Not that this is a new topic or idea, but I feel that alot of people do not understand this can be done at home for dirt cheap. I followed the very detailed instructions on this site:

http://captainoblivious.tripod.com/truck/intake.html

With the aid of a Dremel tool with an extension and a few flap wheels, I was able to get decent results within a Sunday afternoon. (i.e. 4-5 hours) Granted this will go much faster with better tools, but this is for the average guy who does not have an auto shop in his backyard.

With only 4k miles on the truck, my intake was already incredibly dirty with oil, as you can obviously see.



The inside was even worse.

 

I spent several hours grinding away at the inside of the intake, and then spent about 30 minutes wet sanding the inside of the plenum. The results are an incredible improvement over the condition of the factory piece. I also port matched both ends of the plenum to match the inputs of the t/b and supercharger.



I spent a little bit of time smoothing out the t/b as well, but I doubt it will have too much benifit.

 

Very true Scott, I did mine a while ago when I got my single blade and it worked great. I did the same thing you recomended (flapper wheels).

PS........did you get my email by chance??

--Joe

 

Now I need to get out and put it all back in. Hopefully I will see some difference, and it can't really hurt anything. Even though many people have already dynoed this upgrade, I will try to do it to prove if the work was worth while or not.



I will post results when I get them. This was not difficult at all, just a little time consuming. I suggest that everyone visit the above posted site for great instructions.

 

i bought a factory tb for 20$ from somebodyh on line so i didnt have to grind on the factory oe. I worked alot on the transition between the center of the tb and the indivdual throtle plates. I made it real round. I ground alot on the throttle plates to make them as thin as possible.I also matched the tb to the intake.I am going to go take it of and take some pictures on here.

 

The t/b was the last thing that I worked on, so I was pretty sick of grinding when I got to it. Please post some pics, for I may take it off again for more sanding if needed. Thanks!

 

I did the same thing last week to match a larger throttle body.
I noticed that there was a significant mismatch on the blower end too.





I can actually offer this as a service. The shop that did this can complete the job without cutting the plenum open. They can reach the entire inside of the unit.

 

one of these weekends i need to do this, i've got the dremel and the extension.

maybe next weekend

i'll also try to get some pictures.

 

Yea it's great mod to do. It costs a couple flap wheels and some time, but it gives hours of quiet time. Well not really quiet, but you know what I mean.

 

Well, I put it all back in, but it is really hard to tell if it did much. I haven't been driving the truck for a few days, so my butt dyno is way off. It makes the whistling noise normally associated with the single blade t/b, but not as loud.

A sure fire sign that it pulls in air better though, is the fact that now I am getting detonation with the air temperature being in the 30's. I started getting some pinging when I had a ram air setup a month ago, but I removed the ducting until I could get a cold weather program on my chip. Since then I have had no pinging, but I get it now with the plenum polished out. I guess that is good in a way!

The transition from the t/b to the plenum is much smoother now that I matched them. I cannot say for sure about the plenum to the blower, but I must assume that is about the same.

Overall though, I still think this had to have been worth the time.

 

Scott,

Looks great man.... Im sure it had to help some... You ready to do mine???

 

Mine actually stoped the whistling when I did this. I had a single blade T/B, and modified the plenum to accept the larger unit that I have.

I also matched the rear outlet to the opening in the blower. It was off about 1/8".

 

It is such a faint whistling, I am not sure where it is coming from. It may have always been there, but I never listened for it. It is so high pitched, it is almost inaudible. However, it adds to the blower orchestra under boost, so I will leave it alone.

I will check the alignment of the gaskets again, to make sure I did match the back correctly.

 

When I removed my plenum, I noticed the the gasket on top ov the blower was lined up with the passenger side. It appeared as if it wouldn't move any further that direction, so I matched it on the drivers side. I had to remove about 3/32" of material.

When I installed it, I checked ti with a long inspection mirror, and it appeared to match very closely.