Mr. Jones

I will be selling these plates in about 3 weeks.
no vacuum leaks, no RTV and no hood clearance issues.
they provide a smooth port transition. Dynoed car and it made 255HP, 311tq
through 3.90 gears (98 GT)[IMG]
[/IMG]
$100 on e-bay-soon

Mr. Jones

[IMG]
[/IMG]
another pic, note that the plcs in the first photo were the prototypes.
its an alum. plate that are cut on a waterjet cutter then hand matched to provide port
transition.

yellowstang98

so that plate is 100 and then you could get the intake for about 100 off ebay. so you are telling me that i could get an easy 15hp for 200 bucks. WOOT WOOT!

devinsteen

I like the gaskets, but 100 bucks is kinda steep. Many people use the PI or NPI gaskets with no problems...they are much cheaper than that. My vacumm leak had nothing to do with the gaskets, but the o-rings for the injectors.

Mr. Jones

how you do the manifold installation is up to you. I did not want to take the risk
of developing a vacuum leak and burn a valve due to a lean condition.
I also wanted the best gain I could get by having a good port match.
I don't like to do the same job twice. I also did not want to do a head swap.
I did not want to spend $650 for the kit.
Since I could do my own CAD file for a mach. shop I made a a few and followed it
through with pic and a write up on a web site. Finally had the car dynoed with a custom
chip so I would know that everything was right and that the HP was real.
15HP would be the min. 25HP under the curve is more likely.
for people pushing air with a vortex or paxton -plates would be the only altenative.

as for the cost by the time you do all the work its not bad.
new parts (about $400 total) and you have a reliable engine and you saved $250
compared to the kit and maybe alot more if you hurt your engine with mismatched parts.

Gaspi101

I cracked my manifold at the same place. I've got a 96 gt. Is it a bolt on for a PI manifold swap? What did you use and how did you do it? Thanks!!

yellowstang98

I dont understand where you are saving money???? ya, doing a PI intake swap is a lot cheaper than the PI head swap but it also is a lot less HP. if you do the swap you get 60 hp for about 400 for the heads and 200 for the intake. NO mod, with the exception of boost is as worthwhile as the PI head swap, doing the PI intake swap is only half of the problem that the 96-98s have, you need to do the whole swap to really make your car perform. i personally am waiting until i have the money to get the PI heads ported, probably by Fox Lake before i get them installed and before i address anything other in the car. just my opinion

Mr. Jones

I agree that a manifold swap will not provide the same HP increase as heads and manifold.
A economy PI swap= 99+ heads , cams and manifold.
Usually you would install cams from a 99 up. 270hp at the motor would be about right.
compare a stock 99+ to a 96 - 98 with a PI swap the increase in compression ratio would
be about 10-1 accounting for the higher HP over a stock 99-2004 (260)
The labor required to do this and the cost of doing it right are much more than a manifold with plates only.
I didn't want to spend that much money and labor to do a complete swap right about $1500 (no labor cost).

I would never install used heads without having them reworked,
old timing chain or 96-98 cams. so a new basic swap setup starts at around $1400 and alot of labor.

The manifold swap alone adds about 20-25hp not bad for the money, no shortcuts on part quality and much less labor.
If you get heads later you could sell the plates. If money is not an issue get some ported heads,
good after market cams and a bullet manifold. follow that with real dyno tuning not pre-made chips
and you will have a solid engine for about $3000 total.

I have done a little of this before. I know that short cuts will bit you in the end-literally

deesgt

So lemme see...is this what I need? It mentions the crossover improvement issue but says nothing about any hp increase. Is this even a PI intake or is it just basically what I have on my 96 already?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...959652619&rd=1

Mr. Jones

that is a non-PI manifold. It was manufactured with the aluminum crossover to
replace the 100% plastic manifolds that crack. It has round ports and no performance
improvement over a 96-98 stock mustang manifold.

The (in the e-bay link) manifold volume and port shape offer no change-this is the difference between
PI and non-PI