Intakes

[NixVegaGT]

I had recently decided to simplify my engine build by going with a carb. I did some research and picked the Q-jet. It's a pretty fascinating design. Lot's of room for tuning. The carb is gigantic though and after I looked through my performer manifold and saw that the flange pretty much cut half-way through my q-jet's barrels I started looking around for an alternative. Something with a spreadbore flange.

Pretty much found nothing out there. Then I found this used intake for sale in south Australia:

I called the company selling it (Triumph Rover Spares) and bought it! Hopefully it will work well. I'm planning on keeping the performer I currently have and swapping it out with a flange adapter to see what the difference is in power curves. I won't have results until spring probably but I'll keep you posted.

[motormouth]

Wow, that's quite a piece, one I've never seen before. I look forward to your future post on what it does for performance.

If anybody's interested there's a Hilborn fuel injection system for the 215 on eBay just now. No pump. Ends about 10:45 pm central time 11/7. (I have no connection to the sale or seller.)

I'd love to have a dual-quad for the 215--though it's hardly necessary for my stock-displacement motor. Anybody seen one of those? (I did see reference to a car with one in a list of vehicles that attended some function at D&D Fabrications in Michigan, tho no pic).

[Moderator]

Nic, I think that's the same model manifold shown here, isn't it?  


(see the Lorrenz Hassenstein photo gallery entry for more photos/info)

When you receive your manifold, please consider sending in detailed photos and measurements. One of these days we'll put together a detailed article comparing all the available manifolds. (Dan Jones has already compiled a lot of info and photos in this area. Maybe we could twist his arm to contribute too.)  I'm trying to build up a huge file cabinet of photos so we'll have them ready as future articles require them.

Kris, you said dual-quads... but are you sure you're not thinking of the dual 2-barrel Kurt Schley used to have on his Olds 215? (As if one carburetor weren't bad enough! You really are a "retro guy" aren't you? You're not alone, but Kurt has switched to an Edelbrock 4-barrel...)


(see the Kurt Schley photo gallery entry for more photos/info)

[motormouth]

Quote: "Kris, you said dual-quads... but are you sure you're not thinking of the dual 2-barrel Kurt Schley used to have on his Olds 215? (As if one carburetor weren't bad enough! You really are a "retro guy" aren't you? You're not alone, but Kurt has switched to an Edelbrock 4-barrel...)"


I've heard of the dual twos. As small as the 215 intake is--Nic can't fit a Quadrajet on one --the idea of two four barrels up there is silly. They're available for a 289/302 Ford, though, and I've got most of the pieces--except for the sleeves and Ford 255 pistons--for a stroker 289 Olds.

But again...just silliness. I wanted a Hilborn setup and stayed up till 2 am a few years ago to win an auction for a full vintage system. Then the guy wouldn't sell it for the winning price. He wanted a $100 more, for $850 total, and in retrospect I shoulda bought it, but it was one of those spells where $850 is hard to justify and stay married. :^) .

[BlownMGB-V8]

I seem to recall seeing a dual quad inline setup somewhere, probably something Dan Jones had. That'd be a good substitute for your Hilborn setup but probably more money. Come to think of it, isn't there a Hilborn on ebay about to end? Maybe you could grab that one.

Jim

[motormouth]

I saw that one on eBay. Stacks were too long for my purposes though and it didn't include the pump. I haven't gone out to see but I bet that went for over $1,000, which is more than I have for that extra right now. As far as spending on a car that's not my daily driver goes, I need to put an exhaust system on the TR and I'm piecing together a Muncie/Hurst setup as a vintage backup to my TR8 'box.

Kris

[hoffbug]

Seans Hilborn went for $2152.77!

Is that a Huffaker ,Harcourt, or a factory intake Nic?
I wasnt aware that there was a spreadbore design on a single plane manifold.

So for aftermarket intakes there is.....

The Huffaker ( single plane, discontinued)
The Harcourt. (single plane, discontinued)
The willpower ( single plane) Carb or FI
The Wildcat. ( single plane) for Wildcat Stage 2, or stock Rover heads
The Edelbrock (dual plane)
Offenhauser ( various)
Various webber/Dellorto manifolds.

[Greg55_99]

Willpower for FI



Greg

[hoffbug]

That looks sharp Greg.

Nic.. Is your intake water heated? I think thats the only heated single plane I have seen for the Buick/Rover V-8

[NixVegaGT]

I think it's a modified Harcourt. We'll see. I haven't been able to squeeze shipping information from them via email so I'm likely going to call them Sunday. I think the flange is modified for the Q-jet...

[NixVegaGT]

Nevermind. I just got the intake. It is very close to fitting the Q-jet. It is off by about 100 thou in width for the secondaries. Maybe it was modified for an edelbrock carb... I will take some pix when I get the chance and post them. The tubes from the coolant ports turned out to be an intake heater. Kinda crude but functional. The floor of the intake is rounded. It looked more flat in the picture. The carb does sit right on top of the studs so it was made for some type of spread bore carb. It looks like it fits really well. That's a bit of a surprise. I have actually never heard of a single plane made for a spread bore. Hmmmm.

