Hot Rod motor help/info needed

[Gage]

In my '59 wagon, I have a 390 with a Edelbrock Manifold and a 4 barrel carb. What I want to do is put a 2 barrel on it for the Minden trip. Doesn't someone make a risser/adapter block that I can run the 2 barrel on the 4 barrel manifold. I for the life of me can't find it.

Have a good day,
Gage

[Arne]

What I used to do on my 4 barrel when I was in college was disconnect the arm that opened the second set of plates..... when I felt like fooling around instead of getting good gas mileage, I'd put the little arm back on....

That was when I had a big cube Buick v8 in a chevy...... lots of power, lousy gas mileage when driven by a college student.... but the roar of the 4 barrel was very rewarding.... lots of air getting sucked through...

[SteveH]

Gage,

Summit sells one here: http://store.summitracing.com/default.a ... &x=46&y=12

However, I agree with Arne, just disconnect the secondaries. It will save you the cost of the adapter, carb, and the hastle of changing it.

By the way, what carb do you have on there?

[Denzagrad]

[quote="Gage"][b][i][color=darkblue]In my '59 wagon, I have a 390 with a Edelbrock Manifold and a 4 barrel carb. What I want to do is put a 2 barrel on it for the Minden trip. Doesn't someone make a risser/adapter block that I can run the 2 barrel on the 4 barrel manifold. :thinking: I for the life of me can't find it.

If its an old quad you can save a lot of gas by disconnecting those big secondaries. Check to see is you have vacuum operated secondaires though.

[Kevin A]

In my '59 wagon, I have a 390 with a Edelbrock Manifold and a 4 barrel carb. What I want to do is put a 2 barrel on it for the Minden trip. Doesn't someone make a risser/adapter block that I can run the 2 barrel on the 4 barrel manifold. I for the life of me can't find it.

Have a good day,
Gage

Gage,

Here's a link to Holley's version of what you're looking for http://www.holley.com/HiOctn/ProdLine/Products/FMS/FMSCA/7467.html However I'm going to have to agree with some of the others who have responded. If it's fuel mileage you are looking for on the trip to Minden, I don't think a 2 barrel carb will be as efficient as the primaries in your four barrel carburetor. At one time I had one of those adaptors that I removed from my mustang that had a 390ci with a 4 barrel manifold topped with a Holley 500cfm 2bbl carb, I'll try to look around my shop tomorrow & see if it's till there. If you're still looking for one and I find mine, I'll PM you about it.

[Keith]

Hi Gage,

I have an Edelbrock Performer 500 cfm on my 327. I disconnected the secondaries so now I'm running a 250 cfm 2 barrel carb on my engine. If I need more power it takes only a couple of minutes to reconnect the secondaries. The gas milage is better when running it this way but the power is definately less.

Keith.

[Gage]

Daaaaa. Thank guys. You know I started thinking about the trip to Minden and how often I was going to have to stop for gas and saw the two barrel Holly setting on the shelf and all I could think of was how to adapt it to the setup that I had. Didn't even think about just unhooking the secondaries. And for me, it's just unhook a vacuum line. How simple can it be? Again thanks for getting me to think another way.

Oh, the engine is not a true 390. It's my verson of a 352 police intercepter. It's a 352 block bored .060 with 427 hirise heads with big valves and enlarged ports, early Edelbrock manifold with opened up ports and then a 4 barrel, double pumper on top with vacuum secondaries. It starts looking for a gas station around a 100 miles and it doesn't run on reg. A simple mod but works good. Now you know the rest of the story. Taking the teardrop back to Minden because I won't have enought money for a motel after buying gas to get there (and back).

Have a good day and again thanks.
Gage

[SteveH]

Gage,

In tuning my hotrods I've learned the carb, of course has an impact on fuel milage, but not near as much as ignition timing. Not just initial timing, but cyntrifical advance curve and vacume advance. On my larger small block Chevys (377 and 383) I get the best mileage when the initial and cyntrifical advance is fully engaged by 2250 RPM and a total of 38 degrees of advance, and another 10 degrees vacume advance coming in above 10 inches of vacume.

I can simply disconnect the vacume advance and see my mileage go from 18 down to 15.

On the carburetor, if you want fuel mileage, get one of the electric choke 650 cfm Edelbrocks. The mechanical choke version is jetted for max power, and the electric choke version is jetted for mileage.