New member looking for advice

Coyotejoe

New member
Hi, my names Joe and I have a 94 lightning I am bringing back to life, sat behind a buddies garage for 10+ years so as you can imagine it needs alot of love, however the body is very clean, it appears to have hydrolocked a cylinder and bent the rod causing the engine to lock up, so I ordered a kit and tore the engine apart and took it to the local machine shop building it to a 408 stroker, now I know the factory efi is nothing special so I'll be wanting to install a holley efi system, I called holley and they recommended me the terminator x stealth tbi system, what's everyone's thoughts on removing the lightning intake manifold and replacing it with a 4150 flanged setup
 
I personally consider the Lightning intake to be "iconic" and it's still on my truck even though I know there's probably 30-40 hp stuck in there somewhere. Naturally aspirated, it ran as well on my MILD 393 as a TFS intake did. If you're putting a decent cam in the motor, though, the intake becomes more of a restriction because it simply won't flow/fill as the revs get up there - and this is made worse with more cubes.

There's a good community here for the Stinger PiMPxShift computer, as well as the Holley EFI with the US Shift Quick 4 trans controller.
 
Motor spec for my build
408 stroker
Scat 4in stroke crank
Forged 6.2 rods
Forged 4.030 +2cc flat tops
Frpp x303 .542/.542
Afr enforcer 185s 59cc chambers
 
Stock intake will work decently on that combo. No reason with a mild converter that wouldn't be a solid 12 second NA cruiser.
 
It's just a SWAG, but 15-20? Getting that back in mid-range torque?

You have to consider, when I'm talking about 30-40 hp, I'm somewhere around the 800 hp level. So call it 5%? This is all just guesswork.

I can only tell you that on my 393, big chamber 185s, very mild, boost-friendly custom cam, stock intake with ported lower, tight towing-friendly converter, I ran low 13s with the stock intake and low 13s with the Trick Flow naturally aspirated and low 12s with mild boost. I sold the TFS and stuck with the stock intake because I preferred the look and progressed from there.

Ed Huerta had similar results in his intake testing.

It really all comes down to cam choice. The Lightning intake drops flow incredibly fast above ~5500 RPMs. It just can't refill the plenum through the narrow throat and the long runners aren't tuned for higher rpms.
 
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