Emperical testing will win out over theory any day, but I like to play with the formulas a bit to see what direction I might want to go in. Do I do this, do I do that? Lets scribble it down on paper before I go and blow my cash.
I wish manufactures woud release more technical info about thier products so you could fiddle a bit more mathematically with the parts before you buy them.
Carbs and headers are not to bad, known size and generally lengths there, Intake manifolds are kinda fuzzy along with cylinder heads. Does the intake runner have a taper? How long is it? What does it flow? Ditto for cylinder heads, how much crossection at the bowl? how much flow around the valves vs. the port? ect. Don't get me started on my peev, throttle bodies! How much does it cost to print the flow numbers along side the bore size?
65mm, how much does it flow?
70mm, same
75mm, ect
While not as sensetive as carbs to velocity, just going to the biggest t-body brings you to a point of diminishing returns and in some cases I feel even detrimental, especially with bigger cams where reversion and lazy airflow could casue a hiccup or two.
Anywhosit, I see the media doesn't help. Over at Fordmuscle.com (?), they had an article on cylinder heads, Turns out Canfield turned them down because someone else did a shotout using ported stockers and did an unfair (in there eyes) comparison so no more Canfields vs. whoever unless somebody forks over some cash to buy a set (then again magazines could have yearly cylinder head give aways
) Oh boy, just what I wanted to see! A set of mystery cylinder heads with the only released info being a gasket size, valve dia, and combustion chamber size. Real helpful
::rant off::
Whew...slipped into the mode there for a bit
