The Holden Project

Aftermarket intake manifolds for the 3800 v6 community is non existent unless you go out and build your own unit. However, our Aussie partners were given a much better design than us over here in Canada/USA. The runners are a tad longer, and the design is much simpler allowing someone with a few fabrication skills to utilize this design and customize a unit to their liking.

There aren’t many individuals running these intakes on this side of the world, mainly due to the fact that they are tough to get your hands on.

Holden Intake installed on Camaro
This is a dry fit of a holden intake on a 1996 v6 3.8L camaro. At this point I was taking some measurements to build a custom piece and checking out the amount of room I would have to play with.
Holden Intake manifold on F-body
Another shot of the manifold to give you an idea of how the lower portion fits on our car. It Cleans up the clutter quite a bit in the F-body

The above manifold isn’t bolted in, so don’t mind the gap you see between the manifold and the head. A number of parts will need to be modified/relocated in order to allow this manifold to work, but I will go through that when I eventually finish the custom piece and install it on the car.

Upper Intake Holden Manifold
The upper intake holden manifold that I graciously got my hands on. The throttle body area was cut out which is no big deal because that is what I was going to do anyways. As you can see, the holden manifold have a side inlet for the throttlebody and not one that feeds from the front like ours. What’s the advantage? Better air distribution across the cylinders.

I am fairly certain that this entire manifold setup weighs less than our stock unit as well, but until I actually pull the pieces back out of the car, I won’t say that for certain.

The original plan for this unit was to build a custom ITB (individual throttle body) setup. The issues of tuning a setup like that without going to a standalone unit are too complicated at this time. The plans have since changed to a new front mounted dual throttle-body setup. It is a slight compromise to the original plan, but it will be easier to tune in the end with a few less headaches.

I’ll post updated pictures and results as this project progresses. The custom manifold will begin to be built this coming Spring/Summer 2013.

Holden Inlet Manifold Complete
A quick shot of what the Holden Intake Manifold would look like if you installed it stock. Well, minus the hole to either side of the throttle-body mount area, but you get the idea.

So here you have it, I finally got my hands on the drawings for what will likely be my first prototype intake manifold. It will be built out of a solid block of aluminum (run through the CNC), with a removable top so that it can be bolted to the lower intake manifold with ease.

Custom Holden Inlet
Here is a front/side view of the piece. There is still some redesigning that needs to take place up front to smooth out the transition into the body of the unit. It features no sharp edges and a nice slope to ramp up the speed of airflow to the rear cylinders. The secret to the design is in the trumpets, which I won’t talk about.
Custom Holden Commodore inlet
Another view showing the underneath portion
Custom Holden Commodore Intake
Another shot, again, you can’t really see the trumpets here, but they have been redesigned as far as sizing, angling, and shape for optimizing airflow distribution to the cylinders
Custom Holden Commodore Intake manifold
1 more shot showing how much of a rake there is to the design. I thank my buddy for putting this design through solidworks and electronically flow testing it several times to pickup optimal angles.

We’re hoping to have this constructed sometime this summer and it will be bolted to the 3800 Camaro for testing. I’ll be looking to do a dyno pull before and after installation, just to see how effective this piece ends up being.

 

3 thoughts on “The Holden Project”

  2. Haha I’m in Aussie with a vx commodore running the 3800 and I’m looking to aiming similar using your lower intake with custom upper intake are you able to give any details into what if any mods were required to adapt the lower intake to your engine or was the lower a simple bolt in I know its an old thread but just curious to see how things went with your project. Email replies to kenmogg60@gmail.com cheers

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