PI Intake or stay Stock

Black_Cobra said:

Brian,

My understanding is that you can no longer buy the stock 96-98 intake, only the PI is available from Ford. There are a few options though. You can get the PI intake and adaptor but the kit is costly @ $630. But some guys have used the PI intake without the adaptor. It doesn't fit perfectly and IMO wouldn't offer a noticable performance improvement but apparently it can be gooped up enough to make it work. Another option is to get the PI heads and intake, this will run ya a few bucks but has the advantage of the additional performance from the PI head.

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If you couldn't buy the NPI intake anymore there would be a huge amount of cars (and not just Mustangs) that would be screwed. The PI intake is not intended to replace the NPI intake. It is just better once modified to fit the NPI heads. Brand new NPI intakes are available from many sources. They go for about $450.00 these days. When I bought mine with the aluminum runner it cost me ~$200 from Randy Stinchcomb at Liberty Ford (Modular Depot) but since then they have gone up considerably. I'm sure he still has plenty of them.

Now would I go back to the NPI intake if I had the money and opportunity to go with the PI intake? Are you crazy!!!??? Of course I would make the switch over. For the price of a new NPI intake you can get the entire PI intake kit for around $150 more.

You can get a new PI intake with adapter plates, gaskets, coolant tube, new bolts and the aluminum runner already tapped for our second sensor, all this from Livernois Motorsports (click here). NPI intakes have two sensors on the coolant runner and PI intakes only have one. Our cars (pre-99s) need to have the two sensors.

get the pi intake manifold and some RTV and have fun. worked great on my car

I vote for the livernois kit because its a complete kit and ready to install ....without RTV problems ....IMO ....

BrianinDallas said:

Thanks. your explanation is very helpful. Bare with me but I'm a little uneducated as it comes to mods and doing things to my car. Are there signifigant advantages with the PI intake vs the stock? With everything else on the car stock, is that ok? If I were to do something else, mod wise, what would you recommend? I was thinking about an o/r xpipe...

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The PI intake will increase your horsepower. For the price it's a decent mod. With everything else stock you would still be fine. Since you really don't know much about this stuff I would recommend buying the PI kit instead of trying to modify the PI intake yourself. The kit would include adaptors plates that would make the PI intake match up with your heads. And the coolant crossover would already have the second sensor hole tapped so you wouldn't have to do that yourself.

BrianinDallas said:

What is RTV and ...IMO

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RTV is a sealant. I'm not sure if it is silicone or not. It would be used in place of the adaptor plates you would get with your kit.

IMO = In My Opinion

BrianinDallas said:

What is RTV and ...IMO

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RTV is a liquid gasket. And IMO is In My Opinion.

I would reccomend the PI intake. You will love the gains. As for other mods you will love an offroad X pipe. It will give a little bit of power and make a huge sound difference. If you are really looking for some power you can do the PI headswap. I don't know what your budget is...but PI intake, PI heads, Lontubes, X pipe, and gears and you are going to have yourself a quick car...and shock the hell out of a lot of 99+ guys. And also lay the smack down on some LT1's

BrianinDallas said:

Thanks guys! All this info is real helpful and has helped clear things up a lot.

I think I'm gonna go with the PI intake kit. Can I do this myself or do I need to have the work done? Do any of you know if there is a "how to" site?

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When my intake cracked I replaced it myself. When I did it the first time I had gotten a replacement intake (that still had the plastic coolant crossover) for free from someone on the boards. I wasn't paying attention and stripped out one of the sensor holes in the (plastic) coolant runner. So I had to put the original back on. Then I bought a new NPI intake with the aluminum runner and installed that myself. The more I did this the easier it got. Now I can probably do this swap in two hours. I took pictures the first time I did the install so feel free to view them in order to give you an idea what you're in for. I think as long as you are a little mechanically inclined and don't mind getting your hands dirty it won't be very difficult. One bit of advice... get some fender covers to protect your fenders while you lean on them, otherwise you can slightly dent them.

Here's the link to my webshot pictures of my intake install. Enjoy!

http://community.webshots.com/album/72370370hPeenK

while you have the top off you may as well add the PI cams too. here are some good sites.

http://www.corral.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=452312
http://forums.modulardepot.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=19879
http://www.modulardepot.com/?show=articlesdet&aid=39

with the intake, cams and a tune (which i HIGHLY suggest) you are looking at around 35hp.