aussie intake

[ssms5411]

Looking good.

[mdiesel]

Just a couple more pics of everything all cleaned up

[mdiesel]

I cleaned I degreased the lower half tonight. Came out pretty good. From the pics yall can see the whole thing's all nice and clean now. The port exits at the head mating are pretty rough , so I gotta order a porting kit before I go any further.
if your talking about the exterior finish, I'm probly gonna high polish the lid, and just use high heat clear coat for the rest . I like the natural aluminum, and some clear will keep it clean.

[LETZRIDE]

That looks awesome! Are you doing a full polish or going to paint any of it?

[mdiesel]

So with some foaming engine bright degreaser, and a brass bristle wire brush I managed to get the interior of the plenum and plenum top pretty darn clean. You can see the casting flaws so still quite a bit to go until mirror polishes. Then its onto the lower half...

[mdiesel]

Thanx guys. I think the next thing I'm gonna tackle with this project is the issue with the coolant bypass for the heater core. The outlet on the lower half of the aussie intake is located further forward and wont work with our stock coolant elbow going into the belt tensioner. I was thinking about tapping the hole in the intake and the belt tensioner for some threaded barb fittings and then just running 1/2" heater hose and clamps in between... I just gotta order a 1/2" npt tap...

[ssms5411]

Yes this is exciting, I've never seen one done.

[2.8 Bird]

Looking forward to seeing the final product. This has never been done before. There were a couple who had it, but never installed it.

[ssms5411]

Nice, great job on the adapter.

[mdiesel]

So here's some pics of the Tb adapter I fabed up. I used glass filled nylon, which is the same material the fwd models intakes are made from. installed a couple of threaded inserts for the tb studs. I figured since its dbw I could mount it sideways to help with clearance issues. I'm probly still going to have to cut the cars cowl for the manifold, but if the tb was upright it stood almost 2 inches higher than the plenum top.

[LETZRIDE]

What’s the adapter look like?

[mdiesel]

Havent had much time on my hands to start porting the intake. I did manage to fabricate a throttle body adapter so I can bolt up the f-body DBW throttle to it . Hopefully il get some time to really dive into this project soon. Will post more pics when I can .

[LETZRIDE]

Nice! I want to see how well you port her out

[mdiesel]

Me and my 4year old disassembling the Holden intake.... I've succeeded in passing on the car obsession....haha

[mdiesel]

You should make a build thread here and give some of the newbs coming around some fresh ideas!

I am excited for this aussie intake build. I like seeing these and to me they have more potential even if they may flow less than our stock heads as it is much easier to build an upper.

Before I went through the trouble of getting this intake, I had several lengthy email conversations with Keith Abbot of abbot racing heads. He did mention that in a stock comparison of the f-body intake vs the aussie one, ours did win in overall airflow. But the flow bench doesn't tell you jack about the benefits of the improved air velocity and distribution of the aussie intake and how that improves throttle response. When you add in the factor of potential upgrades and ease of porting, the aussie intake was an easy decision for my build. That and I got a great deal on it, only $235 for the whole set up, including the shipping from Australia.