it is basically an Edelbrock copy. I've ran 2 intakes from Professional products..both looked great, fit fine, and ran fine.

 

Ditto,, wat I like is that theres no name on it,, looks awhole lot like a 163 intake, but its oval port,,

 

Well,,, I can tell you that on a mild 383 with no other changes except from a Pro Prod copy of the Perf RPM to an EDE RPM Air Gap which is essentially the same intake the engine picked up torque across the whole curve with almost 15HP at about 6000RPM with no loss anywhere.
I cannot tell you why only that this particular engine & set of intakes did what was completely unexpected to me looking at them side by side.

 

Dare I fly the "Buy American" flag??

I'm pretty sure the Professional Products stuff uses overseas castings.

 

How about casting quality?

 

I've heard Professional Products uses old Edelbrock molds and they are less porous. Novadude, you can fly any flag you want to,but I'll spend my money where and on whatever I want to

 

Go take a look at one at your favorite Street rod shop. In my opinion they go hand in hand with the cheap Kragen-n-chrome valve covers you see on every single street rod. Kind of like Mom makin ya wear the blue light special, not worth the ten bucks your saving.

 

Originally posted by Rapid Robert:
I've heard Professional Products uses old Edelbrock molds and they are less porous. Novadude, you can fly any flag you want to,but I'll spend my money where and on whatever I want to

Not sure they would be less porous since they're made over seas? Maybe the Mexico GM blocks are equally great also? You never know......

All I know is in the couple of years I've been around hot rodding, at least the SBC manifolds tend to crack quite often when being torqued down. Maybe the people I've asked have just had lemon castings tho, who knows.

 

These manifolds are actually produced useing high pressure permement steel dies.... most of the other manifold producers use sand molds.

I've seen quite a few of these intakes and ... well... some look good and some dont....personally
I .... well... nevermind.

 

Speak up Al, lol. You always seem to have good insight.

BTW, what is the orginal LS-1 engine? Only slightly remember hearing about it. SB, BB??

 

Originally posted by Slowpoke70:
Speak up Al, lol. You always seem to have good insight.

BTW, what is the orginal LS-1 engine? Only slightly remember hearing about it. SB, BB??

Enrique,

Insight... Naw... I'm just dumb enough to work in this industry for the past .... jeeze... nearly 3 decades.

But thanks just the same.

The origional LS-1 was a one year only engine.It was available in 1969 only.It was the lowest HP passenger car 427 available.It was rated @ 335 HP and 460 ft lbs of TQ.Basically it was the exact same as the 325HP 396 engine except it displaced 427 CI.It was available only in full size passenger cars.I pulled mine out of a 1969 Caprice Kingswood Estate 9 passenger barge.The LS-1 was the part of the " Towing Package " on this Caprice .

 

Hope no one takes this the wrong way but, think about it like this...
What has Professional Products done for the aftermarket bolt-on performance market? Do they have innovative parts that thru research & development, offer hotrodders and racers a new alternative to bolster the performance of their streetrods or racecars? Or have they simply taken a proven design...by an American company...and thru cheaper foreign labor, materials and quality control, created a cheaper product that may only approach the design and performance of the original?
Companies like Edelbrock, Weiand and Holley literally BUILT hotrodding and the sport of racing in this country. To turn away from that history at this point seems to me to be a bit hypocritical at the very least. Without the work done by those American companies and workers...we literally would NOT be having this discussion.

 

Yep, what he said

 

Buy American!

 

Originally posted by Wolfplace:
Well,,, I can tell you that on a mild 383 with no other changes except from a Pro Prod copy of the Perf RPM to an EDE RPM Air Gap which is essentially the same intake the engine picked up torque across the whole curve with almost 15HP at about 6000RPM with no loss anywhere.
I cannot tell you why only that this particular engine & set of intakes did what was completely unexpected to me looking at them side by side.

I think I have the answer to that question, maybe.

Quite possibly, Pro Prod has a machine that makes a copy of an RPM, but an RPM that is out dated. Ever wonder how often Edelbrock's R&D team tweaks the design on a manifold? When did the RPM show up? How many years ago? Maybe Edelbrock found 15HP worth of flow in it since they cast the RPM that Pro Prod knocked off?

Do you think Pro Prod would go and re-tool to cast a new manifold that flows better but still looks exactly the same on the outside as the one they currently cast? I think not.

Chances are if a guy cheaps out on the intake, he won't likey have it tested for it's flow charactersitics either. He just likes the High Rise look at a cheap price. Most of these end up being polished and residing under some show car's hood where performance doesn't really matter.

 

Wolfplace,
you swithced from a COPY of a regular Performer RPM to a REAL RPM air gap and saw a 15 hp increase?
isn't the air gap supposed to be worth about that much over a regular RPM?
following that logic, the knock off RPM is as good as the original RPM- but cheaper.
i have to wonder if Edelbrock doesn't have their fingers in the Professional Products cookie jar- their intakes are just too similar to the Edelbrock parts to avoid lawsuits otherwise. that way, they get the loyal die hard gearhead that "buy American" and also the tightwads that go wherever the better deal is to give them money, but i'd bet the profit margin is greater on the imported "knockoff" stuff.

