Best intake manifold for me?

[Element]

Hey everybody I’m new to this thread and also to the foxbody world.

I bought a 86 GT 5 speed about 5 months ago and I’m almost ready to start working on the engine. I want to know what the best intake manifold for me would be.

right now the engine is bone stock, but eventually I plan to add other parts to improve performance, here’s what I want to do:

-camshaft, nothing overly aggressive but something that will give a nice lope and some power. I don’t plan to spin the engine very high, probably a maximum of 6500

-full exhaust from headers back, probably long tubes.

-heads, no idea what kind, but something to add power (obviously)

I know that list is vague but like I said, I’m new to the fox world and don’t know how I want to build the car. But I basically want the car to be streetable with decent power, it will stay naturally aspirated. It won’t see a track, but I still want some power for street racing and just having fun.

what do you guys think is the best intake for this kind of build?

 

[broncojunkie]

Congratulations on the new (to you) 86!

There are several options that should work well for you. The Trickflow Streetburner is good, but spendy. There are cheaper options that will still give you a good increase in power. The cheapest option is the explorer intake. You can still find them fairly cheap, but they're not the prettiest. They clean up ok with a coat of paint. A nicer-looking used option would be the cobra intake (typically found as an imported copy, but still similar performance to the explorer intake). The gt40 tubular intakes are also nice, but very expensive when you can find one. Very slight increase in power over the explorer/cobra intakes, but rare and highly sought after. For all practical purposes, the explorer, cobra, and gt40 tubulars have similar flow numbers and are all often grouped into the "gt40" name.
Another less-expensive aftermarket option is the Typhoon intake. They have respectable flow numbers and about half the cost of the Trickflow unit, last I checked.

Keep in mind that an intake is only part of the equation. You'll need a bigger throttle body, egr spacer, maf housing, and aftermarket intake tube/air cleaner if you want to take full advantage of the better intake. Also, the cobra intake, iirc, has the egr spacer cast into the intake housing, so no need to buy one if you go that route. Hope this helps!

 

[Element]

Congratulations on the new (to you) 86!

There are several options that should work well for you. The Trickflow Streetburner is good, but spendy. There are cheaper options that will still give you a good increase in power. The cheapest option is the explorer intake. You can still find them fairly cheap, but they're not the prettiest. They clean up ok with a coat of paint. A nicer-looking used option would be the cobra intake (typically found as an imported copy, but still similar performance to the explorer intake). The gt40 tubular intakes are also nice, but very expensive when you can find one. Very slight increase in power over the explorer/cobra intakes, but rare and highly sought after. For all practical purposes, the explorer, cobra, and gt40 tubulars have similar flow numbers and are all often grouped into the "gt40" name.
Another less-expensive aftermarket option is the Typhoon intake. They have respectable flow numbers and about half the cost of the Trickflow unit, last I checked.

Keep in mind that an intake is only part of the equation. You'll need a bigger throttle body, egr spacer, maf housing, and aftermarket intake tube/air cleaner if you want to take full advantage of the better intake. Also, the cobra intake, iirc, has the egr spacer cast into the intake housing, so no need to buy one if you go that route. Hope this helps!

Thank you!

and yes last night after making this post I did some research on cold air intakes, one thing I forgot to mention in my post is that I will also be converting it to maf so I can actually do the mods I’m talking about, I already have the computer, I just need to get a maf wiring harness and I’ll be set to do the swap.

I’m not sure what brand of CAI I should go with, but I think that mostly depends on what intake manifold I go with due to the differences in the throttle body opening for the different manifolds.

but yes that helps, thank you for your response