3933198 intake ?

[Howard Nardick]

I have an intake here that has the number 3933198 on it except the "98" is hand stamped, can anyone tell me how to tell if this a "real" #198 or a 3933163 with the last two digits removed and replaced with the hand stamped "98"??

thanks in advance!! HN.

[Joe L.]

Re: 3933198 intake ?

Howard-----

Basically, the only difference between the 3933163 and the 3933198 was the fact that the 3933198 had the center divider of the plenum cut down. This was not part of the casting process; it was done as part of the machining process. So, a 3933198 could easily be made from a 3933163 casting. And, that's exactly what the factory did to manufacture many of these manifolds. The 3933198 was such a low-production piece that this made a lot of sense. When they did this, they removed the last 2 digits (sometimes 3 digits) of the casting number and restamped them. This was a rather unusual practice since many different finished parts were manufactured from the same castings without modification of the casting numbers. However, I expect that manifold casting numbers, which were often different than the part numbers for the finished manifolds, came to be identified by the casting numbers. So, the factory took the step of changing the casting number. For the 3933198 manifold, this type of grind-and-restamp is a known fact.

Whether or not that the manifold that you have is a factory re-stamped original or one that was done "later" is really impossible to tell if the work was done exactly the way that the factory did it. In this regard, the cut-out of the center divider was performed by the factory with 45 degree cuts on either end. Plus, the depth of the cut was 0.19" (early) and 0.31" (later). So, you could check for conformance with these features. Still, if someone performed the changes outside of the factory and took the care to duplicate all of the factory features and specifications, then I don't think that they'd be any way to tell the difference.

[Clem Z.]

Re: 3933198 intake ?

joe i think you are incorrect on the depth of the cut it was cut to leave a 1/4" high ridge between the plenums at the bottom.

[Steve Miller]

What was Application?

If this is an obvious question, please humor me. What was the application of this manifold?

Steve

[Clem Z.]

Re: What was Application?

it was used on L-88 corvettes and also sold over the counter. i have a couple here we used on race cars when we ran big blocks. we never found a after market manifold that made better power than this chevy manifold

[Joe L.]

Re: 3933198 intake ?

Clem-----

I've never actually measured one. However, the specs that I mentioned are the GM specs for the plenum configuration on the '198' manifold.