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Old 12-31-2009, 06:41 AM   #13
JFP in PA
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Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: It's a kind of magic.....
Posts: 6,605
First, let me be direct about this plenum: I have no personal experience with it. The concept of creating a smoother flow path often has merit; but not always. That said, before I would even remotely consider popping nearly a grand for it, I would need to see some unbiased performance data.

Intake or cylinder head “improvements” are typically developed on a flow bench, which reproduces the flow under vacuum conditions that occur in an engine. A flow bench can accurately reproduce and quantify the slightest increase in flow. These are the devices used to develop the concept of canting the intake valves slightly (literally a couple of degrees off axis) on race engines to improve cylinder filling and flow. Flow benches can be used to detect the changes brought on by just altering the finish on and an intake’s interior; they are that sensitive.



Once optimized on a flow bench, the plenum should be subjected to extensive dyno pulls. Anyone that has been seriously involved in the development of racing components will tell you that improving flow does not always translate into more usable power; in fact, sometimes really high flowing intakes do not make more power, or at least not in a usable RPM range. And sometimes what seemed like a good idea actually makes things worse……….

Once the developer has “paid their dues” and come up with a proven concept, the next step would be to get some units into the hands of what marketer’s call “early adopters”, those that are willing to take a chance on a new technology, but are independent of the product’s developer(s) and have some level of credibility in the community. These early adopters then beat the Hell out of the component to either prove or disprove its relative merit.

So far, all I have seen for this component are shaky and undocumented tests done by anonymous individuals of unknown relationship to the developer posted on the net. That really does not “cut the mustard” on proving the component does anything positive………………..
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