Hot Rods Man a Fre manifold

My son, ( dual quad 55 ) here on the HAMB has a few Man-A-Fre fuel blocks hanging on the wall in his garage.

 

Here's a YouTube video with a 283 Chevy engine running an early production Man-A-Fre intake with 4 Stromberg 97 Carburetors.

 

I still have 5x List 6425 Holleys 2bbls. They make nice set ups. 600cfm
Tunnel Ram has Keith Dorton 500s. 4412
Blower has 600cfms. 6425

 

Had one of those Br***well carbs in Mesquite Texas. Crinkle black. It plugged guaged 500cfm, but was higher flow without a booster, Cheater carb on some dirt tracks. Sold it to Speed Shop in Mesquite.

 

When I was just starting out I wanted to obtain one of these manifolds so that I could mount 4 carbs on my small block. Called the company (or I think that I call the right company) and asked the person who answered the phone, "how much?". The guy who took my question told me that they are not making them anymore. I answer , "what do you mean, don't make them any more!, I just got started building my first hot rod".

 

No idea these were first produced in Atlanta, now I need one!

 

I have a Man-A-Fre on a 283 in the '40 Ford I'm building. I brought the manifold and about a dozen carbs to Tim Bowman who rebuilt the carbs and built the whole setup, including linkage, and provided an original fuel block.

 

WHO ELSE thinks MORIARITY's engine looks SO GOOD he should just leave the damn HOOD OFF!!!!!! Drive the PURIST's NUTZ!!!!!! LOL

 

So, the gist I'm getting is the Man-a-fre is a quasi-IR intake with most of that design's flaws engineered out. Originally designed specifically for the small block Chevy by taking advantage of its 'paired' intake port layout, which would explain why few other intakes were offered by the company as most V8s of the era used evenly-spaced ports, ***uming that the design wasn't as viable with that port layout. Although Man-a-fre apparently did one-offs, converting other intakes.

The design was patented, but if the patent has expired maybe Ted Eaton should look into this for the Y-block....

 

As I wrote before …I'd still like to know how one pronounces Man-A-Fre.
Still waiting.

 

Thanks for the video

 

Hope these go thru

 

Yes the carbs are just sitting on the rochester system. My OCD didn't turn them around. Lol

 

I'm getting closer to firing my engine. 283, .060 over to 292, 097 Duntov cam, Mallory dual-point distributor, Fenton headers, and a Man-A-Fre with Badger air cleaners .

 

Early Man a Free concept. Stu Hillborn in mid 40’s? 21 stud flathead and V8 60 axle.
Stromburg for #1&2 cylinders. ? For 3, 4. One barrels for 5, & 6 and 7, & 8.
1&2 fire consecutively so strong pulses. He needed a bigger carb due to uneven flow.
I saw this set up on a car at some big show in the 70’s.
1&2 cylinders on a flathead are 7&8 on a sbc.

 

No, that’s not Stu Hilborn, Stu was a young man when he ran the lakes. That’s his mentor Eddie Miller, the gentleman that engineered the 6 cylinder Pontiac flathead powered lakester for his son Eddie Jr.

 

I think I saw the T in the 80’s at the Oklahoma City Nats.

 

I really don’t know who made the intake. I bow to better knowledge. I was going by Google. If you Google Stu Hilborn, you get some pictures of the intake. That’s all I know.

 

Finally I have got my holy grail of SBC intakes, it’s the only one I have ever seen in the flesh, these don’t come up very often in Australia . I have known about it for about 30 years & the guy who had it would never part with it, fortunately persistence pays off.

 

pretty complete unit

 

If a person wanted to experiment with the concept, he could use a Chevy FI base plate. Adapters from the base plate to carbs could be made. I could also see the carbs turned 90* so they were lined up with the ports. The baseplates should be available as I have seen FI’s screwed up so bad they would never run again. Missing distributors and even the drive cable housing was not available in the 80’s. It could be like poor man’s webbers or hillborns

 

That engine looks lonely. You can send it to me and I’ll keep it company…