Cobra intake w/ "B" heads ?

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Scallywag

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Searching didn't really produce the answer I was looking for, so here goes....

So I'm looking to get a new intake to add on to the plethora of items I plan to mod the engine with and came across this Cobra listing.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/96-98-Ford-...Parts_Accessories&vxp=mtr&hash=item35b8ca2fcd

The character doesn't put any sort of description besides what it came out of. I'm not savvy in the slightest when it comes to big mechanical stuff like engines etc., but from what I gather here and abroad, Cobra intakes are supposed to come with or be compliant(or better used) with "C" heads. No? Is it possible this cat has his listing incorrect?

If all is well, is that price reasonable? I thought I had seen them for a little cheaper around the net.
 
Oh my.

The intake you linked if for B heads (which you have). C head intakes are very different. Also, if you have a Gen One you will see no gains. If you have a Gen 2, you might see slight gains.

In general its not really worth the effort. Marks breathe really well, its the exhaust that needs major overhaul. Putting on some C head manifolds (larger ports, dirt cheap at $50/pair) and reducing pipe restrictions will give you the most gains.

As for price. No, too high. I would never pay more than $300 for an intake, C or B type. I have seen them go for more at times. But they have been purchased in the $300 range often.
 
Yea, I figured as much. My spidy sense began to tingle right away when I saw the advert, and since I'm no genius when it comes to this, I figured I'd confirm my suspicion.

Thanks!
 
unity said:
In general its not really worth the effort. Marks breathe really well, its the exhaust that needs major overhaul.
Click to expand...

Even with full exhaust, the Gen2 Mark VIIIs are choked in a major way with the stock intake. If you have ever seen a stock Gen2 intake taken apart like I have, you would understand. It was totally worth the effort and a half second in the 1/4 mile for me.
 
Scallywag said:
Cobra intakes are supposed to come with or be compliant(or better used) with "C" heads. No? Is it possible this cat has his listing incorrect?
Click to expand...

the 96-98 cobras have B heads just like us. same casting, slightly different cams.
99+ started the C heads. i think.
 
unity said:
Also, if you have a Gen One you will see some gains. If you have a Gen 2, you will see even more gains.
Click to expand...

There, fixed that for ya. ;)



And just a quick question unity, not trying to be a dick, can you confirm your ideas with actual experience or are you just making assumptions? Ask Lonnie over at BOC his opinion of the Cobra intake. He did the swap on a Gen1. And you already know my opinion and DLF's opinion of the Cobra intake and we are both the fastest NA Gen2 Mark8s from what I can see. Weird huh? :)
 
Yes the ebay ad intake is the cobra intake that will bolt up to your "B" heads. If you have a Gen2 you can keep alot of your stock stuff to mount this intake like throttle body and cables and IMRC's.
 
Right on the Mark said:
Yes the ebay ad intake is the cobra intake that will bolt up to your "B" heads. If you have a Gen2 you can keep alot of your stock stuff to mount this intake like throttle body and cables and IMRC's.
Click to expand...

Correct. It is a MUCH easier swap on the Gen2s. After reading some how-to articles for the Gen1, I think I would much rather keep the stock intake if I had a Gen 1 and radius/polish (terminology?) the stock intake like "driller" did on his Gen1.

He is still using his Gen1 intake after the 5.3 motor swap getting some pretty good preliminary track times with that thing providing some breath for a higher cube setup. By seeing that, I would gather that a worked Gen1 intake is a pretty damn good intake.

BUT, there is no hope for a Gen2 intake. Take it to the scrap yard lol.
 
KStromberg said:
There, fixed that for ya. ;)



And just a quick question unity, not trying to be a dick, can you confirm your ideas with actual experience or are you just making assumptions? Ask Lonnie over at BOC his opinion of the Cobra intake. He did the swap on a Gen1. And you already know my opinion and DLF's opinion of the Cobra intake and we are both the fastest NA Gen2 Mark8s from what I can see. Weird huh? :)
Click to expand...

Do ya have stock exhaust? I dont have numbers on hand. But years of forum reading have show what I said to be pretty true. Now, if someone has numbers that involve intake swap only, I would love to see them. The OP did not mention he was doing anything with exhaust. I am guessing he is though. Or a tune for that matter. Heck, a tune alone can give good gains.
 
Yeh, I've made the mistake of preaching what I read on the Internet and made a fool of myself. Then I've learned from experience and it's funny how people (yes, I've done it myself) will argue up and down about something they have never done.

