Here's some before and after pics of what i've been working on this weekend. Algon stopped by friday to lend a hand and I took her out for a drive today and tuned a little on the carbs. Enjoy.
Looks great. You are probably gonna have trouble with getting the timing worked out. That distriutor won't work with manifold pressure. If you can't get it running right start looking for a Mallory mechanical dual point or convert the one you have to mechanical advance. The 48-54 Ford distributor is design specifically to use with the 8ba carb. The vacuum is not ported or manifold. the vacuum signal is pulled from the throat of the carb at the ****erfly plate, it is essentially half manifold and half atmospheric pressure. I fought with my LOADMATIC **** distributor for a year wit caps, rotor, advance kits, condensors, wires, plugs, and many sleepness nights before I placed it in the garbage can and bought a Mallory dual point and haven't touched it in 2 years now. Probably put 8,000 miles on it now, no troubles. Just made a 650 mile trip and held 16 MPG, not one hiccup. Lots of tech on it read up.
Yep - load-a-matic, one of Bruce Lancaster's favorite test subjects for the US Navy Flotation Test... Get an aftermarket distributor, any aftermarket distributor...
Thanks for the great comments guys. So I took jrblack30's advice and did a little snooping around in the older posts and found that alot of people have had alot of problems with the advance curve. This is probably a dumb question, but... Were the mallory and other aftermarket dizzys around back in the early 50's? If not, what were all these guys running in their flattys?(mainly on the street and not just racing)
one of a few things. firstly my understanding is that the Mallory dizzy's are made in Mexico now, not that , that in itself is an issue, but , they curve them for chev curve ( at least that was the talk on alot of flathead forums) This may have changed, but the damage was done to their reputation. There are a few options that dont cost $$$ such as pertronix - debated till the cows come home. GMCBUBBA from memory was doing the chev dizzy conversion for a few $ , of you can have a go at this yourself, its in Tex Smith's book. Or the Mopar conversion, check the TECH section for that. Then if you want to spend a few $$ MSD and ACCEL make dizzys. the other option would be something like an MSD 6AL and get your original dizzy set up for mechanical advance only.
Oh theres a fair chance that those aircleaners will restrict airflow above an idle so you might want to look at them too. I had big trouble with them on my roadster.
Thanks for the tips there! Here's a quick question about the pertronix... don't these units just bolt up where the points go? And wouldn't they be affected by the vacuum advance?
again, I would get the dizzy set up with weights to suit mechanical advance only. I had my dizzy built, it came with vacuum, advance and I got that ditched for mechanical advance only. from memory I have 10 initial and 15 in the dizzy. 24-26 seems to be the magical number for flatheads, also it is all in at 2000rpm. But I have a 5 speed overdrive and I cruise at 2100 rpm I tried to get a 2x2 setup working with the original dizzy and had no luck 6 months I fought with that damn thing. now I just use it to plug the hole if I have a motor sitting or want to paint something! they should be called Load -o- ****
Like Flatoz said, the Mallory stuff these days is mor junk than any good. I had a brand new mallory twin point dissy that had a SBC ign curve in it..ratled the flathead like crazy under any load greater than idle haha. Also, the shaft bushings were that TIGHT after I initially ran it that I couldnt turn the shaft by hand AT ALL !! Not good.... As mentioned here is the MoPar tech link I posted a while ago.... http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=64765 Hope this helps.... Rat
It looks even better now with the wires on it. An Almquist throttle and a McCulloch huffer to go with the dual coils would be cool. Hey, how about you show me a less pig infested way to get to Smithville. I've donated enough to the locals lately.
Yes the Mallory distributors were around in the 50's. They had the 2 piece cap design and in the mid to late 60's they switched to the conventional 1 piece cap. They are available, here is one on ebad:. Pick up which ever type you can, mechanical or vacuum. There are alot of guy around who do restorations and conversions for these distributors.
