Ok, I reseached a bunch and decided that the way that my torque drops after 5000 rpms might be solved with the addition of a Skunk2 IM for my boosted LS. Consider I was only running 8lbs of boost at the time though.

Overall, I was fairly disappointed with the casting tolerances. The manifold would not slide easily over the studs in the head. I had to drill out some of the mounting holes to get it to fit right. Secondly I had to do some portmatching to runner number 4 mostly but all had some material to remove around the injectors.

It didn't bolt up to the bracket on the back of the block. There is about 3 inches to span. Oh well.

It doesn't use the fuel rail isolators like the oem version. The rail bolts straight to the many.

Ok well how did it run? My first impressions were, "hunh?" and "uhhhh...". I felt a fairly decent increase in the upper rev range but it only lasted about 1000 rpms till I hit rev limiter. It felt like I was stepping on a sponge in a low rpm, off boost situation and I was so used to the awsome low rpm torque that is the beauty of a turbo LS.

I just think that without a raised rev limit and running stock cams it took away the most endearing characteristic of my set up. It takes low rpm air velocity to make torque down low and this is done mostly, I think, by the LS manifold. When you don't get the low end torque you don' t get the early spooling exhaust gasses either. That means you don't get no spool. ugh. The problem was compounded...

That's why it's for sale.


[Modified by glagola1, 8:03 AM 2/22/2003]

 

good info

 

lol are you sure you had a real skunk2 ?

maybe you got a shitty one.....Mine was a breeze to install on my b18b, except the only thing i had to modify was the throttle cable bracket, and as for as spoolin, my car spools a t04e(57 trim, .63 a/r) w/ a tiny 2.25 inch exhaust at 3700-3800 rpms depending on my timing....

plus w/ my old setup (much smaller turbo), i put down 270whp 229 ft/lbs at only about 10.5 psi.

And i believe the reason the numbers were so high was because of the skunk2 IM

 

good post. i installed mine last week and ran into the same exact issues. it didn't slide onto the head studs easily at all, and I was upset the fuel rail didnt bolt like stock.

I still havn't drove on it yet though, the day after i installed that I took my car apart to catch up on alot of things. so i don't know about the low end yet. although, I do think a larger throttle body might help counter the lack of low end u r feeling, or at least fool u into thinking its faster by increasing throttle response.

 

I can kinda relate, I installed a b16 intake manifold in my old LS setup which is somewhat similiar to the skunk2. Lost some low/midrange torque but gained about 10whp up top.