school me on old dual quad set ups!!!!!!!!

i'm going round and round with carb set ups for my modified project (see: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=106768 ) i found out that the spread on the 4 barrel holes of my offy manifold is not enough to let me run two adapters and 4- 94's. the intake is way better than anything else i've found though. i'm thinking about just running dual quads now. i've been looking for pics of dual quad set up i like, but have'nt had much luck. also, who made the earliest 4bbls, and in what cfm?

 

I think the earliest was Carters on the '55 331 Hemi in the Chr. 300 2X4. single the pevious year.

 

that was my guess too, but i'm not sure.

 

Cadillac & Packard show 2X4 intakes in '55 also, Buick single 4bl earlier.

 

And those were the Carter WCFB carbs. They have a smaller bolt pattern (and venturi) size than the AFB carbs that were used on some of the 1957 and later MoPars.

 

If you want, post a decent pic of the intake from the top looking down to see what bolt pattern (and carb usage) it has.

 

I believe that Buick started using the 350cfm 4bbl Strombergs in '53. For my Cadillac 390, i'm using an old Detroit Racing Equipment intake manifold w/ two of these Stromberg carbs.

-scott noteboom

 

it has the small square bolt pattern. but i also have the adapters to a spread bore pattern.

 

I was also thinking about a early dual four set up, how about a '57 Ford Thunderbird E-code . 312 Y block set up, not sure of the size but I think they are square bore carb's.


CBB

 

that sounds to me that the 2 adapters are hitting each other. You need to determine the carb stud spacing so that you can find the right carbs to fit your manifold.



These are early WCFBs. They have a small bolt pattern. These have 1" ****erfies. They were used on lots of cars in the 50s.

Later WCFBs have a larger bolt pattern.

 

My 51 olds had a 55 packard 352 carribean with dual fours then in 56 it was swapped to a 374 with bigger valves and extensive head work. had a isky 505 5 cycle cam. 13 1/2 to 1 compression (on the street) the wcfb carters had the venturi's bored out with larger ****erflies and modified to do away with the secondaries, they ran on all 8 barrels at idle on up to 6500 rpm (now that was some kind of big deal in 1960) is that old school carbs? had a Kenny Myers modified 4 speed hydro and a 58 pontiac rear end with a locked 4:88 locked (welded spyder gears)
I just scanned a photo but need to resize it, I'll be back

 

those things are awsome what's the cfm rating?

 

this is basicaly what my manifold looks like. the only differance is mine has perfectly square pads for the carbs.


i wanted to run 2 of these adapters with 4 94's in a row, but the center carbs will hit. now i'm thinking dual quads.

 

I'd be fabbing up some new adapters that would fit. Then wack those other carb flanges off and weld the new ones on.

 

Wow... someone must have really disliked the large linkage bellcrank bosses on the manifold... When someone polished my DRE intake, they wanted a real smooth look, so they ground the LETTERING off! oh well....

 

54 Cadillac Eldorado had dual quads standard I believe.

My old man was working on the used car lot of a Ford store in the early 60s and would bring a different car home almost every night. He brought a red 54 Eldo home one night in the summer of 63, because it had the top down and the white fibergl*** boot fitted, he parked it in the garage. Naturally it rained the next day, so he took the family car to work because he wasn't very mechanical and didn't want to attempt to take the boot off to raise the top. First thing I did after he went to work was pop the hood and look at the motor, yup, dual quads, remember them to this day.

 

To be honest, I never checked. I'm not much of a numbers guy. I'll leave all the number crunching and dyno testing to the race car builders. This was meant for the street. They are small by todays standards with 1" ****erflys. The first one I found had the tag so that I could get the proper rebuild kits. I'm not even sure what they came on. It doesn't matter to me.

 

i hear ya! i don't want to go to far over 800cfm total, but if they're 350 or 400 it would be perfect.

 

Well they put 2 of roughly the same sized carbs on a 283 so they can't be too big.

 

Most of the early WCFBs were in the 350-375cfm range.

 

How much room do you need to gain in order to use the 94's?

I ran into a too-close by not-too-much situation with some 94's in the past and filing about a 1/16" off the carb top screw boss allowed them to bolt down ok.

You could also gain a little room by rat-tailing the carb's bolt holes to a subtle oval and holding the carb/carb's forward or back while bolting it down.

Any throttle bore/intake port mismatch could be taken care of by a little judicious filing.

The same could be done with the adapter's bolt holes.

Keep in mind that we're not talking about gaining a whole lot of room here.
Maybe a 1/4" - 3/8" at the most if you did everything you could to move the carbs and/or adapters.

Any chance the adapters are slightly different with one supposed to go in back and the other in the front?

Making new adapters out of 1/2" - 1" aluminum plate isn't too difficult.
A little labor intensive, but from what I see, a little work doesn't seem to scare you.

 

i think with the vintage speed adapters i'd need an inch or better to clear the carbs. i'm not aposed to making some new adapters to fit the 94's and may do that. i was kicking around the dual quad idea mainly becouse not to many people run them, and since i'm using all 60's running gear i thought it might be cool. i'm clearly not that worried about the car being what you may concider a "traditional" hot rod so why not! i have'nt ruled anything out yet!!

P.S. the adapters are all the same

 

i'll also have to find 2 carter wcfb's if i'm going that route. how hard will that be?

 

Depends.
Finding a single carb in the junkyard seems to be difficult nowadays.
It's one of the first things pulled . . . and then the idjits leave the hood up so rain can get in the engine.
Had a helluva time finding a rebuildable 455 Buick engine a few years back.
Finally got one that had been stored way back in the junkyards engine shed.

If you can swing it - and in the end it may not be too much more expensive than buying and rebuilding a pair of WCFB's - buy a new pair of Carter or Edelbrock 500 cfm carbs.

I ran a couple of these on my 32 with a bigger cam and they would idle down to 600 rpm and were very civilized with straight linkage.
Tip-in on the secondaries is very smooth as well, seems like one tips-in and then the other follows just after.
Mo bettah than having the secondary air valves pop open at the same time.
More controllable as well considering the engine is probably making in excess of 520# torque.

Th only changes required were the metering rod springs which had to be lightened up a bit due to the big cam creating a low vacuum level in the engine at idle.

More than likely I'll have to rejet and swap metering rods once the 31 is up and running.
Last time the dual quads were run the al***ude was 350', now I live at 3300'.
(Once I got the 32's single 750 Edelbrock leaned down with a rod and jet change the car runs much better and still does ok down at the river with it's 450' or so level.)

Here's a pic of the dual quads mocked up on the to-be-built 455 Buick engine.
Homne-made fuel log and home-made linkage.

 

that set up looks great! if i decide to go with dual quads i'm definately doing the carter wcfb's. i have some feelers out already! i'm not sold on it yet, but i don't think i'll run the intake i have if i use the 4-2's. i'm not running a huge cam, just a little bigger w/longer duration than stock. the motor had a carter 750 thermobog on it factory, so 2 wcfb's will probably put me just about right for cfm.