Ok guys who has them and what are you doing with it. Just useing it for awesome cool effect or is anyone running it balls to the wall ? I was examining mine and realised there is no cross over from one bank to the other and I think it may benefit with cross over for vacume and preasure equalization .
They tend to be cold blooded and need some low rear end gears. They look cool, but driveability stinks in my experience. Same with tunnel rams. Frost will be your first clue that things aren't ideal....
I have ran plenty of dual carb setups. Set them up correctly and there are zero issues. Watch the video of my truck in my signature, thats a tunnel rammed 350 with dual 625 carbs. Yup, 1250 CFM on a small block. Ran amazing even on the dyno.
Forgot to mention too, I'm currently on the hunt for the elusive Edelbrock X-c96 cross ram for a big block because I will be running one in my 55.
A tunnel ram is a little differant as it shares a plenum for the 2 carbs where the cross ram does not share volume between the two halfs. If I dont like it I can switch to the tri power setup and build another car to suit the intake : )) is that the proper way to start a build ?
i find the cross rams have better midrange than tunnel rams. put alot of miles on my Hemi powered 48 ford, heavy car with 3.0 gears. loved it.
The Z-28 Chevy, Offy, Edelbrock STR, & Smokey Ram staggered carb crossrams had a common plenium. I'm gonna try one on my race only Anglia, if I ever get it finished. I've got a Weiand Team G, an older Edelbrock tunnelram and an Offy crossram (almost identical to the Chevy) that I'll compare. Should be interesting. Larry T
NoName is right....moremids then the tunnels.....but once they come on.....HolyCrap! However....they have, in my humble opinion.....less lowend than a properly setup tunnel because the mixture alot of time tries to fall outta suspension......because of the mixture trying to go sideways, this is offset if your motor is running leaner and you have staggered jetting in all 4 corners of your carbs.... offidle response is good.....then there the kinda flat spot somewhat over high idle.....then they perk on up...great for roadrace and autocross.........they can be tuned well enough to be used on the street........
its more of a looks than all out go right now , a voodoo cam will make sure it runs out well . The Z28/smokey yunick cross ram supposedly worked well but it's a common air box. the cross failure of 84 didn't fair so well I dont want to drill on intake so I was thinking useing carb spacers with a tube running between those
I like them for the look and there not as common as all the other stuff out there. Any thing iv ever seen one on or had one on ran plenty strong.
The ones with the interchangable tops have a little more 'tunability', hey but the one you got is a deffinite keeper......will lookgood on a rod and will run its ass off if properly setup.........they're critical to the carbs functioning properly.....BECAUSE of no ballanceing between banks....
I ran one on a 332in Corvette in the late 60s, very difficult to get the jetting even on all cylinders. It was an edelbrock manifold, I was no rocket scientist at the time either
I'm pretty sure Edelbrock sold a calibration kit and instructions to modify the carbs to go on their STR 10. I sure would like to see the instructions. But I don't know why you couldn't set a carb up to the Z-28 crossram carb specs and be in the ballpark. Larry T
How bout one of these? Hemi Rat Roaster I have heard they are prone to explosions when trying to start a cold motor though.
I've run a couple and learned a few things they like. First, a relatively small cam. Today's cams have a lot more lift and duration than the vintage grinds, and that might not be a good thing. Big plenums in a street setting really need a good vacuum signal to work well, and if you run a bit milder cam that will give strong vacuum, the ram will be responsive throughout the rpm range. Secondly- small carbs with big accelerator pumps. The huge plenum puts a fair amount of distance between the carb butterflies and the intake valves. If you want the engine to respond when you stab the gas pedal, you need a pretty huge pump shot to get fuel where it needs to go. Honestly, on the Max-Wedge cross ram-topped 446ci Mopar I had, I couldn't get too much pump shot. The more I gave it, the wilder it got. That was pretty cool, once I figured it out. If you do those two things, along with all the other 'normal' tuning stuff (proper A/F mixtures/jetting, correct timing, etc.) you will really enjoy running a Ram.
if you dont mind the looks use a 1" hose and 2 carb spacers to connect the plenums, it will be much more for giving, less finickt to tune the carbs. in myexpirience theese do run best with a smaller cam and head for good signal and a lot of timing, i agree with scotch, use a big acccel pump ,the fuel is a foot from the intake port! smaal carbs also help the signal. ive got one of theese on my buddies roadster with a very mild 350 and a th350 w 308 gears, not a rocket of the line but runs very nice and good midrange power.
I run an early 1960's Offy cross ram on my 358 Chev w/ two 500 cfm carbs. It has a 560 lift solid lifter cam, 200 cc Dart heads, a Muncie Rock Crusher and 4.88 gears. I run about 22 degrees initial timing and 38 all in with a Mallory Unilite mechanical advance and a hidden MSD 6al with 7000 rpm rev limiter. Considering I drive the car several hours every weekend, it is ironic that the camshaft came with explicit the instructions "Do Not Idle". In my case, the engine typically IS idling for prolonged periods or rumbling along at a 35 mph roll around town. An occasional blast through the gears lets you know everything still works as it should. It has been assembled this way for half a decade with no problems. No stumble, no driveability issues, though I do admit it drives like a hot rod, not like a late model buick. I don't consider that a problem. I did try connecting the non-common plenums with various hose sizes but it really didn't change anything. It is more a matter of synchronizing the carbs and then properly tuning the carbs and ignition for your particular situation. I have run a tunnel ram in the past on a daily driver with similar results. Most of the guys that say this can't be done haven't really done it. That being said, if you want simple go with a single four barrel. It does take some effort. One thing I like about this style intake along with in-line dual 4 intakes, tri-power, etc is the ability to have something a little different on the streets while still being able to shut and or lock the hood when parked. Happy Motoring.
