allumiumn intake

[390owner]

I am new to this forum but not fe 390s I have ran two of them in my two trucks for the past 15 plus years. I have always wanted an aluminum intake but did not know if the difference would be worth the price of a new one. The question I have is would a aluminum intake have any horsepower gain? I know I could get rid of a lot of weight by swapping the stock one I have now for one. Who has does this an liked the power gain.

[woodboatwayne]

The fact that it is aluminum won't make a difference, but all of the aftermarket (performance) manifolds are aluminum.
The manifold should complement the heads and cam, and carb. A replacement aluminum dual plane 4 barrel manifold compared to a stock iron 2 barrel on a stock or mild engine would make a significant difference from just off idle to redline. A large runner single plane
would hurt. I recommend David Vizzard's book "carbururetors and intake manifolds" from the how to build horsepower series

[jayb]

One guy on our forum, Tom P, put a Performer RPM on the 390 in his truck and said that it really woke it up.  Never done that myself, but that would make sense, as long as the new intake was matched to a good carb.

[fastback 427]

I bet there would be little gain for the money. A set of headers and distributor recurve would make it feel like a different truck. Jmo.

[390owner]

I have a stock 4 barrel intake with an edlebrock 600 now, I also have a set of headman headers and an rv cam, not sure of the grind. It runs and pulls great

[Joe-JDC]

Do you have the simple tools available to do a gasket match on an aluminum intake?  If you do, then the Edelbrock Performer RPM would definitely give you a horsepower increase with your headers.  Simply make the ports wider and clean up the top to match your heads, and leave the bottom of the intake port alone.  Should not lose any bottom end torque that way.  Joe-JDC

[TomP]

One guy on our forum, Tom P, put a Performer RPM on the 390 in his truck and said that it really woke it up.  Never done that myself, but that would make sense, as long as the new intake was matched to a good carb.

It was 428 actually. And that was over the Edelbrock F427 on it before. It makes great low speed power, pulls hard from 1500 rpm even with a Crane HMV272 cam. It also seemed to pull pretty good to 6500 so it didn't lose any top end over the F427 but gained on the low end a bunch.
If there was any downside to the RPM it is maybe winter driving took longer to warm up without a heat crossover. No big deal with a manual tranny but a slushbox might stall several times in the first couple miles.