I recently bought a used 582 BBC for my chevy II bracket car. It has a Merlin X intake bolted to some Dart 380 Pro 2 heads.
I'm questioning how good this manifold is and what's a better choice.

I dont know anything about your current manifold and making a change most likely wont see much change if any on the track in bracket form.
But for what its worth I have been running Pro-Filer Sniper manifolds and really happy with them. I ran the 174X cnc heads on my blower motor and they were very impressive
The Sniper has a slightly bigger plenum than the Sniper jr but the ports are the same. Either one will require port matching to the heads

https://profilerperformance.co...iper-series-bbc.html

Ran the X on the 598 AND the 632.With the 385 head. Never one complaint. I know several that use this manifold. No complaints either But my combo "IS" with the SV1. 1650

Her is an older review on this manifold for what it is worth.

https://www.racingjunk.com/for...owthread.php?t=32147

The Merlin X is actually a pretty good manifold. You're not going to see really any difference worth noting in a different manfold, when compared apples to apples. You can get that one ported if it's not already, and still have a great manifold. I actually got to do a test on my old car several years ago where I compared an out of the box Merlin X to an Edelbrock Victor. I'd stick with it and if you're looking for a little more performance, get it ported....

quote:

Originally posted by TD3550:
Ran the X on the 598 AND the 632.With the 385 head. Never one complaint. I know several that use this manifold. No complaints either But my combo "IS" with the SV1. 1650

Her is an older review on this manifold for what it is worth.

https://www.racingjunk.com/for...owthread.php?t=32147

Hehehe, that was actually me that did that test....I forgot I wrote all of that....heheheh

I've run my dart pro2 380s with a 2927 super victor on a 555 and 582. It looks like it has some mild porting.

I have to laugh. You wrote that. See you are catching up to me with the disorder of CRS lol.
Great write up too. I haven't been on RJ forums in years

I have the same, a CNC'd 2927 on a set of CFE 385's (582). Perfect velocity and volume for this size engine.

Bob

quote:

Originally posted by TD3550:
I have to laugh. You wrote that. See you are catching up to me with the disorder of CRS lol.
Great write up too. I haven't been on RJ forums in years

I try!!! ahahhahahha

All I can add is there is probably 5 new manifolds on the market for a conventional BBC. They all have one thing in common, they are HUGE.

I think the Merlin is a good bracket style manifold. The newer ones are geared towards big engines and big RPM.