden plenum you're already in trouble as the few people who have installed the holdens on our cars have had to shave away some of the cowl to get it to fit. My second thought when I looked at this design earlier was whether or not those plenums would come in contact with either a) the shock towers, or b) the brake booster/brake lines... its hard to tell without dimensions for it.

Running an insulator for us it is probably safe to say is out of the question...there just isn't room for it as our motor sits very far back under the cowl.

[ajvx01]

In that case letsride your guys options are for a mace (no longer in production) or Mrc performance manifold only as far as non factory goes cause the come and walker items are taller than the factory..

Also what size are the throttles on this triple one you speak of? They'd have to be small as otherwise your air speed and there for throttle response would absolutely suck!
One of the reasons I used the twin tb style I did was exactly as you hinted at.. the factory holden manifold lacks even air distribution (take the lid off a high mile holden manifold and is VERY clear) but with the twin tb that seemed to be solved nicely.

[LETZRIDE]

In that case letsride your guys options are for a mace (no longer in production) or Mrc performance manifold only as far as non factory goes cause the come and walker items are taller than the factory..

Also what size are the throttles on this triple one you speak of? They'd have to be small as otherwise your air speed and there for throttle response would absolutely suck!
One of the reasons I used the twin tb style I did was exactly as you hinted at.. the factory holden manifold lacks even air distribution (take the lid off a high mile holden manifold and is VERY clear) but with the twin tb that seemed to be solved nicely.

Im not sure what size they were to be honest, If I had to guess I would say you probably shouldn't make them over 55mm each if you are going to go triple's...

Here is a picture of it, I think this would give you the best distribution of airflow.

triple throttle body.jpg

[ajvx01]

Yea that'd be the total max size eh..
That's a cool set up and would give nice air distribution, how much better than the twins in not sure but your right it'd work nicely

Question is who makes it and how do the throttle linkages work?? I can't see any? Got a top down picture?
Other thing is, is how is it set up? You couldn't tune it as a itb setup as, well, it's not and you could have a "secondary tb" on delay like the twins..
So how are they set up? If they all just ran open you'd have to retard your timing so far it'd be pointless?

[seq4x4]

I guess if you put a wall between each pair of runners you could have them open all at once? So one TB would cover 2 runners. My logic anyways.

[skimphish]

Aw damn, Mike and Dane? Looks like a good ol' American V6 gang up in this Aussie board.

I really dont know if that exact design would work on our cars (the first image I posted), I think it would have be all be swept forward and the alt relocated. If I didnt live in Fl I would keep the AC deleted and just move the alt there, but that isnt really an option. I have the design in my head, but it would be a little hard to illustrate, basically like the design I posted, but having the runners come towards the front of the car at a slight angle, which would help clear the brake booster. Clearing the shock towers would be the easy part, it is the alternator that is the bitch.

[seq4x4]

Aw damn, Mike and Dane? Looks like a good ol' American V6 gang up in this Aussie board.

I really dont know if that exact design would work on our cars (the first image I posted), I think it would have be all be swept forward and the alt relocated. If I didnt live in Fl I would keep the AC deleted and just move the alt there, but that isnt really an option. I have the design in my head, but it would be a little hard to illustrate, basically like the design I posted, but having the runners come towards the front of the car at a slight angle, which would help clear the brake booster. Clearing the shock towers would be the easy part, it is the alternator that is the bitch.

Come on man, i live in Australia and deleted my AC the day i swaped motors over. Be a man haha.

[walesy]

thats why windows wind down, fresh air for the win!

that tripple t/b setup is pretty cool, ive never seen them before

[LETZRIDE]

Yea that'd be the total max size eh..
That's a cool set up and would give nice air distribution, how much better than the twins in not sure but your right it'd work nicely

Question is who makes it and how do the throttle linkages work?? I can't see any? Got a top down picture?
Other thing is, is how is it set up? You couldn't tune it as a itb setup as, well, it's not and you could have a "secondary tb" on delay like the twins..
So how are they set up? If they all just ran open you'd have to retard your timing so far it'd be pointless?

not total max size, like (3) 55mm throttle bodies...if my math is correct, that will give you an area of about 22,368mm

If you went with a bigger single 65mm throttle body your total area would be 10,414.2025mm. But air is going to flow alot slower through that bigger tb.

I dont have any other shots of that unit, nor do I know who makes that one, or how it works...was just a picture I found and snagged as I am still toying with my own plans on what to do for the top plenum.

I dont believe these tbs have linkages either, I think that it is one of those slide throttles, so the butterflies will slide open sideways inside that back rail, this would make it so that there is no obstruction in the airway at all at WOT. (I could be wrong though)

I wasn't aware that your dual tb setups had delays on them? I thought you would just need way less throttle to get moving?

That kinda puts a damper on things.

Aw damn, Mike and Dane? Looks like a good ol' American V6 gang up in this Aussie board.

well Canadian/American gang up

[ajvx01]

Not all our twins have a delay but they work better when they do.. Ideally on idle one is totally closed then once you get to say 2k the second begins opening. That way you don't have to retard your timing and max out your idle motor so much ... Ultimately a direct link can hurt power. But still is way better than stock manifold.

Id be very keen to see that manifold in better detail and test results.. I'm sold on the looks just not on how well it'd work in the real world.. My concerns are tuning, timing and airspeed.

[LETZRIDE]

my main concern is tuning as well...You need a MAF to get a reading for timing and see where you are getting KR, and it would be difficult to run a maf unless you did one on a collector tube that fed into the 3 throttlebodies, but I think that restricts how much air you can get into the motor quickly in my opinion as your tube essentially becomes a manifold within itself.

Airspeed would be great because of the smaller th's.

[immortality]

The COME twin TB manifold for the ecotecs have 55mm butterflies I believe.

Kalmaker have developed MAP based tunes for ecotecs which work really well, especially if you have multiple TB and don't want to run them all through a single MAF (really defeats the point of having multiple TB's).

[LETZRIDE]

see, my map based tune works fine the my huge cam and modded heads car atm, but Im tricking the system, skimpish is running the same tune that I have, but modified to his motor (atleast he was)...for us, the VE is maxed out at 200% at WOT and we need to "cheat to attain our tuning goals) I dont know how much "give" we have to this system we're running though....I'd be interested to see that program you speak of, especially since as soon as you take the MAF out of the equation, we have no way of seeing where the KR is in relative to our rpm and load...so we can't "fine tune" our setup for the maximum efficiency (unless one of you knows a mathimatical equation that I can create a custom perameter to this system.

twin 55's still flows more than an upgraded 65mm tb, so that's no issue.

Personally I was looking at designing an ITB setup (not to steal this thread) its the tunning that has every one of my thoughts on hold to be honest.

Tunning mucks everything up, I have ideas beyond belief and a machine shop more or less at my disposal through a friend...but Im not going to make 40000000 pieces for the sake of making things to "see" if they work when I know tuning wont cooperate (as I do need to compensate him still, be it money or drinks at the bar, it's still expensive lol)

our v6's (american wise) have very little tune support and its like pulling teeth with no anestetic to get information on stuff for us on the boards as not many people have gone past the MAF tune aspect of things. So as old as these motors are, we're kind of on a stepping stone of something new here...