There's a big problem with that setup....only a few inches at best of runner length. A properly designed and built manifold will outperform that by a bunch.


In a word.....not a freakin' chance in hell... The piston speed on a 5.4 at 7000 rpm is about eleventy billion mph...

r3d, it looks like the plan is a 5.4 version of the Edelbrock 4.6 intake, wouldn't it be easier to just try to collaborate with them on widening whats already been designed? A 'joint effort' between a few shops starting with something that just needs to be tweaked would lower the development cost astronomically and bring it to market probably a year sooner than starting from scratch...

 

This sounds like a great venture, but there are some flaws I can see right away. The customers interesed in this type of intake will need to be informed that they will only benefit by running at higher RPM's than what the stock rotating assembly can handle (which has already been mentioned). Second, because of the flow rates involved at that high of an RPM, better heads will also be a necessity. For all-out performance this sounds great, there just needs to be a big money tree to support the use of this.

The great thing about the standard HPS intake is that it is a direct bolt-on that has been used successfully many times on regular 5.4's with great resuts. I'm just afraid you may not get as much customer interest as you may need to make it worth it to tool up this new casting. Good luck though.

 

PM me with how much you want for those cams I might buy them

 

yea i thought it would be to much rpm. i will say this though, it would be the shizzznet to see/hear a 7000 rpm 5.4 with some ported tfs heads, nasty cams, and a F-1 procharger......that my friends would be one fun ride!!!

 

That's never been a good setup for a NA car. There are no runners... it's just a hole so you end up leaving a lot of power on the table in the low middle and top ends. The new intake being worked on is going to be perfect for TFS headed cars with hot cams so depending on your schedule, I'd probably lean toward waiting for that.

If you're doing a more gradual build up then you should save a couple hundred more, get the existing HPS intake and then when you bump up to a set of ported or TFS heads and the built short block stick the new intake on it and you'll still be able to sell the first one for 80% or better of what you put into it.

It all really depends on your schedule but I would recommend against the lightning lower unless you're running boost, and even then unless you're running a lightning blower.

Precisely. This is the 2nd level.

Think of the existing Hardball'R 5.4 intake as the stock replacement that'll work for most applications and is best for PI headed cars with stock rods. This predicts an upper RPM limit more in line with the stock 4.6 motor and is for those with less expensive/extensive builds.

The new intake is pointed mostly at more radical combos, with heavily ported PI heads or TFS heads, pretty seriously lumpy cams, and a bottom end that'll take 7000+rpm. It's going to be just the ticket for centrifugally supercharged and turbocharged lightnings that are looking to the next level of power and perfect for lighter weight cars (79-04 mustangs) that want the 5.4 but also want to wring everything they can from the motor. Some of us think that the lightning market will snap these up like hot cakes and go turbo. Some others think that this will be the thing that makes everyone wonder why there were ever 4.6's in mustangs.

The new intake will require an non-stock elbow (upper plenum) and that is destined to sit on a 4150 flange much like the Victor Jr so you can also spin that elbow around to whatever direction you need since it's a square flange.

Edelbrock or anyone else would need to move 1000 intakes to take on such a project, we only need to get 1/10th of that to make the project happen by working with the smaller shops. It'll be similar to a widened victor jr but with so many differences and upgrades that it's really a new product. And, we're fixing the fuel rail problem that the victor jr. has so you can use stock rails from mustang or pickups

Since this is not designed to be a 2000-6000 intake but more a 3500-7000 the shorter runners with proper taper and good physical layout will help to make it a real screamer. We're hoping for an extremely short development cycle since the thing should be pretty basic in form for the most part.

That's about right.

 

If anybody is in need of a 5.4 SOHC timing coer I have one for sale. I'd like to see it go to a swapper. PM me if interested. I am selling for a friend tho so I need a good price.

 

I very seriously doubt that Edelbrock will move 1000 4.6 2v intakes in ~5 years, and the 5.4 market is a small fraction of the 4.6 potential. Thats actually not so much a negative for them.

Look at it like this... To just dump a number on it lets say it takes an investment of $100,000 to create a 2v 4.6 Vic Jr. and get it ready to produce. You think you can sell 1000 over the first 5 years, thats $100 on each intake just for R&D and you've determined you can make a reasonable profit on it.

