Ported Intake Manifold

[99LeCouch]

Preliminary data are in. It looks like this was good for 1 mpg highway. On my twice-weekly 150 mile round trip, I've been averaging 30.1 mpg this week vs. 29.1 mpg last week, and 28 mpg the weeks before the ported manifold.

I still need more data. Early results are encouraging, however!

[HeadlessNorseman]

Not bad! you should always gain mpg/power with mods like this IF the factory piece was poorly designed. same with the ports in the head and the cam design too. Esp most non-performance oriented engines. having a way to edit the fuel maps would be pretty nice too..prob a nice gain from that just because the 3800 tends to run fairly rich.

[aerohead]

I ran across this in the July 1985 issue of HOT ROD.
Larry Widmer of Endyn,743 N.Merril,Duncanville,Texas is described as kind of a Black-ops secret-weapon in the racing world.
Larry's dad,a pioneer in aircraft design and airflow science exposed Larry to a computer "area rule" formula ( area rule was discovered by Dr.Richard T.Whitcomb of NASA,dealing with volume/velocity/area relationships."Coke-Bottling" "Whitcomb-waisting"Area-rule" "Sectional-density" can be used interchangeably to describe the concept.Also,a look at Keppler's law of planetary motion will get your brain warmed up for this.)
The long and the short of the article is that,Larry says forget the manifolds,the action is in the ports of the heads and combustion chamber.
By using his computer modelling and flow bench,Larry was able to design both intake and exhaust ports for high-swirl,lean-burn.
Ports,combustion chamber,valves,piston top are treated as a complete system.
Larry achieved the "homogeneous" mixture Henry "Smokey" Yunick had been working on until his death.
Air/fuel ratios could be leaned to 18:1,with lower exhaust gas temperatures,reduced peak pressures,faster,longer burn,with pressures attained during piston position of maximum mechanical advantage.
Here's the clincher.BSFCs of 0.347 Lbs.BHP-HR are reported.
This is absolutely remarkable for anything but a Hitachi,super-charged two-stroke Diesel operating at 100 rpm aboard a Ro-Ro ship.
Looks like this is where the money is.

[99LeCouch]

Hmm, so I may have enabled the heads to work better by getting the air in better. That's another possibility on why I've picked up a lot of torque right off idle from a mod that usually only is good for high-end gains.

[HeadlessNorseman]

it all depends on what is a restriction in the first place. Sounds like whomever did an excelent porting job though