do you have a lightning lower? I'll tinker on it

and yes.. T-trim is where I'd start. Bigger huffer = more air at a lower pressure/temp. The step up from the T would be a Ysi.

 

no, i don't.

just putting together as many "theories" as i can.

i've thought of everything. and then some might stupid stuff. haha

from a 2.6l KB with adapters - a 3v with the f-150 Ford Racing 3.3l whipple - and almost all n/a possibilies.

i'm still a good bit away from starting this up, so i want to go through as many posible set-ups and one by one eliminate them untill i'm down to one perfect set-up.

i guess it depends on how i'm feeling each day i put thought into it. the past week my itch has been finding a use for the lightning lower, or the FRPP s/c 3v f-150 kit. i've dismissed the latter. if i ever buy an 05+ i'll return to that thought.

although i know adapter plates open a world of posibilities, i still don't know if i want o use them. i'm perfectly content with it, if i were to be building an n/a daily driver that is nothing all to special. but whats the fun in that?

 

well on a lightning lower i could make the lid with some short runners pointing into the valley of the manifold. this could angle the airflow to swirl into the valley and make some decent gains over the stock pi w/ adapters...



after i get it running and tuned i'm gonna work on an intake and long tube headers for it.

 

what's left for you to do?

BTW... the L intake mod you mentioned is the best one I can figure.

I finished the rough shaping of my HPS intake runner exits. I chopped the injector bosses down a bit so there's more total sectional volume at the exit. Now the plates, intake and heads are all ported for flow and gasket match.

You can see in the pic below how I did the top right runner... well I just replicated that on all the others. Surprising factoid: the HPS intake was almost perfectly setup to gasket match your typical stage 2 ported head. There was almost no removal required other than the metal around the injector bosses.

I also did some work to re-angle the runner entrances and the saddle dips for more even flow. After all that I put it back on my tester jig and checked it out. Damn! talk about an elegantly flowing piece. Still... no test is valid but one on top of a real motor so we'll see.

 

really all that is left is get the hood and bumper painted and put on so i can get it to the dyno...

 

W00t...

Got the best phone call so far.

Wen't something like this.


Me: "Helllo"

Engine Builder: "Hey its Rick, your ***** done"


LMFAO, I'm goin to pick it up this weekend.

$630 for balance rotating assembly, bore .20 over, deck the block, hot tank - not bad.

 

This is a good thread! Just joined today and i'm planning the swap as soon as i finish the wifes 5.0 swap. One question though. I'm a big fan of n/a. If starting from scratch would a 2v or 3v be best in my 97? It will never be a p/a car.I have no parts as of yet. I'm thinking build a block then 3v heads and cams. I have an auto with 3.55 gears with this motor and 26" drag radials.

 

2v N/A is 320-330ish RWHP with any general build
3v N/A is 400ish RWHP with similar parts

I'm going 3v, and so far I'm only the 3rd person do to a 5.4 3v, and I'll be the 4th to do a 2v -> 3v swap.

 

Are you talking $650 + the cost of the MAC headers, or including them ?

 

No this is the entire header we designed ours after the MAC headers but we would be building the headers straight up. We can do it out of different metals as well. Whatever you want we can pretty much do with the specs we have.

 

Can you do 3v ? If so we need to chat.

 

ok, another thought i just had. it would be for a boosted application.



that is the lightning mid-plate that a blower normally sits on top, with the inter cooler just below.

what if i were to, or have someone, weld an aluminum plate onto the top with place to mount a 2v upper plenum? maybe not something perfectly flat, but a "lid"

thanks illwill for putting that thought into my head.

would be VERY easy to do.

 

We would need a donor car with a 5.4 3v to get the first fit and then we could pop them out like candy.

 

Being that there are 3 known in existance - thats highly unlikley to come up with.

The car is a 2v -> 3v conversion, so the only change would be the location of the exhaust ports on the head, and the shape of the flange. All pipe routing would be the same I'd think.

 

Your going to needa helava hood

 

how so?

the lightning lower WITHOUT the blower should sit lower than a PI intake on adapter plates.

the midplate would only slightly raise its hight. with a 2v plenum it should be the same hight maybe e tad lower than the hight of a PI intake and adapter plate.

the fabbed lid would be very very small. less than an inch higher than what the midplate already is as it would just be welded onto the pidplate to have a place to put the upper plenum.

