Can anyone tell me what type of intake manifold Ford is using on the 05 GT? Is it the half metal, half plastic variety or is it all metal? I just fell victim to a cracked plastic intake on my 96GT. The replacement they put in is half plastic and half metal. I just wanted to see if they are still using that style of intake or whether they have switched to something else?

 

I thought I heard carbon from somewhere. I could be wrong.

 

The replacement intake manifold for a 96 4.6 (same one in my Tbird) is plastic. However the coolant crossover (where they all broke) was replaced with a metal piece. Newer designs in 99+ were all plastic again, with no problems, so i assume the 05+ have plastic crossovers as well.

 

Actually the 01+ intakes have the AL coolant crossover. I do not believe the 05 have the coolant crossover like the SN95s did. the intake is plastic on the 05 just like the sn95's.

 

People whine about the plastic intake, but it does have advantages...

1) Less weight!

2) Doesn't retain heat like metal does.

 

It's cheaper, end of story.

Aluminum dissipates heat very well, as does Magnesium (which is both stronger and lighter), but also much more expensive. You dont see Cobra's with Plastic IM's do you? Or Bullit/Mach 1's?

 

Aluminum also CONDUCTS heat very well. Very, very, VERY well. And THAT is the problem. You don't want a thermal conductor for your intake. A thermal insulator (like plastic) doesn't transfer the heat to the intake air. And that is what you are trying to prevent.

Ever pick up a hot peice of aluminum? It will burn the crap out of you before you know what happened. And that is because it is conducting all that heat right into your skin. It does the same thing with air, so it can heat the air passing through it very quickly, which means the air will be much hotter after a quick trip down a peice of hot aluminum than after the same trip down a piece of plastic at the same temperature.

The only downsides to the plastic intakes is that they are structurally weaker and it is pretty much impossible to port them and get a clean, smooth finish when you are done. Oh well.

As for the intakes on the limit run cars, they are probably NOT going to be plastic. But it has NOTHING to do with aluminum being "better" than plastic. It's all cost. Sand casting aluminum is real cheap. Creating the dies for a proper die cast plastic intake manifold is VERY expensive. Unless you are going to make millions of the things, you can't afford the tooling cost.

 

I might be in the back of the class but CLASS IS IN SESSION! How do you guys know all this stuff?

Thanks!

 

Two ways MustangDan: Mechanical Engineering (aka: WAY too much time in school...) and I used to work in a die casting foundry (summer job).

Oh, and I DO have a bit more hands on experience with aluminum: I tried to gas weld it once. The small part (1/8" thick by about 1" by 3") didn't form a puddle at all. It stayed nice and solid. Right up until about 1/10 of a second before the whole silly piece because a pool of liquid aluminum! Thankfully, it was just a test piece or I would have been pissed!

And finally, my sister '96 T-Bird had the intake manifold replaced due to the cracked crossover tube. This happened the day before we had planned on going on a week long road trip. In her car of course! Bob Turner Ford here in Albuqueque got took it in Friday morning and had it back out by 1pm that afternoon. They really jumped on it to keep us on track for our vacation.