A customer brought in a Summit Stage 3 intake to show me the other day. Here are a few pictures of it. This is essentially an Edelbrock Air-Gap RPM. Trust me, the pictures do not do justice to the poor quality control, bad casting and sub-par machining. Summit1.jpg shows the uneven shape of the ports. No two ports were the same size or shape. The very edge of each port had been hit with a tootsie roll leaving very uneven edges to the ports. The front and rear gasket surfaces were as cast. There was an attempt to machine the gasket surface but the cutter only contacted the surface for part of each pad leaving low spots. Summit2.jpg highlights heavy casting flash at the parting seams, marginal cleanup with a grinder to smooth the part. Over all ugly and no attention to detail. Look into the Plenum and try not to cringe. Summit3.jpg shows the large web of aluminum between the front two ports as well as the uneven surfaces where the intake bolts go. With this much variation in the surface, it will be hard to get uniform bolt torque. Summit4.jpg shows lots more of the same. I bolted this intake down to a fresh motor that was destined to get an Air-Gap manifold. I had difficulty hand threading the intake bolts with this intake but no problems with the Edelbrock. I am sure that the front and rear gaskets would not have sealed. It would have required using a bead of silicon rather than gaskets. Gasket matching the intake would have required a lot of work as the ports were nowhere near uniform or even correctly centered. Some ports were all the way to the left of the gasket opening while another port on the same side was all the way to the right of the gasket opening. From an appearance point of view, I would be embarrassed to put this on a customers car. The owner of this one offered it to me for my beater Maverick but I just couldn't quite bring myself to accept it.
There is little quality control in anything made in China, but some people still buy the crap cause it is cheap, then end up buying another item to replace it. I would send it back to Summit, and tell them that it is an inferior item and if that is what they are importing to put their name on, they better look for another source and take me off their customer list.
It appears that the carb would lean forward on the intake...is it that way in reality? or just an optical illusion in the picture? Was that on purpose? I know I would want my carb to have the fuel flowing more to one side than the other...
Wow, that is rough looking! Just about all American V8 intakes lean the carb front something like 5 degrees to keep it level because engines/trannys are generally tilted rearward.
that's what you get from china. i will pay more usually than to buy the chinese product. i like the adds that say similar to edelbrock.
The only china stuff that turns out ok is the stuff sent here to be finished machine. Even then it's a crap shoot with lucky dice:16suspect I remember when almost all the shops started selling the china Brake rotors and drums. I just turned them all on the lathe before installing them. I didn't have a choice. They soon learned the comebacks and pissed of customers weren't worth the hassle. I still install a fair share of china rotors/drums but they are machined in the USA. I prefer to install Raybestos Rotors as they are made in Italy/Canada/or USA and Engineered to exact OEM specs to "T" The Sad part is I believe almost all Cranks/Rods are cast/ forged in China/Tiawan/etc.....these days. Just machined here in USA. I understand the Companies like eagle/Scat, are very picky though and have companies do it to there specs. I understand CAT stuff is suspect on quality? I could care less if the quailty is there but......
Man that looks terrible! Thanks for posting that pic, I was going to buy a Summit stage 2 (Stealth copy), but not now! Even if it looked perfect, the "made in china" label would keep me from buying it. I am the type to go into a store and find what I want, then look for the one "made in USA", even if it costs a little more. Dave
I was considering buying one of these myself. When I saw this P.O.S., I knew I had to show the rest of you what I was seeing. Yes, it would work. No, I would not want it on my car. For $30 more you can get one that is vastly superior. If the $30 is the determining factor, wait, save you money for another few weeks, and be happy that you skipped the instant gratification. :evilsmile I hope that these pictures have helped at least one person to make a more informed decision about whether or not this is the right part for them.
Buy American whenever you can! Everyone freaked when Harley went AMF.I would not want my comet or maverick to go AMF!
yep.. some stuff is good some stuff is not. but if you got SCAT or Eagle in your car... they are made in china. you can't beat labor.... don't get me started about the Union in the US
I wouldn't knock Chinese manufactured parts. Just like in the US, each company does things differently and quality control varies greatly by company. I do computer work for a company that sells cast iron products. Every part they sell is manufactured either in Mexico or in China. Final machining is done locally in Santee, CA. Their products are manufactured to very tight specs. When they first started, they spent months touring foundries all over China and Mexico to select the ones they wanted to try. Then they wrote contracts that specified the standards that the parts would meet. Any parts received in that were out of tolerance would be marked as scrap and not paid for. The first few shipments had quality issues and were rejected. Every discrepancy was documented and shown to a representative of the foundry. By the third shipment, there were zero problems with the products received. Now they have cheap castings that are better quality than when the parts were made in the USA. As for the unions and what that has done to America......We can discuss that on some other forum.
thank god i didnt buy that p.o.s. i just ordered the rpm air gap for my 331, glad i went with my 1st choice
