Hi guys,

Scott asked me to chime in on this topic. I won't claim to be any sort of expert on it but here are some things to think about generally and specific to these cars.

1) Yes, these spacers have been used - mostly in drag racing. However, once the motor is heat soaked, these won't do much so you're really postponing the inevitable on a road car for a little while. Is it 10 minutes, 30 minutes or an hour - I don't know. Remember that the intake manifold is still snugly sitting in a hot V of the motor.

2) Raising the intake manifold will pull the injectors out of their proper position in the ports. Is this a good thing or bad thing? Won't know until you test it. I'm less worried about this in a forced induction setting, but otherwise not sure how well the fuel dispersion will hold up. Until you know this, I'm not sure I'd jump in on a 20+ order. This is the only potential performance downside that I see if it's properly designed and fabricated. As usual, it will take someone who will to pay for the R&D to know if this is really worthwhile on this car and substantial testing under different load, ambient and run time settings to know what this mod will really deliver.

3) It's hard to imagine a drop of intake charge 30 degrees - particularly once the engine bay is hot. 30 degrees is not quite intercooler territory but it's a big drop. How much heat do you think that the air really picks up in the second it flys through the intake manifold? And what percentage of the air is even contacting the manifold to create the heat transfer?

4) The cost in this project is not the spacer. If someone will make a custom app for $100/copy - run with it. Most plastic companies won't even cut this stuff anymore because it's murder on their tools, particularly in these thicknesses. You're looking at water or laser cutting.

I'd spend a lot more time worrying about the labor and ancillary parts costs not to mention that it all get done correctly. Unless you've recently replaced the idle air tubes on the top of the motor, all of these tubes and connectors will need to be replaced as they're cooked rock hard. There's $100 to start with. Again not much, but possibly the tip of the iceberg. If your engine wiring harnesses look anything like mine, count on a new one of those as well. Now, we're talking some real money. These are best left undisturbed when you see lots of cracked insulation. At the end of the day, it could be a $1,000+ proposition for 5HP for the first 30 minutes after startup. Is that worth it?

Conclusion: I'm not saying this may not be a good mod, particularly if you like to take the car to the dragstrip (which I do), but I'm not sure it's all roses. There's no way to know until it's been tried and tested.

If Outlaw will do this for an order of 20 units at $100 a pop, it's a bargain. $2000 for all the R&D, custom design and results. That's a great deal. Only one person needs to take whatever risk there is in the installation, parts, etc. They're not even charging for the install and test results. That's pretty fair. I'd just ask for them to agree to retrofit the stock setup if it turns out to hurt performance for whatever reason.

The other 19 buyers invest $100 and can chose to not install the part if they don't like the results. That's the cost of a cheap detail. Plus, you get the benefit of Outlaw's experience with this type of product design and fabrication. By comparison, I'm sure it'd take us much more time and testing to get up the learning curve. At the end of the day, this may be a cheap price for the fun of the experiment and helping advance the tuning options for all M119 motors.

That's my $0.02 for what it's worth (probably about $0.02 on a good day).

__________________
-Carl
Principal, BergWerks