Single Plane vs Dual Plane Intake ?

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C_Stock_409Chevy
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Single Plane vs Dual Plane Intake ?

Post by C_Stock_409Chevy »

My first post, guys... so please be gentle !

Gee, I bet nobody ever asked THIS question before ? :wink:

I've seen some recent coverage on dyno tests with a few different engines, testing dual plane intakes against single plane. Usually, this seems to be the Edelbrock Performer, vs the Victor JR..
Invariably, it seems that in anything but an all out, over the top, non-streetable race engine... the dual plane gives as good, or better performance.

One thing is for sure... I got very VERY different results.
Aubrey
1962 Chevrolet Belair sport coupe, 409 NHRA / IHRA Stock Eliminator
Designer and manufacturer of the ONLY single plane 4 barrel intake manifold ever made for 348 / 409 Chevy... the Speed-Port 6000 & Speed-Port 7000
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Re: Single Plane vs Dual Plane Intake ?

Post by barnym17 »

You have to take a lot of these tests with a grain of salt they are intended to sell parts.
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Re: Single Plane vs Dual Plane Intake ?

Post by dfree383 »

different builds require different intakes.

A Pick-up truck engine driving down the road at 2000 rpm is way different than a 15:1 race engine operating at 8500.....
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Re: Single Plane vs Dual Plane Intake ?

Post by C_Stock_409Chevy »

As mentioned... "in anything but an all out, over the top, not streetable race engine ( AKA, a 15:1 race engine oprating at 8500 ).

I'm talking a reasonable build, decent hot street V8 engine that makes power in a reasonable 2500-6500 RPM range. You know, with a stick ( or just an automatic with the typical 2500-3000 converter ) and 3.73 gear. Highway cruise RPM 2800 + up Something real, popular, and able to be dual purpose, while being reliable... and not breaking the bank.

Wih an engine as described... What style if intake would be considered more effctive ?

Seems that all I hear is... "dual plane this, dual plane that... dual plane is better for the street"... blah blah blah.
Well yeah, MAYBE up to about 2500 RPM.
Aubrey
1962 Chevrolet Belair sport coupe, 409 NHRA / IHRA Stock Eliminator
Designer and manufacturer of the ONLY single plane 4 barrel intake manifold ever made for 348 / 409 Chevy... the Speed-Port 6000 & Speed-Port 7000
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Re: Single Plane vs Dual Plane Intake ?

Post by Walter R. Malik »

This is highly predicated upon the particular situation.

A high torque engine is a small tire, street vehicle will usually benefit fron the less torque and higher horsepower of a single plane manifold.

That same high torque engine in a heavier, wide tire street vehicle would suffer from the exact same manifold exchange.

How far can you spin the tires or do they lose adhesion at the least opportune time to cause a loss of vehicle control should be a great part of the decision.

That decision about WHICH intake manifold to run on a STREET vehicle is not so "cut and dried".
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Re: Single Plane vs Dual Plane Intake ?

Post by Ken_Parkman »

In my street car (daily driver in good weather) I back to backed on the chassis dyno an Edelbrock rpm air gap and an Edelbrock torker. It is a 3300 lb Rambler with a mild 401 AMC. Stock bottom end, 9.3 compression, 228 degree cam, headers, 6000 rpm max due to the stock cast pistons, 5 speed stick, highway cruise about 2200 rpm. The air gap clearly made better torque in the low end, especially in the 2500 rpm area, with the torker making superior power above 4400 rpm. But for real performance use the engine rpm never drops into the area where the dual plane has an advantage and the single plane is clearly faster, proven at the track (11.99 @ 118 mph). The only use mid range torque has is for towing or scaring your wife when you roll into the throttle. It feels faster around town, but is not in real life. Add to that the Rambler will blow the tires off in 1st, 2nd, and sometimes 3rd when you roll into the throttle more mid range torque is essentially useless.

So I run the old school torker and sold the air gap. Car is faster, drivability is no discernible difference, fuel economy is better, although that is probably due to carb optimization, and it still scares my wife.

