Ok, i have a 4barrel c4 intake from a tbird. I was wondering what other intakes this compares to. And where it falls off in the RPM band.

 

if it is a real Thunderbird intake, the carb pad will be flat and you more than likely wouldn't want to use it on a pickup truck.

good luck!
Dp

 

Expect the stock intake to fall off around 5000rpm +/- 500. Most consider the stock 4v intakes equal with the Edelbrock Performer 390 (not RPM) but weight is about 60lbs LESS.

I have no direct experience with this, but from what I have read, anything Ford made for the FE out of cast iron is a dog compared to anything they made out of aluminum (427CJ non withstanding) and most of the aftermarket stuff is better than anything Ford used from the factory. This generalization applies to high RPM max power car applications (race/drag)

What are your engine specs? Cam? Compression? How do you plan on using this engine?

Having said all that, if we assume the engine is stock or mild rebuild, if you got your TBird intake cheap/free I see no reason not to use it. x2 if you are going from a 2v to a 4v. Throw a 1" phenolic 4 hole spacer between the carb and manifold and enjoy the heck out of it. The TBird 4v intake is going to be a lo-rise small runner divided plenum manifold that should make tons of velocity down low, helping with torque in a truck. Should be great with a vacuum secondary carb. We have to be honest here... how often are you going to be winding that truck out to 6.5k+rpm? My guess is not often. The big single plenum intakes like the Streetmaster look cool, but they are designed for top-end high rpm performance, not what the truck is all about.

The intake is not usually the restriction on the FE, its the exhaust. Ford put some truly horrible manifolds on these things. You might want to think headers and exhaust before intake. My current plan (after my exhaust) is to find a used 4v FE intake (like you have there) or an Edelbrock Performer for my truck. I already have a pair of 600cfm carbs to play with: an early Autolite 4100 and a Holley 4160, but there really is not going to be significant gains on the intake side without opening up the exhaust first.

Hope this helps!

 

Build is as follows

390
105 block
9.85 compression (with the jump to about 10.2-3 when heads are redone)
.30 over 2291's with hastings rings (file fit)
1u crank 10/10
H beam rods
balanced, and clearances set on the loose side
C6ae-r heads (stock)
Streetmaster intake (stock)
Comp cams 280H magnum hyd. With ford adjustable rockers
comp double roller timing chain
And 3 carb options. edel 600, 4100, and a mighty demon 650.

I don't have headers ( i do but they won't fit thats another post) So i put the manifolds on and am running duals from them. I figure its better than nothing until i can either trade or sell the headers i have for the ones that fit. So with that said I will be running the ebock, or the 4100. The demon won't go on until the headers do.

This is for a pulling truck in a "smallblock street" class. So it will be seeing some fairly high R's. I have yet to get it on the track to see what way i want to take the gearing. Right now at 6200 will be right around 13mph tire speed, and in 2nd gear that will be 3000. The winning trucks in the class are usually peaking around 13mph. So I'm not sure what the truck will like better 1st gear and wind it all the way up, or run 2nd and see if i can't over power the other trucks by gaining more speed in a higher gear. I just don't see it breathing well enough without some port work to be able to hit 6200. Well actually it won't be "I" it will be my g/f, since its her puller not mine.

Reason for asking is its a 3mod limit, I want headers for sure, so that lets cam and carb, or cam and intake... I was thinking if it could hold up to 5500 or so with that c4 i could run the cam, demon, and headers. And gain some weight over the front end since its a no hang weight class.

 

Carb pad was angled and a wedge shaped carb spacer was used on the iron 1x4's for the birds. The T bird 3x2 intakes were the only ones that were machined with flat carb pads.

 

Ahhh! So its racing is it? Well, throw most of what I said out the window

Bam! Intake Comparo - The F.E. Wiki
Lots of reading and most of the images are broken, but there is some great stuff in the above about intakes for the FE.

The FE's problem was never getting air and fuel it, its getting exhaust out. Headers are pretty much mandatory. Not that I know anything, but I'd be tempted to go intake+cam+headers and stick with the 4100 (if you can get away with it as "stock") Good luck!

 

Why not just buy Jays book FE Power - Dedicated to Building and Racing the Ford FE Engine, 390, 427, 428, SOHC and have all the intake info you want? That way you can view the dyno graphs and avg power numbers and compare. I would just run the 4100 and headers/intake/cam for your 3 mods if it was me. Hell throw a CJ/GT cam in it as it's a "factory" piece and go to a electric water pump for that matter. With the GT/CJ cam and Streetmaster intake you should be able to get up to about 6200rpm or so.

 

Thanks for the link. Yeah headers would be the last thing i would remove from the mod limit. I can't believe ford made the manifolds the way they did. I finally found why my 4100 won't idle. The idle feed part of the venturi is clogged(where it draws the fuel from the bowl level). I have it soaking in a can of carb soak stuff from napa. Hope to get it together and bolted on tomorrow and see if it will hold an idle then. For all i know the intake and cam with the 4100 without headers may even be enough, i'm not exactly sure how well built some of the trucks are, as we haven't been pulling with them long and when she did it was with a 360 so it was a little hard to judge lol

Anyway the truck hasn't been on the road with the 390 in it. She decided to blow the rear out of it 2 days before the block was finished being bored/prepped at the shop. ‪Bria Small block showroom Grantsville 2011‬‏ - YouTube She was a little clutch happy lol but she wasn't the only one that day that broke drivetrain parts in the first 50ft atleast 5 others did also.

and just for fun here are some of the my powerstroke "spare parts"

‪Listie june 25th 2011 Street diesel 1st place‬‏ - YouTube
‪grantsville 2011 street diesel 8000 3rd place‬‏ - YouTube

 

thanks... did not know that. I mistakenly assumed they all were.

 

No worries.... there's a lot of parts out there and hard to keep track of them all sometimes. I can't keep track myself half the time.

 

for the sake of the original poster. The c4 intake got whopped pretty well in JayB's book....

If you look tho, the torque at 2500rpms was very nice tho. It didn't really get defeated numbers wise until it got into the upper rpms.

food for thought.

 

I thought the C4 did pretty good out of the 4 factory iron intakes that were tested. Yes overall it was pretty deep in the list but for a factory cast iron intake I thought it faired well. 2nd to the iron CJ and ahead of the S and T falling about mid pack. It was interesting the iron T ran better than the S. Lotsa good stuff in Jay's book.

 

if I recall it was 40ft lbs higher at 2500rpm than the much vaunted Performer RPM.
Not a bad idea for a truck engine on a budget that will not see over 4000rpms...
Still can't touch my $75 F427 :-)

Still tho, if you are limited to three mods, how does a c4 intake fit in? if it counts as a stock piece, why not hunt up some CJ heads or some other hp "stock" heads and intake, and throw on some "stock" shorty headers and a "stock Holley"

maybe I don't understand the rules, I would just think if a c4 thunderbird intake would work, why wouldn't a set of tunnelports? It isn't cheating if the rules say so.

 

My comments were just a general observation of Jays HP results not really related to the OP's questions or situation. Should have said that sorry.

 

An FE in a "smallblock" class? Hardly sounds fair.....