One other advantage of the 'short intake' if your primary use is as a cross country cruiser.  If you cruise at 8000 ft (75%) power or above and the trottle plate is wide open you should be able to add extensions upstream (toward the plenum) to tune the intake length and find the sweet spot. 

Hi Ken.  Ed and I discussed this external tuning on the list back when I was thinking of using this short intake before.  Right now, I have runners that are about 30 inches to the TB, then separate sceet tubing for each throat that extend another 15 inches or so to the bottom of the right rad duct.  I think Ed decided that my best tuning might be at idle :-) 


Luckily, I'll have the luxury of just copying what works by the time I fly.