Hey guys. Iv got a guy selling his essentially brand new tunnel ram for $300 (Weiand Hi-Ram). Its not a bad price considering new ones run at around $400. Im new to tunnel rams completely. Iv only seen a couple in real life but I love the look of that super tall tunnel ram stickin out the hood with some velocity stacks. My question is, whats needed to make it work? Is it a "slap it on and go" type deal or does it work better with a different cam or other options?

BTW: its goin on a 92 460 with some carb heads of course. 1st truck in my sig

 

to make it work right, a lot more then what you have. tunnel rams are great if you have an all out drag motor that only runs near redline all the time and has the heads and cam to make it work.

on the street they are more for show then go. on a stock motor they will make your motor run worse then the stock intake and carb and probably be close to undriveable in most cases. you will loose a lot of bottom end power and with stock heads and cam, you will never be able to take advantage of the hi rpm range these intakes are meant for.

your money will be better spent on a decent dual plane intake and carb then a tunnel ram.

rgds
Mike

 

Maybe I should throw in some more info lol. The truck will be used a lot less as a daily driver and more as a truck pulls/dirt drag truck. If I lose some bottom end to gain some overall performance, Im ok with that.

I will be swapping the EFI heads for some carb heads and, of course, throw on a carb no matter which direction I go with the intake.

 

Are you going to do a cam and some compression? Stock cam isn't going to run in the rpm range that manifold is made for.

2800 to 9000.....

Weiand Hi-Ram Tunnel Ram Intake Manifolds 1993 - SummitRacing.com

 

the tunnel ram with any of the factory heads except for maybe the cj heads, would not be a good combo.even with the cj heads, you would have to do a lot more upgrades to really get the benefit of a tunnel ram. the factory heads have too small of ports and valves to really get the full potential out of a tunnel ram even at higher rpms. the ports will run out of steam way before the intake ever will. for what you are doing, a decent dual plane intake like the Weiand Stealth would be a lot better choice. with a stock engine the major limiting factor on rpm is the factory rods. i wouldn't be revving them much over 6k unless you want one poking out of your block. that and the exhaust ports really limit the stock 460 to probably a max of 5 - 6 k power band, way too low for a tunnel ram to work properly.

if you are planning to upgrade the engine in the future (better heads, cam, rotating assembly) then i would probably pick it up for then, but to use it now you would have a worse running truck then if you just used the factory 4bbl carb and manifold.

rgds
Mike

 

Best answer yet. Thank you!

For right now, Id really feel a lot better about doin some small upgrades to get it running good, then as Im using this 460, build up another hot 460 to swap in. They say the biggest limiting factor on these 385s are the heads. Are the heads able to be swapped while still in the truck without it being a huge PITA?

 

swapping heads is pretty straight forward even in the truck. the main difficulty is that they are heavy!!!!!! that is the biggest pain to try and lift those out of the engine bay on a truck, especially a lifted truck.

the main obstacle in replacing factory heads with factory heads is that the early heads (DOVE, C9 & C8 heads) used rocker studs with positive lock studs wile the newer heads use a bolt down fulcrum style rocker arm. the newer heads also used shorter valves then the older heads, so you can't swap parts between the early heads and the newer heads.

also pushrod lenghts were different mainly due to the block deck height changing, so you will have to mock up the heads and check pushrod lenght and geometry to get the correct length for your combo.

now if we are talking aftermarket heads, some of the aftermarket heads (like the Kaase P-51's and SCJ heads) used a revised valve, so the psiton valve pockets will have to be re-cut for the new heads or pistons with the correct valve pockets used.

rgds
Mike

 

something else ot consider is you mentioned EFI heads. The tunnel ram won't work with them, the ports don't line up right.

And depending on the intake it may not work on your heads at all, or won't work on something like the P51 heads due to the difference in the ports for standard heads vs CJ ports.

Honestly your best bet isn't to build an engine around an intake, build the engine around what you want to do, then buy the heads that match that and build the engine around those including the intake and cam that match.

 

I said in my first post I was going with carbed heads. Thanks for te info tho!

 

Hey why we are talking about manifolds, would an air gap rpm edlebrock help my 460 lincoln motor come a live? I will also be running an edelbrock 4 barrel 650 carburator. Any reply would be helpful. Thanks