I would only use a dual plane in the mildest of applications, something that actually does care about torque at 2500 rpm. Smaller engine, close ratio stick tranny, or a mismatched engine combo that is trying to solve an over cammed under converted situation. And almost never when improved et is your goal.
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Re: Single Plane vs Dual Plane Intake ?

Post by eikoor »

Take this article for what it’s worth but I know 2 engine builders that have seen the same results on SBC 383’s with AFR 195 heads, hyd rollers in the 248 to 252 at .050 range, the “average” power was better with the Air Gap then with a single plane. http://www.popularhotrodding.com/engine ... ewall.html

As others have said it is engine and intended purpose that dictates what is best, most street engines operate from idle to 6000 and most single planes don’t start to shine over a duel plane until 4500, with enough converter and gear you probably would not see a big difference by seat of the pants.
The only way to know would be dyno testing for your intended application.

EDIT! If you go with a duel plane you may want to experiment with stagger jetting as well.
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Re: Single Plane vs Dual Plane Intake ?

Post by c.watson »

Just my 2 pennies worth, but can you not run a dual plane with a larger carb and still get the benefit of the dual plane.
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Re: Single Plane vs Dual Plane Intake ?

Post by C_Stock_409Chevy »

Thanks for the replies, guys.

Ken, yours is the results that I experienced. Quite frankly, yes, unless it's in my 11,000 pound tow-rig for my race car, a single plane is superior. ( ok, maybe Im' exagerating... a little :wink: ).

I was at a dyno shop in Lacombe, Alberta, a couple weeks ago, with a test engine. We were doing comparisons on 3 different intake manifolds. These aren't big numbers, as for as most of the guys here are concerned. This was just to see what the differences would be.

Test engine:

Standard size, re-ringed ( 7 years ago... a little blow by here :wink: ) 1963 Chevrolet "QB" 409 short block, using ported "333" small port cylinder heads with 2.06" / 1.735" valves. Compression ratio is 10.4:1. Camshaft manufactured to my specs, by Comp Cams. Flat tappet, solid lifter, Net left at valve, .565" / .578", 242 / 246 duration @ .050", on a 108 lobe center sep. We used a set of Belanger design headers by Wilson Header Manufacturing... 1 7/8" X 36" primaries, with 3"collector lengthened to 16".

We were testing a
stock 340 HP 409 intake
Edelbrock Performer RPM ( dual palne )
Speed-Port 6000 ( new single plane )

Timing was finalized at 35 degrees total.
Carburetior was a 750 CFM Quick Fuel

basic results:

Stock intake
torque 438.5 @ 3500 RPM
horsepower 389.9 @ 5400 RPM ( 387.7 @ 5300, 387.6 @ 5500, 385.6 @ 5600, 383.4 @ 5700 )

Performer RPM intake
torque 448.7 @ 4200 RPM
horsepower 424.8 @ 5700 RPM ( 422.9 @ 5500, 424.3 @ 5600, 424.5 @ 5800, 423.9 @ 5900, 423.0 @ 6000, 421.8 @ 6100 )

Speed-Port 6000 intake
torque 466.6 @ 4200 RPM
horsepower 465.8 @ 5800 RPM ( 464.8 @ 5600, 465.4 @ 5700, 465.7 5900, 465.7 @ 6000, 464.9 @ 6100, 464.4 @ 6200, 464.0 @ 6300 )

Even as low as 3300 RPM, the single plane had 10 ft pounds more torque, and completely dominated after that.
speed-port_dyno-session-april92013_speed-port_600049.jpg



Agreed... in hind sight, going from the air / fuel ratios shown in the result charts, it looks like the Performer might have been able to use SLIGHTLY bigger jetting, but it looks like it would compromise elsewhere in the "pull". The ratios were inconsistent, jumping around a bit.
Then again, in looking at the total air flow numbers ( Performer... 637 CFM @ 6100 / Speed-Port 667 CFM @ 6100 ), it looks ike the Speed-Port could have used one size larger carburetor.