I'm a little older now and I try not to do that; I almost did in another thread regarding an LSC for sale on ebay.
 
unity said:
Do ya have stock exhaust? I dont have numbers on hand. But years of forum reading have show what I said to be pretty true. Now, if someone has numbers that involve intake swap only, I would love to see them. The OP did not mention he was doing anything with exhaust. I am guessing he is though. Or a tune for that matter. Heck, a tune alone can give good gains.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, I have never had a dyno tune, so I don't have any numbers to compare for you.

I went to the track with full exhaust and stock intake in 2010. My best time was a 14.1@96.5

I went to the track with full exhaust and Cobra intake in 2011. My best time was a 13.59@101.72


A half second gain in the 1/4 mile and 5 mph in trap speeds isn't gains you would see from a cold air intake or some magical MAF, plus I run my stock 80mm MAF. I'm willing to bet my gains are over 20 rwhp and it is because the stock intake is a horsepower/torque LEECH.

That is with 142K miles on the 13.59 pass, stock MAF, NO underdrive pullies, crap mail order tune, early lock-up into 3rd gear, and front suspension that is shot.

And no one can tell me that I have a factory freak either because my car was an absolute turd before I started all of this lol.
 
KStromberg said:
Unfortunately, I have never had a dyno tune, so I don't have any numbers to compare for you.

I went to the track with full exhaust and stock intake in 2010. My best time was a 14.1@96.5

I went to the track with full exhaust and Cobra intake in 2011. My best time was a 13.59@101.72


A half second gain in the 1/4 mile and 5 mph in trap speeds isn't gains you would see from a cold air intake or some magical MAF, plus I run my stock 80mm MAF. I'm willing to bet my gains are over 20 rwhp and it is because the stock intake is a horsepower/torque LEECH.

That is with 142K miles on the 13.59 pass, stock MAF, NO underdrive pullies, crap mail order tune, early lock-up into 3rd gear, and front suspension that is shot.
Click to expand...

The exhaust is key. And any other numbers? Comparing two runs does not really say anything. It would cool if you can provide averages of all runs before an after. Would give more accurate gain numbers. The same as one does when checking fuel economy. The most I have see dyno number wise is around 10hp @ rw for a Gen II with Cobra intake.
 
unity said:
The exhaust is key. And any other numbers? Comparing two runs does not really say anything. It would cool if you can provide averages of all runs before an after. Would give more accurate gain numbers. The same as one does when checking fuel economy. The most I have see dyno number wise is around 10hp @ rw for a Gen II with Cobra intake.
Click to expand...

I've gone over my timeslips from 2010 and 2011. Obviously, the best passes are exactly what they are. The BEST passes and never repeated.

I was averaging 14.3-14.4s in 2010 and pretty much 13.7s (the most common timeslip)and 13.8s in 2011. Even if I was to average out the times, it would still show a half second gain all across the board. I understand exactly what you are saying though.
 
Don Pfau said:
There are some sites that track and list there names, the car, there track times, and separate major class distinctions. It becomes quickly apparent who's word carries the most weight with out you having to do it. Example http://www.lincolnsofdistinction.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=10588
Click to expand...

Cool. Now some mod details would be nice. This is the top 8. Some people are on here, some I dont know about.

Naturally Aspirated - Stock/Modified
driller/John Peters/93 Mark VIII/13.113 @ 104.31
Right on the mark/Frank Todaro/1993 Mark VIII/13.31 @ 102.24
Lonnie/Lonnie Doll/95 Mark VIII/13.323 @ 102.49
Sierra3/Jeffrey Skarupa/95 Mark VIII/13.416 @ 104.16
DLF/Doug Fraleigh/98 Mark VIII LSC/13.472 @ 102.33
KStromberg/Kirk Stromberg/98 Mark VIII LSC/13.591 @ 101.72
Eli/Eli Hoffman/96 Mark VIII/13.647 @ 101.85
Ponyfreak/Joe Barrett/94 Mark VIII/13.877 @ 101.52
 
unity said:
The exhaust is key. And any other numbers? Comparing two runs does not really say anything. It would cool if you can provide averages of all runs before an after. Would give more accurate gain numbers.
Click to expand...

I have to agree here.

The exhaust and intake go hand in hand and one complements the other.

While I definitely gained HP with my intake upgrade, average corrected ETs are where you really substantiate and quantify HP gains. Even then, I found it difficult because I was always adding something to the mix. LOL :D
 
KStromberg said:
I've gone over my timeslips from 2010 and 2011. Obviously, the best passes are exactly what they are. The BEST passes and never repeated.

