GRAND PRIX 79 Grand Prix Resurrection
- Thread starter CDUNIGAN1981
- Start date
I dream of that.. but was trying to save that conversation for the body shop when the time comes.
I read the Performer was just an aluminum version equivalent to the stock Pontiac cast iron manifold. The Performer RPM was a tiny bit better but at a clearance cost. FWIW independent testing by Jim Hand and others has determined that the stock Pontiac cast iron unit was just about perfect for a Pontiac motor and even the Pontiac SD/RA aluminum versions were not a whole lot better. If you are not going balls out racing I would stick to a stock Pontiac or the Performer. http://silverstatepontiacs.com/jharticles/jharticles14.html
Get the intake, back half it, and get a pro stock scoop. You'll have plenty of room to grow. You can't have a hood scoop with little tires; it's a rule.
Do it! I love mine!
Seriously, I couldn’t fit a Performer on mine with the 400 engine. I couldn’t close the hood without removing the insulation and going to a really low profile ,dropped base air cleaner that was literally robbing me 61 horsepower on the dyno!
That was the main reason, besides the looks, that I did a shaker conversion.
If you want to stay with the stock hood you could also go to a TorkerII manifold instead of a Performer you will gain about an inch and a half of clearance. I’m sure you could find someone to swap you manifolds if that is the direction you want to go.
I have a regular Edelbrock Perfomer not the RPM manifold on my 455 in my 84 GP with a drop base air cleaner and a 4" element with no clearance problems. You have to make sure that you are using the motor mounts for the 301ci motor because they are a lot shallower than the 400 or 455 ones. And also for a few years I had the motor mounts bolted on the wrong locations on the frame which put the motor forward and up a little higher than it should be. There are multiple holes on the frame due to the many different engines that the GP's offered, like the V6 231, Pontiac 301, Chevy 305 and the diesel engines also. So it is possible to find holes that will fit the motor mounts but are not necessarily the right ones to use. When I had to change a broken motor mount I realized this and found holes that sat back further in the frame and were lower, the result was my motor sat back further and lower than it did when i dropped the motor in the first time. And if i remeber correctly, I only used 3 out of the 4 holes for the motor mounts, one corner of the mounts goes off the frame just a little bit.
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