Edelbrock Air Gap Cheap Knockoff
I thought it was the dude from Blueprint ( Johnny Mac ?).
Yup! Twas me. Usually someone jumps right in to tell me that I'm wrong, they have seen the off brand intakes do fine, so I haven't chimed in, in these off brand vs edelbrock intake threads for a bit, but I remain firm that I have personally seen the common off brand "dual intake bolt pattern intakes" take a 480 HP 408. And choke it down to 450 ish.
Threw the edelbrock back on, and boom. 480 again.
Now, that's ONE engine combo. MY belief is the smaller the cam, smaller the engine, the less it will care. Thats my BPC4085CTC at 6000 RPM. A mild 360 with a 5000 rpm redline wont care as much.
Think of anything airflow related....a 950 carb on a stock 360 will run rich, but be drivable, and still make whatever "peak" HP was.
Throw a 600 cfm carb on my 600 HP smallblock...it'll scrub 100 HP and 1000 rpm.
Think of changes by parts as percentage losses or gains.
5% gain /loss on a 300 hp engine is 15 hp. That's PEAK. what is it st 2800 RPM? 8?
5% of 480 is 24hp again peak... all wound out.
Peak is what "everyone" cares about. What you Feel is torque. And where the engine lives 70% of the time is sub 4000 rpm.
it's all relative to the engine, rpm, and what you are doing with it.
Only the user can make the call if the savings matters enough to them to chase the "real" intake vs the knockoff.
Chasing numbers? Go edelbrock.
Building a 5000 rpm truck engine with a small cam....save $***, or chase 20 peak hp. End users call.
Hope that helps the thought process.!!