intake manifold upgrade help

[MR BACKHAND]

good evening or morning
i have a 2003 mustang gt with flowmaster 40s a cold air intake and a diablo tuner.
my car just turned 70k and the dreaded intake manifold started to leak coolant.
so i am worried about buying another plastic intake. i have about 800$ to spend for a new intake manifold, throttle body etc. i plan on keeping this car until im dead or? i will be doing all of the work myself.

what would be my best options? i have looked into the victory jr intake with a 70 mm throttle body plenum and fuel rails which would put me around the 800 range.
what would you do?

i put around 100 miles a month on my mustang so its not my daily driver but i do need it to be reliable.

 

[Jhussey1280]

I've looked at the Trickflo one but it's $800 and I haven't heard any reviews or performance gains on it. I was happy just to do the PI swap on mine. I know Edelbrock is a good company so I dont see why the Victor Jr would be a bad way to go.

 

[blacksheep-1]

Will a bullet intake work on that? you can pick these up used sometimes. I found one for 400 bucks

 

[sneaky98gt]

What are your goals? Are you trying to pick up more power? Boost in the future?

I ask because the aftermarket intakes are really no significant benefit unless you are pushing a lot of boost through them or revving the car to the moon (7k+ rpm). You will actually lose power below 5000 rpm on almost all aftermarket intakes without boost, except maybe the Bullitt intake, which is technically OEM (and also VERY expensive).

If you are planning on keeping the car mostly stock or just a mild build, I'd just replace it with an OEM Ford manifold with the aluminum crossover. You're concern with 'buying another plastic intake' was remedied by Ford many years ago by changing the water crossover tube into aluminum. They can be had for a couple hundred bucks, and will not break again unless you push 15+ pounds of boost through them or have a nitrous backfire. http://www.americanmuscle.com/intake-manifold.html (Just one example from somewhere I know that stocks them.)

Your best bet for a throttle body/plenum is a BBK 78 mm throttle intake. Cheap, effective, and leaves plenty of room for upgrades in the future.

 

[MR BACKHAND]

thanks my mustang had the intake with the aluminum crossover yet it had the dreaded leak. well i picked up a typhoon intake manifold for a great price. so im going to try out the intake and put on a new throttle body and plenum. next month i will have the 4.10 rear end installed this should take care of any bottom end lose from the intake. my goal will be having my gt super charged but thats at least a few years away. thanks for the advice guys.