Scotch, Choptop, and Redline....you guys Know how to set it up! Yep, because of the signal, keepa smaller cam and smaller carbs helps out tons on these things... I've had guys with cars brought into my shop thats got enough cam and carb to be running in the 9.5 class, and wonder why their crossram loads up and won't pull..... Smokey Yunick and Carroll Shelby both used to sware by those things....and if setup correctly, works really well.... HOWEVER....Dodge had this one where the carbs were sitting on past the valvecovers on the opposite side by the fenderwells....I heard they worked really well on the Nascar style tracks at high speeds....though the rules wouldn't allow you to run anything that outrageous....that thing was quite a sight to see! Everyonce-in-a-while I'll see one....all I can do is smile and laugh! Ha!
You mean Smokey and Ol' Shel swore AT them. Tunnel rams work very well as do high-rise in-line dual four barrel intakes when properly set-up but none of the cross-ram (except the Rat-Roaster and maybe certain earlier Chrysler long runner types) intakes out performed a single 4 barrel carb on a single plane high-rise intake. Everybody experimented with the cross-ram style intakes but ultimately the cars who actually won the races were all running single four barrel carbs. SCCA allowed multi-carb intakes for some of the longer courses in the 69 season (hence the OEM over the counter availability that year for Ford and GM) but toward the end of the year and through 1970 the only time you might have seen a cross-ram on an actual race car was for a photo-op to help the company sell the balance of intakes to the public that they couldn't give away to the racers. If you think about the cars who were winning at the digs and roundy rounds back then you'll note the same trend....tunnel rams, high-rise dual 4 barrel and mostly single 4 barrel set-ups with the cross-rams intakes on fewer cars.....and cross-rams in the winner circle right up there with hens teeth. Cross-rams look very cool and can be made to make decent power and maybe even fiddled with enough to give accceptable driveability but if your looking to make the most power then they aren't (and never were) a great idea.
I always figured the Z-28 Camaros and factory crossram intakes were brought out for one reason, to run in the TransAm series. Look at their rules, maximum 305 cubic inches, no hood modifications. Tunnelrams were already around by 1968 and probably made a little more horsepower, so there was no reason for a new redesigned crossram except to meet some sorta class rules. That's not to say that some drag cars didn't run real well with the Chevy crossrams. The factory had done all of the engineering to make the complete package work and all the racer had to do was install it and run. Larry T
REALLY? it's all about runner length and plenum volume. A tunnel ram (usually) is a stood up, shorter runner crossram. If you are looking for "Max Power", what RPM are you looking to make it at? The ram tuning effect occurs at different RPMs at different runner length. Long runner, lower RPM torque peak (the 413 long rams pictured above made a huge flat torque curve between 2500 and 4500 rpm). Shorter runner higher RPM. You get the picture. I think most of the driveability and tuning complaints come from a large plenum reducing carb response, trying to use carbs too large and lack of tuning knowledge. Also, it is in the combination - low compression + long duration cam= no low end torque no matter what induction system you use but with a big plenum, forget it. Using a cross ram with 15" runners with a cam that was meant for a short runner tunnel ram that works at above 6000 rpm doesn't work either.
At this point I'm not looking to race it . But looking at a gasser option after ranchero is done so I dont have to cage my 442 . And then of course cool factor will still come into play as it will only be raced at nostalgia type meets, can't stand going to track and watching the camaro mustang show. The cam I picked is a Lunati Voodoo I think will work well on the 390 227/233* @.050 552/564 lift on a 110 I will set car up with a single four then switch in the spring when I can get car out and tune carbs . If I dont like it a will put the tri-power on , it will be multi-carbed no matter what . If I do an all out FE it will get the Edelbrock heads and bigger cam
yup, its the factory engineers equivelent to having a stock hood over a tunnelram typa intake....as funky as they look....they made good power!
458 hp outta 302 cubic inches isn't to slouchy. Power band from 4600 to 7200 rpms and would run all day long. Larry T
You make it sound like Chevy invented and did all the engineering on cross rams! Here's where things got started . ..
Nope, in fact crossrams were pretty obsolete by the time Chevy introduced their version. They just made them work for the rules they were running under. Larry T
The 413's werent all that good for hotroding or draging because the pulses were set at 3500 or 4k, and after that it the power dropped off bad, atleast that's what ive read
Keep in mind there were two versions of the long rams - one used with a hotter cam that had the dividing walls shortened up to about halfway that was good for 5500 RPM+, but for all out drag racing the max wedges were much better at high RPM.
The Jalopy Journal
