Intake Manifolds - How Much Do They Weigh?
 

How much do the various factory and aftermarket intakes weigh?

A lot of us want to replace our heavy factory iron intakes with much lighter aftermarket aluminum intakes. Others have modified their factory iron intakes to remove unnecessary weight, often removing the iron front water crossover and substituting an aftermarket aluminum crossover. So for the sake of comparison it would be good to be able to know how much weight can be saved either by changing intakes or modifying them.

Weigh your intake on an accurate scale and post the weight here. Include a picture if you can.

After we start to compile a fairly complete list of all the most popular factory and aftermarket intakes I'll edit this post and make up a list for easy future reference.

1972 cast iron intake -- I was surprised it weighed just 31 lbs. . . not like the "battleships" from the Buicks and Olds motors from that era.

I've shipped a number of '67 -'72 iron Pontiac Q-jet intakes and most of them weighed right at 43 pounds packed up in the box, using a minimum-weight packing material (mostly styrofoam) that surely weighed less than 5 pounds. I would say those intakes weighed at the very least 38 pounds and likely a tad more, perhaps you could recheck the weight because 31 pounds doesn't seem right.

A 1973 cast iron intake (1st year EGR) - 47 lbs. A 1972 HO Intake without the crossover - 14 lbs.

Weighed a 70s cast iron intake once, 42 pounds, aluminum Edelbrock Torker, 17 pounds.

Well, I'll never know now since its on the car.

I've often thought about ways to cut some weight from my 70 GTO. I like that I've kept it amazingly stock looking, although not numbers matching.
The A/C compressor, Intake, Spare Tire, Cast iron exhaust manifolds, And believe it or not, the combination of the Delco AM FM stereo & console mounted 8 Track combined with all the above are akin to having a passenger in the car at all times.
In reality, probably the spare tire & jack are the only things I would remove.
Stock is stock, it's the per pound price I pay.

Bare Tomahawk - 11lbs

69 4bbl - 38lbs
71 4bbl - 40lbs
76 4bbl - 43lbs

just for the heck of it, fully dressed 65 tri-power with carbs and lids, waterneck, thermostat, etc -59lbs

All weights done repeatedly on a bathroom scale, not sure of accuracy

I had to lift my 73 intake off the engine once in an awkward position. My god my back hurt after that.

1968 4 bbl, 40 lbs. (bathroom scale)

I want to think my 73 SD intake weighed 47 or so. They had a much bigger EGR bosses on the bottom than the later 70 EGR intakes did.

Yea the Tomahawks are probably the lightest.

I'll weigh my M/T cross ram today for the survey:)

A digital bathroom scale should be pretty good as long as you're standing on the scale first holding the intake and after that getting on the scale alone and subtracting your body weight.

That's the way I did it.

I was only able to remove 12 lbs by removing the exhaust and coolant crossover, and the unused bolt bosses.

Attachment 394618 http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/...ainted/058.jpg

That's an excellent weight reduction, taking an iron intake that started out near 40 pounds down to about 28 pounds.

Next time you have it off see if you can get it on the scale.

M/T shocked me was lighter than it feels 23.8 lbs

Cast intake
 

I like your intake, got any more that look that good:D:focus:

That intake looks very familiar. Probably all of the extra weight comes from that "cross-over tube", Skip JK (;>) Its "brother" is sitting on the shelf.
It weighs 24 pounds with the same cross ram linkage and 50 pounds with 2 Holley 735 CFM dual quad carbs.

Tom V.

For an aluminum intake the Victor feel pretty heavy, alot of metal in it.

Just put a Victor on my car the other day. Didn't think to weigh it first though. It felt quite a bit heavier than the Tomahawk that it replaced

Great game I'll play ...

Edelbrock Torker = 17 Lbs

1966 389 4-bbl Carter (#9782896 - E 5 6) = 38 Lbs

1967 400 (#9790140 - L 28 7) = 37 Lbs

1967 400 (#9790140 - J 06 7) = 40 Lbs

i have a 1969/70 intake & it weighed 40lb, when it came back from SD doing their max cnc plenum & port package it weighed 36 maybe 36.5. so they ported out almost 4 lbs of metal!

