I've been exercising the old noodle again and I've gone down the rabbit hole of intake design.

As big strokers become more commonplace are new intake designs needed? Not everyone is going for lunacy inducing power levels with big engines. Lots of us are using 500+ inch engines roles that are traditionally reserved for 383 and 440 engines. The biggest limitation on the RB engine is still the cylinder head so intake manifold design has been relatively stagnant. The bigger, higher flowing heads are finding their way out into the world so it stands to reason the intakes need to step up.

Street engines in the 530 inch and larger range are begging for heads like the TF270 but the only manifolds you'll find are for high RPM screamers.

Max Wedge port window aside, are the current crop of manifolds up to the task of feeding engines of this size? It seems that they need extensive (and expensive) port work to get the flow rates demanded by larger displacement. The Edelbrock Performer RPM is the go-to manifold for the street but at what point does it become a restriction?

The basic design of intakes does not change based on displacement but on intended rpm range. Compare a 440 and 541 in a street application. in low demand situations the RPM intake is going to be more than sufficient for either engine. It might be a little more responsive on the larger engine due to displacement generating higher port velocity. Under heavier loads at moderate rpm (pickup towing a race car uphill) the 541 is taking much larger pulls on that intake than the 440 is. Run it out to 6000 rpm and the Performer RPM feeds the 440 without issue but is it anywhere near capacity on the 541?

I think doing the simple math using displacement, efficiency, and rpm is a bit misleading. That says my 541 demands something in the neighborhood of 110 cfm per cylinder. I guarantee you a 110 cfm head would choke the life out of any RB engine.

Naturally, the cylinder head plays a huge role in all of this. Massive intakes do no good (and possible harm) if the head can't keep up. For all out race applications this isn't an issue since there are some tall intakes that will match nicely with the heads. It would be nice to find a more street friendly intake that could keep up with the 330+ cfm cylinder heads. The RPM can be massaged to get there but it's a little tall for those with hood clearance concerns.

It would be nice to have the time to develop a modern style EFI intake for these beasts but the market is too small for any kind of return on investment.