P.I. Intake opinion

I think I'll try them to. They look awesome.
I don't think pointing out an item for sale that is directly related to the topic should be a problem.

When I did the PI Intake swap, it cost me $200.00 US to get all the parts needed new. You can still do this swap for a similar price if you know where to shop. That said, I did not use the adapter plates for 3 reasons and 2 of which are still valid to why I still won't.

1) No Adapter plates were available when I did the swap. This the one no longer applies as there is adaptes out there now.

2) The extra cost of these plates is unjustified. There is no data supporting that the plates make more power, than those who did the swap without the plates.

3) The plates raise the intake manifold the width of the plates. What this does is raise the fuel injectors up that width. Now my concern with the plates is: Does the plates affect the fuel injector flow and possibly cause a lean condition? I ask because the fuel is being sprayed higher up than it is supposed to be.

I have pictures of the PI intake gaskets and SVO heads. You could possibly use the PI gaskets and not use any RTV. I would still use the RTV and it is a very small spot on the coolant port that requires it. I have had my intake on over a year and about 35,000 kms on it and do not have any issues with the intake. With that swap, I used the NPI gaskets, when the SVO's go on, the PI gaskets will be used.

I wanted the plates since my manifold is pressurized by the Vortech. Didn't want to blow a hole in the RTV if the gap was too large.

Apollo 13 said:

I wanted the plates since my manifold is pressurized by the Vortech. Didn't want to blow a hole in the RTV if the gap was too large.

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Just an FYI:

You will have no issues if you use the PI gaskets with your set-up. IMO, I would be more inclined to stay away from the plates with the SC, if I was you.

Just use the PI intake and gaskets. A small dab of RTV at the corners of the water passage will do it.

If I would have just done the intake, I would have went with the intake and adapter plates from Livernois, they are a little pricey, but I'm thinking the cost of them wouldn't be much more than the tow truck bill if the RTV let go.

well lets see if I can answer all of these questions.
If you use the SVO heads you really should use the manifold designed to match those heads. They are a round port design and have a manifold similar to the bullit design. Not the cheapest way to go. Now if you use the PI manifold there are some issues. yes the water jacket ports do not match up 100%. I have compensated for that in my design (no RTV). The intake ports will not match so plates will enhance this transition.
My plates do this.
As for fuel injector spray pattern-what I can tell you is that my car was rich when dynoed. But not to a point that cylinder wash was an issue or cat damage was possible.

Now do plates make more power that no plates and a PI gasket on a non-PI head. I can not confirm this because I did not do a gasket only install and dyno the car. I did install my plates and gaskets-with the blending on the plate and with an x-pipe I made 255hp and 311tq.
(no heads and no cat back eather)
I have seen post of 15hp without plates. If you follow some of the mustang mag's you will see that 25-35HP with plates is possible.
Now under boost I would want plates because they do blend the ports and provide excellent sealing surfaces.
No issues with a lean cylinder or water leakage or contamination.
If you buy heads (PI) later I would think you could sell your plates for the same price you paid for them.

TGJ said:

Just an FYI:

You will have no issues if you use the PI gaskets with your set-up. IMO, I would be more inclined to stay away from the plates with the SC, if I was you.

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Why would you want to stay away from adaptor plates with a supercharger?? It would seem that the plates would guarantee that you don't lose your intake..IMO

98GTVortech said:

Why would you want to stay away from adaptor plates with a supercharger?? It would seem that the plates would guarantee that you don't lose your intake..IMO

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Seems like the adapter plates are the better and safer way to go, especially under more power stress, like from a supercharger.

98GTVortech said:

Why would you want to stay away from adaptor plates with a supercharger?? It would seem that the plates would guarantee that you don't lose your intake..IMO

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Why would I stay away from the adapter plates with a SC? Because using the plates will cause the car to go lean and you could lose your motor. The only way to find out how lean it is is to put it on the dyno and tune it that way. These plates are not as easy to tune for as if you just swapped over the intake!

What people are not realizing is that a proper calibrated car gets the signal from the MAF telling the EEC how much air the engine is seeing regardless of intake used. A PI intake swap with no vacuum leaks will NOT require a tune, however these plates do. With these plates, you have to command the EEC to provide more fuel because the plates are sitting the fuel injector's higher up on the motor. With a mail order tune at best you are guessing how much more fuel to command.

I have seen over 20 Dyno graphs of cars with PI intake swaps. Some of these cars used Livernois's plates. All of these cars ranged from making 10 HP to 20 HP over the curve and 15 to 36 HP Peak HP over the NPI intake. Livernois's plates swapped cars are in the upper middle of the pack and right on par with the just the gasket swaps in the same area of the country.

Now why I am not using the SVO intake on my car.

1) Cost

2) Requires Hood blanket to be removed and lots of bracing to be cut in a Tbird. It will also dent the hood. What I am going for, is if someone was to pop the hood, the car looks stock. Which intake do I use to accomplish that, PI or NPI? I am not going to choke this car with the NPI.

IMO, the best thing to do is Port-Match the NPI heads to the PI ports and use the PI gaskets with RTV. If I am going to send my SVO's to be P&P, this is the route I would go. However, there was some talk of a gasket being made which had the PI intake ports and NPI coolant ports on modular depot. The guy making these, his first batch failed and then he got injured. If this ever comes back to life, that is a good alternative as well.

I have never seen RTV blow out in a PI intake swapped onto a NPI car or a car with PI Heads using the NPI SVO SC intake. The amount of RTV to be used is very small, and if done properly will not blow out.

With the limited amount of solutions out there, IMO these plates are the WORST ones.