At the 2023 Ames Performance Tripower Pontiac Nations we decided to get WAY out of our comfort zone and do some REAL TIME track testing of Kauffman Racing Equipments new Trade Wind Tri-power intake manifold. We were joking in the pits that this was going to be the MOST TRIPOWER – Tripower Pontiac Nats in history!
Preparing to do an intake swap on a car you have NEVER worked on, is a bit of a task. There are a lot of unknowns and variables when working on someones car in the field for the first time and we “found” a lot of those variables!
We selected Vern Bennett from Sand Creek, Michigan and his BEAUTIFUL 1965 Pontiac GTO. Here are the details on Vern’s combination…
- 455 bored 30 =462 cu.in.
- Bottom end all stock – pistons have a little dome on them to bring compression up to 9.8 to 1
- comp cam XE268 H -10
- 1.65 Rockers
- Pontiac 6x heads with port match
- hooker headers.
- Car weighs. 3950 lbs with Vern in the seat
- Car runs 1.76 60 ft. ET. 12.85 at 103 mph 1966 Pontiac Tri power (aluminum manifold port matched to RAIV gaset) A
- Automatic turbo 400
- 3800 stall converter
- 355 gears with ET Streets that are 28 in. tall
- Motor was dynoed at 400 hp 546 lbs torque
- power band is 2800 rpm to 4800 rpm
Vern made a few runs on Friday’s Test and Tune session to get a baseline for the car for the weekend. On Friday we had the best overall air that we would see over the course of the weekend. Vern is car #448 on the timeslips. The plan was to take weather readings off of our Computech RaceAir Pro weather station as close as we could to Vern’s passes (a little bit of a challenge due to track down time etc). Vern drove past our display area in the pits letting us know he was heading to the lanes and as luck would have it, we grabbed weather readings pretty close to his actual passes.
Pass #1 with Vern’s original intake
Pass made @ Time of Day 1:09 pm
Right Lane
Weather Recorded: 12:45 pm
Correction Factor: 1.0677
Density Altitude: 2660 feet
Barometric Pressure: 28.411
Water Grains: 77
Vern ran a 12.883 ET @ 102.66 mph
Pass #2 backup to pass 1 – Everything the same – Stock Aluminum ’66 Tripower intake
Pass made @ Time of Day 3:15 pm
Left Lane
Weather Recorded: 3:45 pm
Correction Factor: 1.0709
Density Altitude: 2883 feet (+226 difference)
Barometric Pressure: 28.42
Water Grains: 75
Vern a 12.944 ET @ 102.49 mph
*Note: .061 difference in ET from run 1 to run 2. Will use run 1 for comparison purposes.
The Swap..
There was a considerable amount of planning that went into this swap before hand to try and account for any / all scenarios. There were linkage considerations that we had to account for as well as only wanting to get into the “water” one time as well. It had been a while between the last time we tried to mount an aluminum aftermarket intake to a stock cast iron headed engine as well. That required us to have to grind a little on the intake for it to clear the valve cover gaskets and stock valve covers. Not to worry, we had a grinder on hand!
One of the fitment issues that we knew about going into the swap was the linkage bracket. KRE designed this intake to MAKE POWER so some grinding was done on a stock ’65 4bbl bracket that we acquired from one of the aftermarket Pontiac parts suppliers. A little pre swap grinding and we were good to go.
This is a time lapse video of the swap as we performed it at Norwalk on 7/21/2023.
By the time we got everything back together, we had missed the start of the gamblers race and decided that we would run the car on Saturday, 7/22/2003 with the new combo.
Saturday 7/22/2023 testing
To be honest…. we did NOT expect to see much improvement in Vern’s combo as it is a very mild combo and we have found the stock ’66 Tri-Power to be good up to about 500 HP. Vern’s combo is making about 400 HP. We have to say we were pleasantly surprised!
Pass #1 with NEW KRE Trade Wind Tri-power intake
Pass made @ Time of Day 11:00 am Right Lane
Weather Recorded: 11:00 am
Correction Factor: 1.0712
Density Altitude: 2888 feet
Barometric Pressure: 28.406
Water Grains: 78.4
Vern ran a 12.847 ET @ 104.18 mph
Pass #2 with NEW KRE Trade Wind Tri-power intake
Pass made @ Time of Day 3:40 pm
Left Lane
Weather Recorded: 3:45 pm
Correction Factor: 1.0717
Density Altitude: 3038
Barometric Pressure: 28.51
Water Grains: 58.40
Vern ran a 12.812 ET @ 103.63 mph
Sunday Testing 7/23/2023
Pass #3 with NEW KRE Trade Wind Tri-power intake
Pass made @ Time of Day 12:23 pm
Right Lane
Weather Recorded: 12:35 pm
Correction Factor: 1.0730
Density Altitude: 3005
Barometric Pressure: 28.41
Water Grains: 74
Vern ran a 12.747 ET @ 104.81 mph
Pass #4 with NEW KRE Trade Wind Tri-power intake
Pass made @ Time of Day 2:56 pm
Right Lane
Weather Recorded: 3:55 pm
Correction Factor: 1.0744
Density Altitude: 3130
Barometric Pressure: 28.459
Water Grains: 70
Vern ran a 12.815 ET @ 104.31 mph
We were trying some different shift points but this was hard to do with the way Vern’s car is setup. His car performs the 1-2 shift automatically and he can do the 2-3 shit manually if he chooses. Normally he shifts the car fairly low in our opinion for the combo, but it did seem to ET the best when the car was short shifted.
Taking the BEST stock ’66 Tri-power pass of 12.883 ET @ 106.66 mph vs the best KRE Trade Wind ’66 Tri-power intake pass of 12.747 ET @ 104.81 mph (which was in worse air – DA was +345 feet) It looks like the KRE Trade Wind intake was worth .136 in ET and + 2.15 mph! Not too shabby for just bolting the intake on and going.
On a side note, Vern has gone out to do some more testing at his local track. The air was a bit better and Vern has subsequently laid down a 12.663 at 105.08 mph! After that, Vern has decided to give that KRE Trade Wind intake a new home as he will be keeping the intake.
I would like to thank Vern Bennett for participating in this testing as well as all of my crew (Craig Dienes and my son, Kevin Swaney). Special thanks to Jeff Kauffman for jumping in to lend a hand as well.