Topic: writting my own grave

[Sopcich04]

me and my friend decided under my hood wasnt chrome looking enough so we took off the intake manifold and we are trying to make it look like a mirror. does any have advice on doing this? we have been reading up online and so far is looks decent but u can see the deep cuts from the lower grit sandpaper. we called a place in WA to see how much it would cost to do it professionally and you'll never guess how much it is.....1000 dollars, seems steep for polishing aluminum.
anyways i have another question for anyone...... how much should i put a set of exhaust manifolds off a 455block on ebay? i was talking to some guy at the TA Nationals and he said they were aftermarket manifolds designed to cope with the 3 carbs they had in the 60's, does anyone know what im talking about?

[LeighP]

$1000? You can buy new polished Edelbrock manifolds for less than 1/2 of that..... :lol:
The exhaust manifolds may be RamAir manifolds.....to get the best price you'd have to correctly identify the application (vehicle) that they came from....post up the casting numbers and date codes off the manifolds - try over at the Performance Years forums...there are lots of guys who have detailed info on Pontiac engines over there. Also, you could try Google searching "pontiac manifolds" or "pontiac Casting numbers" etc...the info is out there on peoples websites.

[Rick]

BAN ONE is the polishing expert here.  He's even polished his windshield wiper motors on his car.  (NO, I'm NOT making that up!)  Get in touch with him and ask him about what he does -- he'd know if anybody would.

The "tri-power" intake systems were used on the early GTOs and as Hammer said consisted of 3 2-barrel carbs linked together.  They were never used on Firebirds (even gen 1s) from the factory, although I'm sure somebody has put such a system together.  Basically when GM went the spreadbore Q-jet they found they had no need for the tri-power setup -- so it was dropped.

The Ram Air engines of the early 70s (which morphed into the HO and SD engines) were the result of a lot of development work by Pontiac.  These engines had vastly improved flow rates compared to the mid-60s to late-60s engines.  You'll want 70s hardware for your gen 2 Firebird, just be sure (as Hammer cautions) that you don't try to mix round port stuff with D port stuff.  As far as pricing for what you have in hand, acertain what it is -- HO stuff goes for more than standard, and SD stuff commands an even better price, and the standard "log" manifolds used on regular 455s (non-HO/non-SD) don't sell for much.