 

Um, incase you didn't know, the companies over seas can pretty much knock off whatever they wan't with not much penalty. I think as longs as the label is different, it passes. Not to mention the process they use to make the copies is also different.

As far as the Gap Vs. Original, from what I've read, the air gap isn't worth much over the RPM in reality. Kind of like Mr 4 Speed didn't see much improvemnt between the Performer and RPM.

Ever go to the swap meet and see all the Nike/Adidas/Fila knock-offs? The Law seems to be blind once they are labeled Aire/AdiSport/Fine.

 

Originally posted by novaderrik:
Wolfplace,
you swithced from a COPY of a regular Performer RPM to a REAL RPM air gap and saw a 15 hp increase?
isn't the air gap supposed to be worth about that much over a regular RPM?
following that logic, the knock off RPM is as good as the original RPM- but cheaper.
i have to wonder if Edelbrock doesn't have their fingers in the Professional Products cookie jar- their intakes are just too similar to the Edelbrock parts to avoid lawsuits otherwise. that way, they get the loyal die hard gearhead that "buy American" and also the tightwads that go wherever the better deal is to give them money, but i'd bet the profit margin is greater on the imported "knockoff" stuff.

=
I don't understand your question?? I didn't even mention the RPM intake.
The intake I removed was the tall Pro that looks just like the Perf RPM & is advertised as the 1500-6500 one.
What does that have to do with the RPM?
The Perf RPM & RPM air gap have been shown to be very close in back to back comparisons both on the dyno & track.
The are very close to each other so I changed intakes that are "supposed" to be reasonably matched according to the literature.
In this test which BTW was an A-B-A test because I didn't believe the results given the two intakes the Air Gap just killed the Pro intake across the board from 2500-6000+

I ain't saying the Pro intake isn't any good just telling you what this test showed on this engine between these two intakes,, hell, it could have been a "bad" casting but I for one ain't gonna go out & buy any for engines I do.

 

Novaderrik,

I would be willing to say this outright... Vic Edelbrock was not the least bit happy when Weiand and others first started knocking off his intakes decades ago and I know very well that Vic is not very happy about Prof Prod knocking off his stuff now either.... I can pretty much guarentee you that Edelbrock and Prof Prod do not share a business relationship.

 

Originally posted by novaderrik:
Wolfplace,
you swithced from a COPY of a regular Performer RPM to a REAL RPM air gap and saw a 15 hp increase?
isn't the air gap supposed to be worth about that much over a regular RPM?
following that logic, the knock off RPM is as good as the original RPM- but cheaper.
i have to wonder if Edelbrock doesn't have their fingers in the Professional Products cookie jar- their intakes are just too similar to the Edelbrock parts to avoid lawsuits otherwise. that way, they get the loyal die hard gearhead that "buy American" and also the tightwads that go wherever the better deal is to give them money, but i'd bet the profit margin is greater on the imported "knockoff" stuff.

I don't think so. There was an interview of Vic on one of the car shows I saw on TV and he was comparing his manifolds to "theirs", the Professional Products versions. He was pointing out the poor castings,port mis-alignment,etc. Does not sound like he's involved with them to me, just couldn't prevent them from selling them.

Jody

 

Just can't resist with all the "Vic" kudos. He just took his company private after taking a wonderful ride on the backs of the shareholders for what - 10 years? Anyone ever notice the executive sector in the public company - senior, his family, and a few cronies. Ebrock gave up innovation for an aggressive acquisition path long ago. They were in the same race with Holley - buy as many names as you can - some maybe good, some maybe not so good. As for the Made in USA, the study I did on ebrock before the reverse ipo showed 42% offshore contribution. Why the offshore contribution? Margins of course. So as the time got closer to SEC accounting rules pressure really coming down hard on all public entities, ebrock goes private. So what does that mean? Probably MORE offshore contribution. They can clean house, drop lines, search for partners that will make stuff on the cheap, whatever. I don't think an increase in quality or R&D effort was the driving reason for taking the company private. I'd have a lot more respect for that effort if senior had written a $53M check out of his bank account to buy all the stock back. But he didn't. He leveraged the assets, got the funding, and now has fewer partners looking over his shoulder and asking pesky questions than when the company was public....

No, I'm not a former ebrock shareholder - never have been nor have I held stock in any of the companies acquired by ebrock.

JMHO,

 

Sarbanes-Oxley is all my wife does at her job now. It does not really protect the investor as it prehaps was meant to initially. It has been manna from heaven for the large accounting firms. I believe Vic in part when he says S-A was way to expensive for a moderate size public company.

 

Do any of you have some edelbrock valve covers or air cleaner lids? Take a look at the underside and then come back here and talk about American products.

 

We're not talking about valve cover and air cleaner lids.....

 

Originally posted by Slowpoke70:
We're not talking about valve cover and air cleaner lids.....

Nor were we talking about Vic Edelbrock's company shares and all that other jazz. The original post was about the PP intake and its' quality or lack thereof.