Pertronix conversion of an OE distributor is a waste of time & money. You still end up with the advance "curve" & characteristics of the load-a-****ic. Mallory were definitely curved for SBC - don't know if they still are or not, but it's the absolute easiest distributor to recurve. It comes with a plastic "key" that you can use to set the total advance. Vacuum advance - if you're not running one, you're missing out on a little bit of economy during part-throttle cruise...I wouldn't kill myself trying to find one though. They run just fine with mech-only. Unilites have a bad rap in the flathead world - mainly with generators. I've run a Unilite on a non-HAMB car since 1987 with only one failure (and that was my fault). MSD makes a good drop-in distributor. Old Mallorys are around on eBay & at swaps. Any SBC distributor you like can be modified to work - for a mild perf application, GMCBubbas are hard to beat though...
Hi Mate, Great setup looks awesome! One question, I need to do something similar with my throttle cable setup. Where did you get the fittings that attach from the cable to the carb? Danny
Danny, The cable end is actually an end off of a Lokar throttle cable kit that I found at work. The ball end of the throttle shaft on the carb is just a hair bigger than the cable end, so I had to ream out the end a little and adjust the clip a bit to get it to work freely. This cable end is really nice because it has a bunch of adjustment too. If you need more info let me know! Nick
Hi Nick, The local speed shop was going to charge alot ot make me a custom cable but if you can use the lokar cable thats only $45 or so. When you say adjust the clip to work, do you mean inside the cable end? The little spring that locks the ball on the throttle shaft inside the cable end? Danny
Here's a few pics of the cable and cable end. I removed the clip from the end, and then I had to ream the socket larger to fit over the ball on the throttle shaft. I took this very slow as not to go too big. The hole ended up being about 9/32" or .281" daimeter. Then I had to sperad the clip a little and I used a sharp punch to dimple the other side to hold it in place. Just make sure when you ream it out, that it moves freely on the ball because you DONT want the throttle sticking!
Hi Mate, Thank you for taking the time to do this - it makes much more sense. I was visualising the clip where there is a sprung ball inside that locks the throttle ball in place. I'm off to order one of these cables! Danny
Great job! Does Lokar sell those ends seperately? I want to add something like that to my choke cable / choke ball on my Stromberg 81.
You have the advance hooked up wrong anyway. It needs to be plugged into the port on the carb, not the intake, you will get a reverse vacuum signal. And the advance will work fine with dual carbs, I've run the exact setup you have, just fix the vacuum setup.
This is probably a really dumb question, but is this the vacuum port that I should be hooking the distributor up to? Powerdump, thanks for the info on the vacuum line. I've been reading about using the 8BA dizzy, and lots of people say convert to mechanical advance, but a few are still running the vacuum advance with decent results. I'm sure this is a very debatable topic.
In case you haven't seen this article on vacuum advance multi carb flathead: http://www.flatheadv8.org/286holley.htm
Hey Nash, How does the cable fit into that octogon shaped piece? I'm guessing the Allen key has something to do with it? Danny
Danny, Yeah, there is an allen set screw on the side of the lower piece. In all those pictures I can't believe it was always turned away from the camera!
Ahahaha awesome, I thought at much! So basically the cable goes into the octagon shaped piece and then the set screw clamps from the side and holds it in? I'm going to order one on the 15th and put it into my ride! Danny
Hey Danny, do you know if that port that the arrow is pointing to is the correct vacuum post for the distributor advance? Thanks -Nick
Hey mate, It is the correct one. I don't want to open a can of worms for you but I have to say 100% you will not regret the money spent on a modern electronic distributor for your motor. The original is marginal even with a stock motor but it is absolutely hopeless with duals. Let me give you my experience: I started with a stock motor and it ran fine. Motor ran out of steam about 3,000 or so RPM. I added added a modified Mopar dizzy and it instantly upped the maximum rev range by a significant margin. Starting was easier, acceleration was stronger, it basically was a very cheep performance upgrade. Mine is running mechanical advance only but you could go with a Mallory vacuum/mechanical dizzy it really doesnt matter. When I added the dual carbs, the motor would wind up even higher and with the dizzy, I didnt have to worry about the *** backwards vacuum retardation on the stock unit. When I added high comp heads, low end torque was improved, rev range stayed the same. Everyone I have spoken to has had nothing good to say about the stock dizzy and when you put dual into the equation it gets worse. Some will argue you can make it work and I'm sure you might but it will always be a compromise. Spend the $300 on a new electronic dizzy and you wont look back. It will let those duals do their work allot easier. Have I sold you yet? Danny
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