Which intake manifold

With that displacement and the rest of the combination I would never even consider a DP intake.
^^^^This 100%.....That plus a 3500 converter and wanting to run 9's.....Not exactly what I would call optimal or realistic. A good converter (with a trans cooler) will not fry your transmission driving around town.

For what its worth, I drive my low 10 second car with an 8" ~5200 RPM converter all over town AND to the race track, win(and lose) races and drive home...nothing other than standard trans maintenance. My point being, you don't have to botch your entire combo by buying a crappy converter to make it "streetable"....just my 2 cents.