Nice article. You also made a good point: "...intake air has such a high velocity passing through the manifold that it doesnt have the opportunity to absorb much heat from the manifold." The air velocity would have to be rather slow to transfer a significant amount of heat from the manifold. In that case it wouldn't matter if the manifold was exothermic or endothermic since the transfer of heat from the manifold to the flowing air or the transfer of heat from the flowing air to the manifold would be minimal either way. That being the case the material the manifold is constructed of would not matter from a thermodynamics standpoint. Do you agree?
However, in theory, by removing the metal manifold and replacing it with a plasic one, they have essentially removed a large heatsink from the engine block. Thus, concentrating heat in other areas of the bay, and possibly raising the overall temp of the bay. Since now there is less metal to absorb and dissipate the heat...in theory.
By the way, I've meationed this before, but not all '05 GTs have the plastic manifold. My '05 GT convertable has the metal manifold. It's exactly the same as the one in my wife's '03 GT.
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Andrew
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