I am going to have my intake manifold off to try and fix a leak back by the distributor and am wondering this? 1. What would be the benefit of porting my intake manifold? 2. What can I expect to pay for this? 3. Is it worth the cost? 4. Can I do this myself? thanks for any help all. I have an aluminium edlebrock performer intake on a 350 with a edlebrock 650 carb.

You should list the rest of your combo.

Cam, compression ration, exhaust,tranny, rear gears, and what RPM range you want to see the improvement at.

I think some 350s with a 650 carb might benefit from this, some may not. So knowing as much as possible about the combo makes it easier to guess if porting is needed.

It wouldnt hurt to gasket match at least.

IMO not worth the cost to have someone do it. The money would be much better spent on a better intake such as the RPM if that fits your combo.

Gasket matching and equalizing the ports is always worthwhile....but everything else is important too. Although a gasket match may make your Performer a better performer, it will not make it into a Performer RPM. Gasket matching will do basically nothing for increasing the plenum volume. Greater plenum volume being one of the important factors for a manifold to have better high rpm breathing capacity.

Thomas

Here is my combo as I know it. 350 bored .030 compression is either 9.2 or 9.5 to 1. Exhaust is headers into 2&1/2 inch exhaust pipes through magna flow mufflers. Tranny is richmond 4 speed and rear gears are 3.08. Not sure what range I am looking for improvement at, just wondering if I will see a better et at the track? Not sure what the cam is?

I would guess that you have a little bit of a cam. Not a big cam, but probably something with some lope at idle that probably runs good from roughly 2000-5500rpm. I cant be sure, but its an educated guess. That guess is based on your compression ratio, and assuming some forethoght was put into matching the cam close to the engines compression ratio, its safe to assume that you have a cam like what Im thinking you do. I would think something along the lines of .454 lift and about 212-218 degrees duration at .050 is probably in there, but like I said, I cant be sure. Anyways, where does it seem to run strongest now? Does it have good low end and mid range but not a lot of steam over like 4500, or does it come alive in the mid range and rev close to about 5500 nicely? If the cam specs I have in mind are close to what you got, It should be a little hotter over 3000rpm to 5500 and a gear swap to a 3.55 gear(maybe 3.73 depending on the tire height) will benefit, and a performer rpm intake would excel over what you got. So, when it comes to the intake, If my guesses are close Id say the money would be better spent on another manifold rather than working on your performer. And keep the gear swap in mind for the future.

Thanks all for the help and advice. Think I will see if my buddy knows how to port the intake. If not then I won't worry about it. I am looking to get the new gears for the rear end eventually.