[walt1120]

Originally Posted by ESG-642T You'll never see that because anybody who is doing a cut and weld is prob doing it on a boosted motor.

i figured that, but even with boost i think it would show a difference. id guess that the cut/weld makes more hp and the windstar more torque.

[9986paulk]

Well, the ability to pick up power with the stocker is in that you can remove the posts and then also open up the entire length of the runners to the gasket dimensions if you want. The windstars runners are plastic and cannot be opened up. The stock manifold's runners are shorter, though, resulting in less tq. To get the best of both worlds, you can do an F-150 upper, which is an auminum version of the windstar, but even longer runners IIRC which is why it doesn't clear the stock hood.

[2000stallion]

How hard is a cut and weld job? Is it even worth the gains? How long does it take? Ill have a good mechanic helping me and he said he could port and polish easy so i imagine a cut and weld could be much harder

[SlowSix]

Hey paul how you wanna work out the windstar?
I sent you a pm on 3.7 a couple days ago

[9986paulk]

Just PM'd you over there silversixer lol

And as far as the gains for a complete cut and weld...I'm not really sure. I'm fairly sure I'm just going to leave the rest of the manifold as it is since I can just run like 2 psi more and way more than make up for it.

I do believe the biggest gainst you will get are from removing the posts, and a little less from the gasket matching as far up the runner as you can. You really don't need to 'polish' anything, just like the finish if you can really see it on mine, not exactly smooth to the touch. It seems like a lot of extra work to do the cut/weld especially if you're not even running FI, the gains will really be minimal. You're primarily restricted by stock cam, then probably heads next.