Now to develop a 5.4 version you've already got all the hard stuff done, just need to widen the model and make wider casting molds, probably cost ~20% as much for the new product. That means you only have to sell 200 over 5 years to maintain the same profit margin as your 4.6 product. You've leveraged your previous investment in R&D to fill another market segment.

If you're a company that wants to start from scratch, you have to spread the same high initial R&D cost over the smaller potential market, which raises the price (or lowers the profit potential) and raises the risk.

I'm certainly not trying to **** in anyone's Wheaties or smoosh enthusiasm, I just don't have any ties to any company and therefore don't care too much who would come out with it. I do think there is a need but I also think that the market is very small.

You said yourself that they haven't broken even (and my guess is won't for quite a while) on the 5.4 Hardball'r. With that intake a lot of the modeling and development was already done because of the 4.6 version, and the market for that intake is MUCH larger than for a high revving race intake. To start an all new design for such a small market.....I just can't picture those numbers working out...

You want to fill a need, have HPS or MHS buy some 4.6 Vic Jr.s, cut them in half, weld in a strip to fill it, and have MHS make a new version of that elbow with a wider mounting flange to fit the widened intake. Boom, done, ready for market 3 weeks from now instead of 2-3 years.

If you and others want to pursue it go nuts and good luck!

BTW as I look at the current 5.4 intake I have visions of severly modifying it to create a much shorter runner higher flowing version of it....

 

Edelbrock isn't interested in doing a 5.4 intake, it's not like we didn't already ask since that was sorta the obvious answer. They are not even interested in fixing the fuel rail issue on the 4.6 intake. Apart from that, this isn't really intended to be a comprimise like the original HPS intake was or really even a "mustang" intake. This is going to be aimed at being more purely about performance and more toward the truck and race car market than the street car market.

Don't forget, the Lightning and F150 market is huge upside the Mustang and Crown Vic/Tbird swap market. There's a really shocking number of very heavily modified pickups that are crying for more intake manifold and don't have such dramatic hood height restrictions as the car market does. The HPS 5.4 intake was an ok option for some but it wasn't really designed for them so adoption was really centered around mustangs/cv/tbird usees. It was designed for us so we could do our thing and we did. The new one is for a new use.

On the break-even point, honestly the new intake won't be sold for 300 bucks like the Edelbrock, it'll probably be closer to 600-700 so nowhere near as many units need to be sold to hit the black. True a lot of intakes still need to be sold to make it profitable but couple that price differential with the re-oriented market to trucks/lightnings and things start getting serious. It still needs to be pulled off but I have faith that it will and pretty derned quick.

 

If the intake were available right now with all this 'pent up demand' how many would sell in the next 6 months? 50? 70? I'd put the over/under at 50 and heavily bet the under. That takes care of the backlog demand, so now you're looking at annual sales of what, 20? 30? Probably 99% + of those heavily modified trucks have a roots/screw blower on top.

The standard 5.4 intake that sells for that same price is yet to be profitable when the development was 3/4 done and the market is bigger. No, the standard intake doesn't have a truck market (party because they've never tried to tap the n/a side), but for the number of Lightnings that don't have a roots/screw blower on top I'd again put the over/under at 50 and maybe take the under.... Thats a pretty tiny market to build something to sell to some of them....

Same price as 5.4 Hardball'r. Much higher development cost. Much smaller potential sales market. Every Mustang board you can visit has guys asking about a budget 5.4 swap, but the number who have a serious enough budget and build to be able to use a 7000 rpm intake is not very big...

I'll stop since I'm not trying to be an ***, I just don't see even a tiny possibility of there being enough market to justify the cost of development. I'm curious, when you say you talked with Edelbrock, through what kind of a channel? The thing to do would be to show some demand, and go through a vendor who sells enough Edelbrock stuff to have someone to talk to there. I don't know what the fuel rail issue details are, but if it just doesn't fit stock rails who gives a rip? How many people with such an engine are running stock rails?

A brain excercise for you....picture this....

http://www.hiperformancesolutions.co...14-384x274.jpg

Picture milling out the runners front to back on top of the valley cover and about the width of the mounting holes for the intake plenum, so you can see straight down into the lower plenum. Now picture something like this...