 

please forgive the paint rendering. this is just to better illistrate what i was thinking about.



the blue outline and hashed area would be the top sheet metal plate, with the red square being where i would center and mount the 2v plenum. the green outline and hashes is where i would weld in a plate to minic the right hand side of the mid plate. using the same angle as is cast into the plate on the right side, creating a uniform flow path into the intercooler.

does that seem like an unreasonable or far fetched design change? i don't see how it would add hieght to the engine. if anything, it should sit lower than a PI intake/plenum on adapters.

 

thats not to bad there, then u can use the factory intercooler setup.

 

With all that work to that midplate, you're still not altering the runner length any which is the agreed issue with the L lower, so why not use the L lower and 99-01 cobra upper since that is a known working combo with no height issues - and focus on the lower and runner lengths ?

 

i'm not overly possessive of my ideas, lol. hence why i posted that.

if anyone feels like fabbing it for themselves. go ahead. going to be a while until i get around to it. be nice to see if it works.

if it doesn't, it wasn't my idea...

 

IIRC the ports are at the same distance as a PI head and have roughly the same bolt pattern. Totally not sure but I've seen some posts here and there to that affect.

tooslow: if you're going to use the L intake or parts thereof, just make sure to be running a blower/turbo. If you don't plan on boost the L intake will cost you tq without giving hp in return. Your plan looks really good. Using the upper with a cobra hat on it will really help. Another thing you should look at is making an arc of sheet aluminum for the very bottom of the plenum in the main intake. That will cause air to pile up at the sides under load and will effectively stabilize the extreme turbulence inside the manifold.

It would basically be a plate from front to back at the bottom of the manifold. Instead of a flat plate though, using an arc and blending it like a sine wave (with the middle of the intake having the peak) into the sides. Almost like a W. I've done testing on such things and they worked well as long as all the curves are smooth. This sort of mod will have NA benefits over a stock L intake but how much depends on the rest of the engine.

 

if i weld in runners, where will the intercooler go?

that would only work on a supercharged application.

 

I didnt see if you had specified one way or the other.

If your going for the stealth intercooler setup, why not the cobra upper and be done with it ?

 

i've given up on finding a use for the lightning lower for an n/a application. with the work you are doing to the HPS intake and others, it would be hard to get a lightning lower to match that in an n/a car.

that drawing i did would be only for a boosted car, in which the stock lightning innercooler can be implemented,

 

because the lightning midplate is designed to have an intercooler below it. the cobra isn't.

note, the 2 wholes on the rear of the lightning midplate. thats where the coolant flows in and out of the intercooler. the cobra upper will have no way of routing fluids in and out of the intercooler. also, i wont be able to control airflow into the intercooler with a cobra lid. air will flow around the intercooler, not through it.

 

I see, I just learned something new.

 

nothing a drill and tap won't fix is it?

in any case... I've been working with HPS for over a year to make the 4.6 manifold a real option for 5.4 guys. We've made huge improvements to the adapter plates to reduce weight and heat soak and to improve flow. I think that with as radical a porting as I've done it should be pretty right-on.

I talked to MMR again yesterday and in theory my motor should ship out on friday. That being the case we're within about of month of proof-of-concept and numbers validation on the intake. I won't likely have time or money to test the intakes side by side but I'm trying to get some help out of a couple local dyno shops. Perhaps we can get their names in lights and they can hook me up on some dyno time.

 

true, but how would i go about directing the air into the intercooler?

(assuming you are talking to me, about cobra vs modified L midplate.)

good luck with getting your engine together. i'm sure we are all awaiting your resaluts.

if all goes well, that may turn out to be the better route.

 

i don't think that was my best thought as far as the intake goes. it would just make it a very simple swap since it would use the 2v 4.6l hardware.

ok red, how does this sound.

Instead of using the L midplate and a 2v upper i could make a thin sheet metal plate that sits on top the intercooler with a rectangular cutout, maybe even have it raised a little off so that i can angle the sheet metal down towards the center rectangle guiding air into the intercooler. re route the intercooler coolant lines from comin straight up out the manifold to make a 90 degree bend out the back of the upper plenum. The plenum, could either be a 99+ cobra upper or have a custom sheetmetal upper plenum with a cobra style throttle body.

 

Tooslow, i think that is a killer idea on the lightning mid while still useing the intercooler with a supercharger... Maybe its cuz i'm not getting the scale but i just see the thing being tall... but i am probably wrong, just never saw one up close. lol.