Some M1 porting pictures and flow numbers

Thanks John. Another runner test would be crazy awesome if you have the time and want.

For everyone, grab a beverage & smoke more if ya got’em, the rest of this post is lengthy but I think it’ll help a few understand a little something.

This is an uncanny long post from myself.

From what I know about the history and development of this intake, most probably already know, so this is for the young guns and new guys, a history lesson-ish kind of post.

As far as I remember, when Chrysler corp moved to the TQ as their new OEM carb, it had already been on the race track for a few years. What they found was an excellent top end. In general testing for what was their publicly sold cars, they found amazing throttle response and mileage. With the government saber rattling about the future of lower tail pipe emissions, the born and breed race carb was being pushed into service and modified for the new tail pipe standards later on.

Offenhauser was (AFAIK) the first intake manifold produced for the TQ. The Port-O-Sonic was listed in the book for racing and the Chrysler Performance engineers learned a few things about its fuel distribution issues and put forth modifications to be done. It worked very well.

Holley upped the anti by their intake. It is the “Strip Dominator” they made. Somewhere along the line MoPar decided to make their own and did a basic copy of the strip dominator in which MP claimed a few more HP to the tune of 10.

Back then, no one made a performance rectangle port performance head of any kind for the small block Chrysler. The first performance head was the W2 in the early/mid ‘70’s & then the whole W series followed. Prior to the W2, there were modified versions of the stock head in which they called the W1. Not ever sold, ever!

As you should know a stock cylinder head will only flow so much air. Unless you go to an extreme modification level, porting a stock head pretty much tops out slightly better than 280 - 290 cfm, YRMV.

The above 3 intakes were designed for a stock cylinder head. There are short comings in design by todays standards & what’s available. Most notable cylinder head is the super popular Edelbrock head (and it’s chink copy) which can well outperform an OEM iron head.

What the MP manifold lacks is apparent in the Edelbrock Victor intake manifold. A larger plenum and better runners. This goes a long way especially in the efficiency of creating HP through high rpm. The MP-M1-single plane is a modified design from the best of the prior intakes but never updated, so it lacks any new development to a higher level of cylinder head. Chrysler never seen then need to do so since, 1, it still sold very well and worked well with the Edelbrock head, 2, if you really wanted to rip up some asphalt, there was the W2 that could lay down the law in the ‘70’s - ‘80’s and ‘90’s.

Today, IMO, this intake is an intake you want to run. Like a six pack, no one with a tight wallet would run a six pack when the Edelbrock RPM will be cheaper, better all around and out perform the six pack. Even if it is only a little bit as seen from various dyno testing results from magazines and YouTube videos.
But the cost difference is huge & in favor of a single 4bbl & RPM intake.

I see the M1 in the same light. It has always performed really well for me but there is power in a Victor. Consequently, if you go up the performance ladder of intakes, there’s more power in a super Victor and more power from an Indy intake. Tunnel ram anyone?Now if your engine can use that intake effectively, your never looking at a M1 single.

Also the use of a TQ. When it comes to racing, a OEM carb will never touch a race Holley. Even the race TQ can not but they were available way back in two flow ratings they simply labeled as 800 & 1,000 cfm. The super tunabilty and parts to super tune are just not there and major modifications may not be able to compete with a race Holley.

A Standard Holley (think 1860, 3310, original DP) and a OEM Holley are not a race Holley even though there super tunable.

History lesson over, final thoughts on why I had this done and why.


Let’s start with the why. I live to tinker and don’t care what anyone says about what I tinker with. It’s also wonder. I wonder what they were thinking, how it performed, can I do it? How did they do it?

I wonder….. ya know what? I wanna find out. Yep! I’m going to find out I think. This is where I have fun. IDGAF if it’s cost effective or not. It’s just fun.

When you have a few spare bucks & remember what you have read over the years, you’ll find (us older guys know this!) that porting an intake is just like porting a head in terms of adding performance. Might as well add power where ya can!
Being that our member Pittsburghracer (John) has been tinkering and effectively adding power with his skill behind the die grinder for quite some time now, I figured he would be the guy here to talk to and have some work done to the intake.

I hope the following adventure doesn’t take me to long to get up and running and the good Lord GOD keeps me here on earth long enough to empty my toy car bank account in tinkering around!

Do note a lot of guys like to break out the calculators, slide rulers
& abacus’s to build everything. For me, it just takes the adventure out of not knowing exactly and quite frankly my friends, I don’t give a damn what the calculators say.

On with the fun, on with the adventure!

Thanks to everyone who made it this far in the post.
Thanks to John for porting this intake and posting up the results and his thoughts.