Actually, a lot of modern n/a cars use dual stage, or even triple stage intake manifolds. On a dual stage, the fact that both runners are open is intentional. You don't get the same oomph at high end that you would from a large single short runner, but having two different runners open actually gives you *two* additional wave tuning frequencies, not just the one from the short runners. That's why the cyclone opens around 4700-5000 RPM instead of waiting until much higher RPM (6000-7000). There's not good way to have a rapid changeover without cutting off airflow and creating funky effects. The extra runners have to shut off at low RPM so that the intake velocity isn't too slow, which would hurt low end torque. At high RPM, there's enough airflow to fill both sets up runners and still keep the speed up.
So ultimately, the cyclone should give you a bit more low end torque than the stock manifold, and a total of 3 tuned RPM ranges, but because of design comprimises, it will still be inferior at the top end than a single fixed short runner design. A Triple stage intake would give you either 5 modes or 6 modes, depending on how it's designed (two runners open at once or all three open)
If you had larger short runners and a second set of butterflies to close the short runners, you'd have better top end, but your midrange would suffer during the changeover period.
The other way to do a multi-stage intake is to have adjustable trombones (probably stepper motor driven, or vacuum driven against a spring with a ) to increase the runner length at low rpm and shorten it at high RPM, but the compromise in that situation is that you can't really shrink the runner diameter at low RPM.
I don't think anyone's come up with a truely variable geometry intake yet that can vary both adjust length and runner diameter. If they have, it's either custom, very expensive, or both.
Quote:
As a general rule: The longer, smaller diameter runners are beneficial to low and mid-range power (mainly torque) and short, larger diameter runners are for higher rpm power (horsepower).
so, a true dual runner intake would have a 'flapper' that would close off the short/large runners until a higher rpm/load (depending on how you set it up) and when it hits that variable (rpm), it opens the short/large runners and closes the long/small runners, giving it the best of both worlds...In a good design, it would have a 'fail closed' on the short runners, so in the event of failure, it goes thru the long, giving it better drivability, etc.
A Cyclone manifold is a dual runner design, with compromise for the sake of simplicity...Yes, it shuts off the shorter runners, but when it opens, it still uses the long runners and the diameter of the shorter runners is not that much bigger.
(I'll see if I can find a good pictorial of this)