Intake manifold spacer thoughts

[sg777]

Whst are your thoughts on the gains of an intake manifold spacer?

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[Carlitos_92]

I think after you have upgraded the turbo, intercooler, downpipe, exhaust, air intake, and done a full tune, it might be worth asking this question.

 

[EngineeredDetails]

It would be a complete waste of your money. All it would do is effectively increase your runner length and maybe if you're lucky it would just shift the hp/torque curve over some other desirable rpm range but I doubt it. Your intake manifold spacer or even a throttle body spacer is after the MAF so it's already metered air passing through there. And it's also direct injection. So just save your money and invest it elsewhere.

 

[TORQUERULES]

Only if it has the provision for fuel injectors with plans to run full E85 on a max effort build with an auxiliary fuel controller. Otherwise, a waste of money. A gimmick.

 

[Master Blaster]

Whst are your thoughts on the gains of an intake manifold spacer?

On the Ecoboost, making the intake runners longer on a turbocharged engine seems pretty counterintuitive. The intake does not run at atmospheric pressure. You want the runners as short as possible to reduce turbo lag. The ram effect at 13k rpm is more easily accomplished by swapping to a bigger turbo.
On the Hybrid, the longer runner length is everything. Unlike the Otto cycle, its an Atkinson cycle engine, and it is normal for the intake charge to be pushed a long way back into the runner. Unless the charge is exiting the intake completely (i.e. your cam phaser is broken), changing the runner length would do nothing.

 

[Phimosis]

Whst are your thoughts on the gains of an intake manifold spacer?

Gains? The only gains you’re going to see is a gain in the corporate profit of the company you’re giving your money to.

A spacer effectively makes the intake runners longer, which tunes the peak torque output to a lower rpm range. The “tuning” is the timing of pressure waves caused by the intake valves opening. For example, a 4 cylinder at 4,000 rpm has an intake valve that opens every .0075 seconds. If the intake port air velocity is 250 fps, the air travels 19 inches in .0075 seconds. With intake runners 19 inches in length, a pressure wave will be arriving at the intake valve, right as it opens, which improves cylinder filling and will increase peak torque at the tuned frequency by around 5%.

That concept works effectively on N/A engines where you want to boost low rpm torque output.

Add a Borg Warner K03 turbocharger to the engine and each vane in the impeller is adding a pressure wave. The impeller has 9 vanes. At 100,000 rpm impeller speed, that is a pressure wave every .000066 seconds, or every .19 inches that the air moves, at 250 fps.

Basically, the turbocharger makes port tuning by varying port length, impossible.

The expected result of adding an intake spacer to a turbocharged engine is: no change in torque or hp peak, no change in peak rpm and no change in the area under the curve.

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