Good morning everyone. I was hoping to get a bit more information on the two aftermarket 4 barrel intakes I see available for the Y. I called Mr. Mummert at the beginning of the week and unfortunately, he's a few weeks out on intakes. I've seen the blue thunder available on ebay, but it's considerably more expensive than the mummert. Is this price difference justified? Thanks in advance.

I’ve got a couple Blue Thunder’s from before John’s manifold was introduced. The Mummert is a better manifold, but both require more engine work to see the potential. Both mine started out with a set of John’s ported heads (one set of 471’s, one set of 113’s), both low boost McCulloch superchargers and both bored and stroked. And headers. Starting over, I’d be using the Mummert manifold, but I’m not sure I’d see much difference in a street engine with closed exhaust.

What’s the plan for the rest of the engine? What’s the price difference?

miker
55 bird, 32 cabrio F code
Kent, WA
Tucson, AZ

Engine has an isky cam, I can't remember the exact specs, but it's the 301333. Red's headers. Gasket March porting on a set of G heads. 1.54 rockers. Bored .090 over. It's mild. Definitely a street engine. The blue thunder intake is almost $300 more expensive. Sounds like I'll just need to wait until mummerts becomes available.

For a $300 premium that’s a plan.

miker
55 bird, 32 cabrio F code
Kent, WA
Tucson, AZ

A key difference is that the Blue Thunder looks oem at a glance, if painted and retains the exhaust heat functionality that may be beneficial depending on your climate.  Other than that, performance is very similar, with Mummert having a slight edge in that area.  That said, Blue Thunder has made a lot of changes since the last dyno comparison was made.and has probably narrowed that slight gap.  When I say slight, I do mean slight.  If you had an engine built for it, you may not even notice it and if it is a typical build, you won't.  So get which ever has the feature you need or is cheapest.



Lawrenceville, GA

Also on the differences, Ted Eaton showed me something last week when I was at his shop. He had a Blue Thunder intake on a 312 that was waiting for a break-in and dyno run. The hold up was a distributor problem. (gear set too high on the shaft) At any rate, Ted showed me how because of the BT rear bolt boss on the passenger side, those TSP distributors have a little trouble with tuning. The distributor will fit into the block, no problem there. However, that rear bolt boss gets in the way of rotating that distributor due to the hold downs for HEI designed cap, etc. It's only like 30-40 degrees it will rotate back and forth on the 360. If you have a close firewall I would think you would have trouble with it. Ted says though that TSP models with the tachometer gear are not a problem since the cap sits higher. I should have taken more photos when I was there. Ted may chime in here at any time of course. 

Again, this problem is ONLY with the TSP brand of distributor. .

Daniel Jessup

Lancaster, California

aka "The Hot Rod Reverend"
check out the 1955 Ford Fairlane build at www.hotrodreverend.com

Daniel has touched on this but I’ll give more detail.  Factory (OEM) and MSD distributors work okay on the Blue Thunder intake manifolds.  I do not recall having an issue with the Pertronix distributors with the Blue Thunder intakes in the past but there’s not a Pertronix distributor here right now to verify that.

The TSP and CRT distributors without the Thunderbird tach drive do sit lower than the TSP/CRT models with the tach drive.  Only on the Blue Thunder intakes does this create a problem in that the TSP/CRT distributor cap hold down clamps are positioned such that the distributor has difficulty in having adequate rotational movement for timing purposes if positioning the distributor so that the vacuum advance chamber is not turned towards the fire wall or rear bulk head.  The Thunderbird versions of this distributor with the tach drive have a higher positioned cap and clear that rear boss on the Blue Thunder intake manifold just fine.

I do get requests for the Blue Thunder intake instead of the Mummert intake due to the BT intakes having an appearance that will pass for ‘stock’.  A majority of Thunderbird owners are pro-Blue Thunder intake for this reason and especially when the intakes are painted to match the engine color. And Charlie has also brought up the heated crossover in the Blue Thunder intakes which is a plus for those who drive their Ys in cooler weather.

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

The BT and Mummert aluminum intakes are very similar in performance as cast.  I have ported probably 40 or more over the last 13 years for forum members and local guys.  Here is a picture of the as cast flow figures for both of them.  I have seen 585 hp on Ted's dyno with both after porting on high performance builds.  Joe-JDC

JDC

How does a ported 57 "B" intake compare to off-the-shelf Mummert & BT manifolds under 6,000 rpm?

On that distributor issue with the Blue Thunder...Could you just "name" a different #1 terminal on the cap?  I had a "scrub" engine that had a real BEAR of a time getting the dizzy to drop down into place.  It took me a lot longer than it should have one night to get it in and it ran well enough to idle and drive around but (the short story is) the total timing was WAYYY off.   When I went to advance it to the correct total timing the vacuum port on the distributor hit the intake and wouldn't get me close to what I needed...so I spun it back around 45 degrees and put each wire one terminal over and it worked perfectly. 

Not sure if that would fix it, but it looks like the answer is to wait a few weeks for Mummert's and save some coin.