has anyone ever hand made an intake for sbc? i have a 300ci buick i an contemplating fabricating an intake manifold to hold 6 single bbl carbs just to say i did it... wondering if anyone has done this in the past... intake is similar to sbc without a distributor hole... really it would only have to be true enough hold oil pressure below and true mateing surfaces for heads....
in my opinion the 300 is the buick nailheads little brother. very small and powerful motors readily available with aluminum heads and the occasional rare aluminum block as well. the stock 4bbl one in my lesabre was 11 1/4:1 ratio and screamed down the road. i encourage you to either look into modifying a sbc intake if they are similar enough or just starting from scratch with some intake plenums and a whole lot of fabrication/modification. the one big problem you face is that an intake manifold has a lot of science involved to run properly and efficiently. a wrong turn could cause a turbulent vortex and nullify the venturies of the carb(s). anyways, sorry i cant be of any REAL help per say but i wish you luck and am interested in the progress. i love buicks!
i wanted a nailhead 322 to be exact but this look alike fell into my lap and id like to have fun with it i only meant similar to sbc as its a full intake not runners over a open vally pan like the real nailheads... ive made intakes for inline 6's before with good luck was ging to use the same theory of design just needed to build a full intake to cover valley...
my finished goal is to open the hood and make even the best of hotrodders have to think, not just know as is with every hotrod with a sbc... front mount distributor, six carbs, nailhead style valve covers, i feel will do the trick nicely. wa lucky enough to get the 1964, iron block aluminum hads 10.5:1 comp i believe... AND its crank is drilled for a pilot bushing from factory, (rare i been told) going to try to fit it with a sm420 4 speed with attached parking brake!!! pretty scyched about this build... my 27 T was a lot more traditional build
I would start by making a valley pan then you could fab the logs and flanges dont forget the cross over pipes.
The nailhead groups allover the 'net the virtual swap meet you can find a manifold and valley pan for it. I gave a ton of old Buick stuff to the local Buick club just to clean one garage and not have it turn into re-bar. An intake from scratch is pretty dicey biz...lots of flanges to fab then weld and the tubing needs to be all the same length to each cyl with about the same angle of bends, not easy stuff, the old "log" mainfolds for inlines were bad enough...Good luck but the are parts for your 300" baby nailhead
its my honest opinion that an sm420 box with granny low (compound low) is a truck box. if you were to have a heavier car, lets say a station wagon, and you were around some hill type terrain you may go for it but that 1st gear is a real jerker and really not necessary for anything practical. ive had those transmissions in all sorts of vehicles and never were they as good as in a full sized truck. just my $.02
I made my 6x2 manifold for my BBC. I "cheated" and started with a single plane dart intake. I milled everything off to make a valley pan and then built up from there. Was it a ton of work? Hell yeah, would I do it again? I'm sure I would. I say go for it. I'll post some pics later I don't have any good ones on my phone.
I've seen some made, they look pretty cool when done right. Might be easier to make it out of steel than aluminium.
The Rover V8 intakes can be made to work with your Buick 300. You'll just have to get clever (and maybe use spacers). http://www.mez.co.uk/ms12.html Greg
Study intakes how and why they work and don't work and if you have the skill and tools to do it go for it. The worst that could happen a bunch of scrape metal and a real learning guide.
If you got the right equipment it's shouldn't be to hard. Unfortunately I don't know anyone that ever made one but if you build one keep us posted with pictures.
There are plenty of homemade intakes out there. People have been doing it for many years. If you can tig sheet metal you can make one too.
If you do and it does not work like you hoped hang it on the wall and start over thay make cool wall art.
the truck its all going in is a 1959 chevy apache with long step side bed... very big very heavy, no need in my world for fast in this one just love the way these old tranny's shift and sound... if i wanna go fast or burn out i havea ss '65 impala 396 th400 that gets that job done with ease!! i love the comments and help from all of you thank you... i have all the tools and practices available to me... weve made many inline log intakes with god luck... god friend owns and operates machine shop so accurate flanges are the easy part... and yes i agree all steel