The 72 musta been 41 lbs then, not 31...that's what you get for working in the garage at midnight...

got any pics of that SD prepped intake?

Both weighed on a digital scale we use at work for UPS and FedEx shipping.

Edelbrock Torker I - 15 pounds.

http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q...e/Photo035.jpg

1976 4-barrel Q-jet - 43 pounds.

http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q...h/DSC03565.jpg

Edelbrock RPM = 18,3 Lbs

1977 400 egr (#525355) = *38 Lbs *(With the plenum welded and modified to resemble Cliff's/SD's Q-jet intake and with removed water crossover)

sadly not any good ones. i got pics of every other aspect of the car/engine build but no detailed pics of the inatke. i think there was a thread recently with some good pics of SD's intake porting work.

Interesting that you have two supposedly identical, same year intakes with a 3 lb weight difference.
Any obvious differences that you can see between the two that's not apparent in the photos?

Given date codes and casting numbers, shouldn't this one and the other be 1968 versions?

Torker 2 FI with rails
 

17 pounds

RPM
 

17 pounds

1971 HO w/o crossover
 

13.5 pounds

1971 HO w/ crossover&shields
 

21 pounds

GMPP LS3 Dual plane
 

19 pounds

Super Victor FI 4500 with & w/o rails
 

20 pounds

18 pounds (No rails or hardware)

You are right. My bad. Being cast late in '67 they are for the '68 model year. Both lack the carb base exhaust channels indicative to '67 intakes. The weight difference is interesting. Both are #9790140. The one dated "L 28 7" weighing 37 Lbs has a large "4" cast into the underside of the #1 port where the other does not. The intake dated "J 06 7" weighing 40 Lbs has some very obvious casting shift and flash in most of the ports. If consistent throughout the interior it may well explain the extra weight. That and the rust is why I never used that intake. It was a freebie so no complaints. Makes a good door stop.

Came up with 13.93 pounds for a ported Victor EFI 4500 manifold less water crossover.

Intakes
 

I'll add two more. Edelbrock victor 4150 - 20 Original Nash magnesium 4500 - 11 :old:

67 Q-jet 9786286
 

41 pounds

The iron intake below weighs 28lbs. With the blocks and aluminum crossover 33 lbs.....Cliff

Just weighed an old Holley SD; 18 lbs., a lot of metal in those intakes.

1964 Tri-Power - 46 pounds completely bare with no carb studs or water fitting. Probably one of the heaviest factory intakes.

http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q...r/DSC03266.jpg

Correct cast iron thermostat housing for 1964. It weighs in at 2.00 pounds.

http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q...r/DSC02820.jpg

1966 Tri-Power - 38 pounds.

http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q...r/DSC03337.jpg

Correct cast iron Tri-Power thermostat housing for 1966. It's a lightweight at only 1.50 pounds.

http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q...r/DSC02823.jpg


Same factory iron 1964 Tri-Power intake freshly bead blasted, shown here sitting on a postal scale weighing in at a little over 46 pounds. This helps me to confirm that the shipping scale at my work is accurate, at least in 1/2 pound increments.

Surprised me to see that my 1966 Tri-Power intake weighed in at only 38 pounds, there's a lot of extra metal in the '61 -'64 Tri-Power intakes.

http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q...%20Rebuild.jpg

The tri- power intake was so clean I thought it was an alum. intake. What does the new alum. tri-power intake weigh??

51.4lbs with carb intake bolts and more. Only missing the water neck.

http://i1305.photobucket.com/albums/...psquu06qo2.jpg

Geez, i thought the Torker l was closer to 5 LB. Motivates me to weigh the ported Torker l.

... not sure on weight, but it sure is cool ... :)

Wish we had intakes like the AFR composite intakes that i see listed for SBC's
super light too