Breath Deep
Within days of placing the winning bid on a 427 SOHC Cylinder block and heads, an auction for the factory dual four-barrel intake manifold carburetors and linkage pop-up.
The Unicorn is coming home to roost…or something like that. I’ve been looking for this engine for years, of course I place a bid for everything.
I win, everyone is happy, The End.
This is 2010 and not a whole lot of reproduction manifolds on the market and those that are are sought after as much as the originals. It’s a bizarre culture.
Having the reputation of being a high winding engine, I was expecting a single plane manifold. Ford went with dual planes for both the dual quad and single quad manifolds. Yes, they offered a single 4-Barrel manifold. Lore has it that the single was made for NASCAR where they were restricting carburetor size. The dual quad works nicely for drag racing.
The carburetors are Holley’s. They’re rated at 780 CFM each. These carbs are known as BT/BU carburetors. These are designed for the track as neither one has a power valve in them, not a lot of part throttle operation intended for these things.
When the parts showed up, I played around with the pieces. C’mon! How many chances will I get to drool over a factory dual quad induction system with an aluminum manifold?
Time goes by and plans change. I think I’d like to run this engine on the street with a single 4-barrel. In the last 5 or 6 years, I have seen several of the dual quad manifolds for sale, the majority of them are reproduction pieces. I keep waiting to see if someone will come out with a single four barrel manifold.
One day I see a post on ebay for some Cammer parts. I know who this seller is. I email Jay Brown to verify that this auction is really his. For those who don’t know, Jay is the current modern Guru of the Cammer. He has a forum called fepower.net and it’s dedicated to the Ford FE engine.
Jay is selling a few pieces for a friend and one of these items is an authentic 4-barrel manifold for the Cammer. I place a bid and win.
The carburetor for this manifold is very hard to find and when one comes up, it’s ridiculously expensive and, like the BT/BU carbs, it isn’t very streetable. My plan is to get a Holley 850 double pumper for this thing and waste all kinds of gas.
More time goes by and the car is still being built and I’m still collecting pieces for the engine.
I start thinking about putting a modern twist on an ancient engine. Actually it started with wanting to put exhaust cut-outs on the car. The drawback to the cut-outs on a carbureted car would be the engine going lean when the exhaust is opened up or rich when the exhaust is closed if the carburetor is tuned for an open exhaust. How can I get around this?
EFI!!!
Yep, I decided on a FiTech throttle body style electronic fuel injection. Yeah, yeah, you guys can roll with the Sniper EFI if you want, I’m not going to get into a debate about which platform is better right now. For the record, I think the Holley unit appears to have more tuneability and I just might end up switching over in the future but for now, I’m going with the FiTech.
I hope to be able to adjust my ignition timing through the FiTech controller.
The gas tank in the Mustang was in questionable shape so it’s been replaced with a unit that’s got a high output pump built into it for the fuel injection.
Those are the broad strokes on the induction. With so many options, I can’t say which system will be used. This is a hot rod, they’re never really finished.