It looks like if I modify the flange a little wider to accommodate the secondaries it leaves me with just over a 1/4 inch to either side of the secondary barrels for vac sealing. Is this enough? I figure it should be. What do you guys think? It's pretty tall. That might be an optical illusion though I suppose with no heads to judge that off of.


OH I forgot to mention that the coolent housing is not from this manifold. It appears to be from a Wilpower intake and welded in. Interesting...

[NixVegaGT]

OK I've got a bunch of pix of the intake. Here's what it looks like with the Q-jet on it:


Here's  a shot of the flange and the underside of the Q-jet:


It sits pretty high! and the floor of the intake is rounded. I couldn't get a good pic of that but here it is anyway:



You can read about it in greater detail on my Induction page:
http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2357894/3

[NixVegaGT]

I found a great link a few months ago when I was researching alt induction options. I was reminded of it this morning. Check out this motorcycle carb idea... Pretty cool. I bet you could fab a crossover for a sidedraft version.



Anyway here's that link. Pretty cool:

http://www.mez.co.uk/ms12.html

[motormouth]

Great page, thanks.

Given the Rover lineage, I should have figured there would be a lot more cat-skinning approaches out there. Some of these guys are really innovative--though it sounds from the text as though not all of these setups functioned as well as they looked.

Kris

[NixVegaGT]

BTW, Kris. Where are you in MPLS? I'm in NE...

[motormouth]

I'm in S. Mpls. If you know where the Parkway Theater and Pepito's Restaurant are--both owned by my friend Joe--those businesses are under 100 yards from my house--1926 bungalow with one-car garage. Doh!

I wonder if you ever go to Diamond's coffee shop on Central. A lot of wrench turners go there. If so, I probably know you by sight. Just saw your post. I've got a lot of messages up here by now and it's hard to keep track....

Kris

[NixVegaGT]

I haven't been to Diamond's yet. I'll go now though! I usually pass by Columbia Grounds or Audubon Coffee because they are closer to me.

The Parkway theater is near Minnehaha park right? I saw Far and Away there with my new Wife 15 yrs. ago! LOL! I haven't thought of that for a long time. We lived at 24th and Clinton across from the Institute of Arts back then. WOW. We should hook up sometime. I'll PM my contact info to you.

[motormouth]

That QuadraJet looks pretty honkin' up there. Be interested to hear how your Vega runs with it.

What displacement and compression are you running?

[NixVegaGT]

It is a gianormous carb isn't it? Technically it's a 750cfm carb but it's built-in cfm limiting function makes it pretty useful. My engine is 3.74 bore x 3.4 stroke. It works out to about 299 ci. I'm going to round up to 300 though. Based on my calculations I should have about 11:1 I hope. We'll see. I might shave the heads a little to make it better.

It may take some fiddling to get it to run good numbers. I'm looking forward to finding out what she'll do as well. I'm running 1.72" intake valves and 1.495" exhaust. A little porting. Everything is blueprinted and the cam numbers are warm...

Crower 50232 with an intake lift of 0.488", an exhaust lift of 0.490", Duration 276º, Duration at 0.05": intake 214 degrees, exhaust 218 degrees. Lobe separation angle: 112 degrees.



I'm shooting for 275hp. What do you think?

[motormouth]

Sounds cool. You must be running a Rover block? Along with D&D there's another 215 specialist on the west coast, Baker is his name, I think, and he was covered extensively in the Hot Rod article on boring and stroking the 215. He felt the motor was sound to about 289 c.i., which is what I have planned--if time stands still while simultaneously handing me a few grand gratis. This will use the 300 heads and crank, 255 Ford pistons, Chevy 327 rods... As usual, it'll be a vintage-style buildup. :^)

[NixVegaGT]

I never had the balls to sleeve the 215 I had... It's definitely old school! The way I see it though a pretty mild 289 has got some good numbers for an engine that weighs 320 lbs. I bet it'd work fine if it was a street car. Right? I think most builds are a bit over the top lately anyway. Everybody's always shooting for 500 hp or something. I'll take a warm 275 hp in my 2300 lb. car all day... Yeah?

After lots of fretting I ended up with the Rover block. It wasn't inexpensive but not too bad. Not too plentiful at the time. I just had a little more piece of mind for performance. I was thinking I'd push it a bit too...

I always figured if I did sleeve the 215 I'd also fab a girdle for the main caps. Something that tied in the block skirt. I bet that would help structural rigidity. It's got to...

[motormouth]

When I finally get my second 215 in the works (gotta get the TR6 powered by the first one on the road first!), I'd like to hear your ideas about that--the particular design you were contemplating. I have an ace fabricator friend who can make near anything happen--he's an engine builder too, owner of Adelmann Engines.

Come to think of it, one of these years I'd love to take a welding class. Be fun to try some of these mods myself. I got more ideas than skills. :^)

[hoffbug]

Phil is a great guy. I just talked to him this week.
He is getting old..... his son and daughter in law have tried to inventory all of the stuff he has accumulated over the years. I believe his son is selling stuff to sand racers and truck pullers.

[motormouth]

Do you mean Tom, owner of Adelmann Engines in MN? Or are you maybe talking about Phil Baker, the Seattle-based 215 guru?

[hoffbug]

Phil Baker