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y16...Intake_001.jpg


...as the top so the center of the intake is a common plenum with ~8-9 inch runners and a side mounted throttle body so things bolt right up. Make the top cover removeable instead of the bottom and you can have easily replaceable tops for Mustang (side mount) and truck (front or side mount) use. Would be pretty easy to modify an existing casting for a development mule. Is it ideal? No. Would something based of the current intake cost a fraction as much to develop as an all new design? Yes.


I will say nothing else on the subject of an all new design unless asked.....

 

uh-oh, look what came in the mail today:

 

that thar be a turbo cam.

 

Question. Anybody have anything good, bad or indifferent to say about Comp Cams adjustable cam gears? I have a set of stock gears that I had to dremel so I could degree my cams but it's a pain in the *** to get them perfect. I though that the adjustable gears would be much easier but I don't want anything that breaks.

 

I've got a set on my car, I mean they do what they're supposed to do. I've got something like 8k miles on them and haven't had a problem. The only thing I remember about them specifically was they had them labeled kinda odd, as far as left and right.

 

Nice. I'll probably end up getting a set saves me from a minor head ache.

 

read this on the adjustable cam gears and the diffrent choices you have:

http://www.theturboforums.com/smf/in...topic=135517.0

 

i got the trick flow adjustable crank gears havent used them yet but everything i have heard about them has been good so far

 

Damn. Looks like I'll be using my ground down keyways again. Oh well, I haven't had a problem with the cam slipping out of timing this way. If it's good enough for the Cobra R it's good enough for me.

My feeling is that any part can fail. Could be a defective part or a defective person installing parts. Either way same end result.

I looked into the TF lower gear but it reminds me of fords original design where they ran into the problem of breaking the key way. Has anybody welded them together or put a dowel pin through them?

 

I have a stock hood for cheap for any of the L swappers that want to cut a hole in it. I had a factory scoop on it and sold the scoop so it has holes in it for that. It is metallic silver. PM me if interested. I'll let it go cheap. I'm in northern Ohio.

 

Hey r3dn3ck, intake sounds great... but for what I am doing, I will be after the hardballer intake.

 

For many of us the original HB is still the best solution. Most guys won't be using heads or cams aggressive enough to make the new intake worth it. But for those that want to jump into what I'll call stage 3 for now, the new intake will be the way to go.

The following is a drastic generalization and the numbers are ballpark and prone to minor error:
In the discussions of power level, stages are often used to simplify. This might be the time for us to adopt some consistent descriptors

Stage 1 would be a stock swap. Stock heads and cams and exhaust. 5.4 Hardball'r is best for that. (near stock to +30 hp but closer to 80 tq increase)

Stage 2 would be lightly ported heads and a mild cam (up to about a 230deg duration) and mild exhaust, possibly a mild (8-12psi) dose of boost or <150hp shot of nitrous. (30-50hp and 40-80tq increase). This is the walker zone... you could use either intake depending on your hood clearance and power needs.

Stage 3 would in this case be fully ported heads, big fat cams (230+ duration), and full exhaust. As much as 100hp/tq increase or more NA. These are your big power adder areas too. 14+ psi of boost and or >125hp shot of nitrous. This is where you stop caring about a 3" cowl hood and use the new high RPM intake.

 

Anyone got their HPS intake in a place where they can measure the runner inlets for me?

 

Yeah, got mine in yesterday and it's sitting in the back room. Is it the runner length you want measured? If not let me know what you want and how and I'll get it for you.

 

Intake runner is about 13.5-14".

Did anyone have to put spacers between their fuel rails and the intake on the HPS. If I didn't use two washers on each side of the rail the rail wouldn't have sat square on the injectors. It's like the hole where the injectors go needs to be drilled out an extra 3/16.

 

I need the length and width of just the openings that are inside the common plenum and then as close a measurement as you can of the intake port opening of the PI head or runner outlet. I need to generate the area of the openings to figure out some math.

 

i got roughly 1.112x2.588 for the openings inside the plenum and I calculated an opening of 2.59 for the runner outlet.

 

excellent. grazi. anyone want that blower kit before I start parting it out?

 

if you do part it out im sure i could buy a couple things from u

 

hey horspla2000 what did you do for cooling lines going from the supercharger to the heat exchanger?

 

Yeah I just started installing those headers and I'm gonna have to go with a mini starter. They look good otherwise. I might trim one of the motor mounts too, its alittle close.

 

motor mounts will clear, the starter will clear, but i'm going with a mini just to be safe.