Its still typical even in a 4 strokeV8 to make more torque they make these extra long inlet tubes going into each cylinder.... look at most fuel injected engines and you'll see this... the longer the inlet tubes, the more velocity can be generated which means lots of torque from a rather low rpm. These inlet tubes are usually so long that the tubes have to fold over themselves in order to fit under the hood a d in the engine compartment. If these inlet tubes were straight, they would need to be anywhere from 18 to nearly 30" long depending on engine size. These inlet tubes are also rather narrow to keep the velocity as high as possible, and some even taper down as they get closer to the head.
Now with that known, lets look at a typical tunnel ram where each inlet tube is only about 6 to 8" away from the head and these tubes are very wide in comparison the tubes run up to a large open plenum and each tube inlet is about 3" wide x 2" wide tapering down to the inlet size at the head, which usually needs to be ported to match the tunnel ram. The inlet runners are rather short even compared to a single or dual plane manifold, there are no curves or very slight curves as the runners just go straight up to a massive open plenum just under 2 rather large carbs... these will let a small block engine Rev up to 10,000 rpm with the right cam and large enough valves...
When you look at a tunnel rammed 350 then compare the runner length to a 5.0 Ford and compare the top end horsepower of the tunnel rammed engine to the bottom end torque of the fuel injected 5.0 you will see how this still holds true...
Now on a 2 stroke or 4 stroke engine, this runner length and diameter can be taylored to match an engines other attributes to make lots of torque down low, lots of power up high, or good all around power that's not quite as extreme down low or up high.
you can also run a medium length intake with a larger carb and taper it gradually down to the intake ports size to gain good torque without restricting the top end, the ideal taper here is usually somewhere around 1.5 degrees.... this can be noticed on sportbike engines like the gsxr, r6, r1, ninjas, and honda cbr series bikes where the intake is as straight as possible and has a slight taper all the way from a velocity stack all the way to the inlet valve.
By looking at these type engines as well as the stronger 2 stroke engines and looking at the similarities it can become easier to decide how to set up your intake to match the rest of your engine depend ding on if you want a strong top end, a strong bottom end, or a compromise of a little of both...