Our extreme results seem to be uncaracteristic of such comparisons.
I guess my question comes down to:
What could it be about this single plane intake manifold, that alloweed it to excape the accepted "normal" results.... that being loss of low/mid range torque ?
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Aubrey
1962 Chevrolet Belair sport coupe, 409 NHRA / IHRA Stock Eliminator
Designer and manufacturer of the ONLY single plane 4 barrel intake manifold ever made for 348 / 409 Chevy... the Speed-Port 6000 & Speed-Port 7000
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Re: Single Plane vs Dual Plane Intake ?

Post by eikoor »

c.watson wrote:Just my 2 pennies worth, but can you not run a dual plane with a larger carb and still get the benefit of the dual plane.
Clive
The guys I know that really like the Air Gap says it allows a slightly bigger cam and carb then what would be the norm when trying to run a street engine with a single plane and when ported it does not give up a lot of bottom end power but gets closer to matching the top end power of a single plane.
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Re: Single Plane vs Dual Plane Intake ?

Post by eikoor »

I've never seen a lot of good results with the RPM intake and I don't know anyone who has done any BBC Air Gap tests.
Most of what I have seen on well built big block street engines is that they can use about as much air flow as you can feed them, in a lot of cases on larger cubic inch big block street engines a single plane with a dominator works very good.
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Re: Single Plane vs Dual Plane Intake ?

Post by rally »

A good dual plane will work better at 6500 RPMS. All out take no prisoners race engine spinning 7,500 RPMs and up, a single plane is your choice. Just my opinion.
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Re: Single Plane vs Dual Plane Intake ?

Post by C_Stock_409Chevy »

DEFINITELY not the case here, Rally. We took the best dual plane out there for these engines, and compared it to the ONLY single plane ever made...
wasn't even a contest... the dual plane looked anemic
I've driven the car... a 4300 pound station wagon with 4.11 rear gear, and 2.64 first gear Super T10. Once warmed up, it's flawless.
Proved beyond a shadow of a doubt... the Speed-Port single plane manifold was superior over the Performer RPM.
Aubrey
1962 Chevrolet Belair sport coupe, 409 NHRA / IHRA Stock Eliminator
Designer and manufacturer of the ONLY single plane 4 barrel intake manifold ever made for 348 / 409 Chevy... the Speed-Port 6000 & Speed-Port 7000
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Re: Single Plane vs Dual Plane Intake ?

Post by F-BIRD'88 »

Your stated test results are inconsistant with 100's of test results on (ALL) other similar engines
comparing single plane and dual plane manifolds Especially on such a mild motor.

On that type of motor (* cam duration,compression etc) a single plane does not make more torque ,, but, tends to have a slight power advantage at or above 4500rpm.
In you posts and literature you state the AFR was not optimized for the dual plane test.
What else was not quite optimized for that RPM manifold test.???

While its great you have created a single plane racing manifold for the W motor.
Your claim that it makes more power and torque than the RPM down to 3000 rpm is inconsistant and a bit od.
Looks a lot like a BBC holley strip dominator manifold.
I like the old Parisienne Wagon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac_Parisienne
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Re: Single Plane vs Dual Plane Intake ?

Post by C_Stock_409Chevy »

Bird... agreed, it fooled us too. We did one pull from 2800, using the stock intake... but the engine itself, simply did not like that. It stumbled pretty bad. Yes, it's not a lot of cam for a single plane. I dunno, man ? Dave at ARL in Lacombe, Alberta ( Allyn Lee's partner.... Mr. Lee being a highly accomplished Stock / Super Stock engine builder / tuner ), was quite suprised that it never killed lower RPM torque.
When looking at the flat A/F curve, it made more sense.

Here's a graph showing the 3 intakes, taken from th elast pull we did with the Speed-Port. We started this one at 3600, because we pulled to 6300 . Old engine... didn't want to go too high.

Image
Aubrey
1962 Chevrolet Belair sport coupe, 409 NHRA / IHRA Stock Eliminator
Designer and manufacturer of the ONLY single plane 4 barrel intake manifold ever made for 348 / 409 Chevy... the Speed-Port 6000 & Speed-Port 7000
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