Cylinder Head Innovations (CHI) has become a popular name in engine building circles over the past decade. Not willing to rest on their past accomplishments, CHI has begun to expand their line to include intake manifolds for most popular US made muscle cars.
“It’s a bit of a new direction for us,” says Scott March of the manifold product line. “We have intakes for drag, dirt oval, classics and street cars now.”
CHI boasts of a complete line of Chevy manifolds, all for the venerable Gen I SBC. From 23 degree, 18 degree, 15 degree and 13 degree angled heads. For Fords, CHI has tailored their product line toward the 9.2 Cleveland and 9.5 Windsor.
March says the choice of any good intake is to match it with the rest of the engine. “The key to making excellent torque and horsepower comes from using the smallest port for a given amount of airflow and then matching the correct port size to the airflow requirements of your application. It is extremely important to have this relationship working properly, as engines can only consume a nominal amount of air. This is often the reason why so many combinations don’t work very well.”
March reasons that the new line of intakes will work extremely well on CHI cylinder heads. “Our intakes are made from the same A356 aluminium as our cylinder heads, but unlike other manufacturers, our manifolds are heat treated to T-6 for unsurpassed durability.” By manufacturing the intakes out of the same material as the cylinder heads, heat transfer issues should be minimal or non-existent.
“Most of our new intake designs are custom manufactured for spec rule classes,” explains March. “We’ve worked with some of the world’s top engine builders to design and manufacture manifolds that have the best horsepower and torque curves on the market today. Through countless hours of testing and modifying a variety of different manifolds, we have come up with a formula for optimizing cross sectional area, velocity, and fuel atomization characteristics.”
To check out CHI’s latest line of manifolds or their popular cylinder heads, visit them at www.chiheads.com.au