I was averaging 14.3-14.4s in 2010 and pretty much 13.7s (the most common timeslip)and 13.8s in 2011. Even if I was to average out the times, it would still show a half second gain all across the board. I understand exactly what you are saying though.
Click to expand...

Cool. Good info. And that was my point too, sometimes best times are flukes that never happen again. So averages help a lot. And there there is a lot of "I want to gain this" and they person magically does without actually crunching the numbers. Its almost worse than the butt-o-metter results! :D
 
unity said:
Cool. Good info. And that was my point too, sometimes best times are flukes that never happen again. So averages help a lot. And there there is a lot of "I want to gain this" and they person magically does without actually crunching the numbers. Its almost worse than the butt-o-metter results! :D
Click to expand...

Exactly. And that is another reason that I am looking forward to a dyno tune and getting the car to shift it like I want to at the correct rpms with proper lock-up, etc. Keep in mind, I was manually shifting in 2011 because of the stupid tune so it was very hard for me to keep consistency. The difference between a 13.7 and a 13.9 for example was me simply just knicking the rev limiter when I was shifting. And there is also some guesstimation on when I should shift too because the mechanical act of shifting and when the computer shifts is delayed.

It just really sucked, but I found that it was absolutely necessary to shift at 6500+ rpms with the Cobra intake in order to keep my trap speeds up and net decent times and I believe that the lock-up issues in the tune were also affected in a positive way (diminished) by also shifting at higher rpms because I was in a better spot of the torque curve. These are all things that need to be addressed on the dyno, but to truly get the car to pull strong up top, manually shifting it isn't going to do it. At this point, the converter needs to actually be commanded to stay unlocked until a higher mph and god knows where my A/F ratios are at and what the car is doing on tip in to throttle. I think a bit is left on the plate in a dyno tune alone. Then if I do underdrive pullies and an Accufab throttle body who knows, but I think a very low 13 is possible and the dyno tune will give me back my consistency and lower ETs.
 
Right on the Mark said:
Yes the ebay ad intake is the cobra intake that will bolt up to your "B" heads. If you have a Gen2 you can keep alot of your stock stuff to mount this intake like throttle body and cables and IMRC's.
Click to expand...

Sounds like it can be an easy swap for sure then! I'm not really concerned about the gains as much as looks, but if the gain is substantial, it is more than welcomed! I just think this looks a lot better than the stock intake. Good info, thank you much!
 
unity said:
Do ya have stock exhaust? I dont have numbers on hand. But years of forum reading have show what I said to be pretty true. Now, if someone has numbers that involve intake swap only, I would love to see them. The OP did not mention he was doing anything with exhaust. I am guessing he is though. Or a tune for that matter. Heck, a tune alone can give good gains.
Click to expand...

I am doing something with the exhaust as soon as I figure out which one I want to go with. I have seen/heard many nice sounding Marks on Youtube that intrigue me a lot that I would like to get the same sound. Mainly these two videos catch my ear.

1997 Mark VIII LSC Cherry Bomb Dual Exhaust - YouTube

and LSCVIPs brutal sounding exhaust

Blown 97 Lincoln Mark VIII - YouTube

LSCVIPs sounds a little louder than what I would like considering the police here at "Crook" County.

LaserSVTs video with the Borla(not the chirpping vid :p) is another to catch my ear. They all sound lovely but first I figured I'd get the intake and other engine parts first before choosing which pipe system to go with. Suggestions are always welcomed. :)
 
^ Awesome write-up as is all of his threads. If you want detail and accuracy of installation, talk to this guy. ;) My intake swap is still a little messy. DLF made the intake look like a factory setup on his car.

If you have a Gen1, things will be a bit different install-wise.
 
KStromberg said:
Even with full exhaust, the Gen2 Mark VIIIs are choked in a major way with the stock intake. If you have ever seen a stock Gen2 intake taken apart like I have, you would understand. It was totally worth the effort and a half second in the 1/4 mile for me.
Click to expand...

I WAS WAITING FOR YOUR REPLY. its only worth it if your like one of us guys like that will spend anything and use any extra time and effort to shave 2/10ths off your 1/4 mi time. i think its # 56 on the list.
but its a bit pricey but it looks like its complete with throttle body and whatnot. i missed out by 5 minutes on one for $300 without throttlebody.
 
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