FE Intake Adapter

[jayb]

Looking good Jay. With the distributor hold down, is it possible to move the bolt hole a bit further toward the front of the adapter? That may give a bit more clearance.

That is a really good suggestion; I'll look at that - Jay

[funsummer]

Jay,
Any measurement taken on carb plate height of the 351 manifold fitted to your adapter?
Compared to FE rpm performer?

I think this adapter is fantastic, just hopping i can fit it under the hood!!

[jayb]

It is taller than a normal FE Performer RPM.  Front carb height (Dimension A as defined by Edelbrock) for this setup is 5.875", and rear carb height (Dimension B) is 7.5".  The FE Performer RPM is lower, at 4.875" and 6.0"  So the carb would probably sit about 1 1/4" higher with the intake adapter and the 351C Performer RPM.

The 351C Edelbrock Torker may actually be lower than the 351C Performer RPM.  I will measure it and also try to provide dyno test data on that manifold this weekend.

[NewFalconOwner]

I am sorry I haven't read the whole 19 pages, but are you adding an oil fill tube for guys with no holes in their valve covers?? or will we need to get new covers.

I may still be interested in one of these

Rick

[jayb]

I was hoping to be able to put an oil fill tube in the intake, but there just wasn't room.  Alternatively you could put a breather tube with a cap on the road draft tube opening, and fill the oil there.

[NewFalconOwner]

sounds like a plan,, and a pcv valve too would fit there, thanx

rick

[cjshaker]

First, glad you got it going. Second, I'm pretty amazed that the port mismatches, which are substantial, didn't affect the power negatively. It kind of throws a hook in the whole "port matching" thing and makes you wonder if you're really gaining anything by doing it on most street engines. Obviously for bigger HP applications where you're pushing the intake tract flow it would be beneficial.

As for the hold down....if you machined a small simple flat spot where the rear of the hold down goes, wouldn't that work just fine? It only needs to be big enough to allow the tail to sit level. Maybe a 1/2" wide and .100 deep or less would do it I would think. It doesn't have to be clear down near the base, as the bolt will still hold the tension against the distributor. Or is the aluminum too thin to the water port there? Just a thought.

[NewFalconOwner]

  Besides, I want to try changing cams without pulling the intake LOL!  I have a Comp 282S and a Comp 294S sitting on the shelf.  Decisions, decisions. 

Also next weekend I'll post information on how to get on the list for purchasing one of these intake adapters, in case you are interested.  Thanks to all you guys for the continued interest in this project!

try the 294S with the tunnel ram,, I will be using my custom grind cam I got off Paul, which is pretty close to that cam when I build my stroker using your adapter and a tunnel ram

[jayb]

As for the hold down....if you machined a small simple flat spot where the rear of the hold down goes, wouldn't that work just fine? It only needs to be big enough to allow the tail to sit level. Maybe a 1/2" wide and .100 deep or less would do it I would think. It doesn't have to be clear down near the base, as the bolt will still hold the tension against the distributor. Or is the aluminum too thin to the water port there? Just a thought.

Machining a flat spot is another good idea; I'm worried about hitting the water jacket passage there, but I could sure try that on one of the test manifolds and see what happens.  Maybe I've got room there...

To me, the port mismatch issue mirrors what Ford did on the 428CJ engines.  They had a pretty large port mismatch at the intake, because the 428CJ intake had MR ports, while the 428CJ heads had LR ports.  Despite all the theories about poor flow across a boundary like that, in some cases the engine just doesn't care.  I would expect to see this be a problem on a higher HP engine, but not on the 430 HP dyno mule that I am currently testing on.

[cjshaker]

If it works, I'll just take an adapter in lieu of royalties

[jayb]

You're dreamin', buddy 

[jayb]

So this weekend I was going to change cams in my 428CJ and run some of the different manifolds with it, but unfortunately I ran into a snag.  I ran my DCR calculations with this engine and decided that my Comp 294S cam would be a perfect match for this engine, so I dug the cam out for installation.  Then, I tried to dig out the lifters.  But I couldn't find them!  I looked high and low; I was sure I had another set of new solid lifters in my stash upstairs.  But no joy, and an hour of searching yielded nothing.  So, I will have to get lifters this week and save the cam installation and further dyno testing for next weekend.

With a little extra time on my hands I worked on the distributor hold down issue.  Earlier this week I ordered a Mr. Gasket 351 and 429 distributor hold down to see if they would work.  The Mr. Gasket 2502 for 260-351 engines worked, but it had to be mounted upside down to work.  Not the ideal solution.  Next I looked at moving the mounting hole, but in order to move it far enough to clear, the stock distributor hold down bracket was sticking pretty far over the front of the intake.  Finally I looked at a machining solution, and this is the way I ended up going.  I had been a little worried about hitting the water jacket by machining in this area, but it turned out I had a ton of room.  This morning I wrote the program to machine the area near the clamp flat, and tested it on one of my practice manifolds.  Everything looked good, so I put FE intake adapter #002 back on the CNC machine and did that one.  Everything looked good; here are a couple of pictures:





This is a good solution, because I wanted the stock parts to fit the intake with no issues.  Thanks to Doug for that idea; don't know why I didn't think of it myself LOL!

Also, now that I have this last issue resolved and all the machining operations finished up I am confident that I can produce these intake adapters.  See the ad in the vendor classifieds for more information on when I will have them available, and how to get on the list.

Edit:  Forgot to mention that I measured the intake adapter with the 351C Edelbrock Torker in place.  It is actually a little shorter than with the 351C Performer RPM; measurements are 5.625" and 7.375".  So, about 1/4" shorter overall.

[NewFalconOwner]

I noticed on the 351C tunnel ram the floor is cut off,, guess that's needed for all of them?

[jayb]

Actually no, you don't have to cut the whole floor away to fit, just the front part.  But that bottom finned part of the tunnel ram is kind of heavy, and it was a fairly simply operation on the CNC machine to just cut it off, so that's what I did when I modified mine.  If you wanted to keep most of the finned area, should be no problem.

[NewFalconOwner]

looks so much better without it there I think..