let's not beat around the bush, I need honest answers C&L plenum
 

Does the C&L Plenum work or not? I've done a search and have come up with lots of "it feels better, I think" or "it needs a reburn on your tune", but no definate "damn this thing kicks ass and was the best $299 I ever spent"

Hoping that someone out there can give me some dyno numbers on your basic bolt on L. Trying to justify the money on it or a using it towards a new intercooler exchanger.

Thanks guys! :beers:

This is great info. Disregard the Kenne Bell sales pitch, this is excellent, quite objective and very representative observations. Really shows that you can waste your money on allot of stuff out there.

http://www.kennebell.net/techinfo/fo...ngTechTips.pdf

i put a c& l ported and polished plenum, acu fab single throttle body on to an already installed magnum force intake and the c&l inlet. had it retuned at the dyno. The change in throttle response was dramatic and spins to easy now.
Cool day pacific north west close to sea level. It was a dyno jet.

my numbers were 396.7 hp and close to 486 # of torque.

2004 truck with apx 11,000 miles

I have yet to make it to the track to see how it would performe.

hope this helps. but i think my numbers seem a little high with out any pully
changes.

My over all opinion of the inlet is " l like it" and would do it again.



the preditor was custom tuned and is between their performance and 4# pully tune 94 % octaine. This is my first lightnig so i am also new to all this.


Russell
2004 lightning

Yesit will add something, but for the same amount of money, you can have more gains elsewhere.

It is a puzzle. you don't reap the benefit until the puzzle is put together. each part is a piece of the puzzle. there is no magic bolt on 30hp part (minus s/c, nitrous etc...)

With the C&L plenum and SBTB, I just noticed a little more responsiveness out of it. On the dyno with Sal tuning now on my street #4 lower program, it jumped from 394 to 402 @ the same "16" degrees of timing. But, that could've been Sal that pulled the extra ponies out.

guess I will put that money towards a new exchanger instead. Thanks guys.

I think I got like 8 rwhp or something like that... I actually got it because it gave a nice canvass to get some custom airbrushing.

anything you do to change the static pressure will rep bennifits in the long run

you might not get any peak #'ers out of it but it will help on longevity for sure

You know a auto engine is a lot like a water pump with 4 components.

1) pipe pulling water out of the ground

2) the piston for the pump

3) the pumper (person)

4) the garden hose to the flowerbed.

I'm not going to create a cross reference for each of these components to a real auto engine, for I feel confident any person on this board can do it for themselves.

For the entire water system all of the components (1 - 4) are basically matched from the factory, just like our engines from Ford.

Your problem is, you're not getting enough water to the flower garden, you need 10 gallon per minute, what to do?

Well since basically all of the pump components are matched to flow say 7 gallons per minute. You know that simple getting a cheap bigger pipe out of the ground isn't going to get you 10 gallons out of the pump and anyway the final hose to the garden is also too small for such a large ground pipe.

You also know that getting a bigger pump isn't going to work and again the final garden hose hasn't been addressed.

OK at this point you know what's going on so I don't have to finish the technical aspect of this lesson, but......

Let's talk marketing, this is an aspect that almost is never discussed on this board.

Most of the times, when you hear or read about 1 component making really nice HP the little dirty secret is, unfair marketing. Behind the scene is a few nicely targeted and usually free items that are addressed unknown to the buyer depending on the particular engine that is/are tweaked before the x product is installed, and voilà(sp) their product makes a real nice HP increase. Bla, bla, bla.

The point of this post is, usually factory engines are a well tuned product and people try a little intake =0 , timing =0, more gas =0, better exhaust =40 RWHP, and bamm that exhaust makes 40 more HP WHOOO HOOOO!m And if you reverse the the bolt ons then an little intakes will make 40 RWHP WOOO HOOO!

This is the fundamental problem with the internet, no one really knows (other than the owner and too many beers) what exactly contributed to make the significant increases in HP and if it's a combination of items or singularities.

One item that I didn't address was the pumper and this is an exception to a point and the beauty of a SC engine, a pulley change-out is a somewhat free mod fuel permitting.

No braincells were utilized in the production of this post. :wave:

Exactly why I bought mine, but I'm still waiting for the guy to do it
DAM ARTIST @#()%^@)#%&@#(@#)%#@()*#%

454 makes valid points. I'm wondering if this is one of those mods that falls in the same category as the single blade throttle body? I know when I did mine it made it feel faster but really didn't do much on the dyno.

Bingo. Pieces of the puzzle, but will not give you significant gains. The factory upper intake plenum and VB flows more than enough for most.

I have one and am not convinced it does anything ET/MPH wise at the track on a 400-450 RWHP truck. I've seen far too many L's run the same MPH with stock plenums and the minor mods that everyone does to these trucks to make them run in the 12's.