Technical Intake and Carb Upgrade

I am looking to upgrade my current flathead setup to something that would improve performance a little and/or improve my mileage. I have a 52' Ford Crestline (currently with a single Holley 94) and I am looking into either a 2x2 or 3x2 intake and carb setup; I am also looking to upgrade my stock heads and exhaust manifolds.

I do not know if any work has been done inside but I am ***uming there hasn't been any performance upgrades. The water pumps have been changed to the ball bearing/ceramic seal type from Speedway, and it has a points eliminator kit in the distributer. It has the Ford-o-matic transmission behind it.... thanks for your input guys....I'm still new to the flathead scene.

Do you think this is a waste of money, or will I notice any difference in performance?

 

Please be aware that any carburetion change is going to require a different distributor. A search on here will turn up more information than you will need. As for myself, I went for a larger 2BBL carb (Rochester 2GC small base) on a bored out Mercury manifold. A generous increase in airflow without the complications of multiple carbs. (This is on a car with a hood that is closed most of the time.)

 

Put on a Nice Set of Header's & you will Increase your Gas Miliage
along with Dual Exhaust!
also like Tubman said get more air to the Carb

just my 3.5 cents

Live Learn & Die a fool

 

Actually, if your main interest is gas mileage, rework the heads for more compression and proper "squish" and get a converted SBC distributor with vacuum advance.

 

Anything you bolt on is not going to provide a significant performance difference for the money your going to lay out. If it were me, I'd replace the flathead with an OHV V8.

Gary

 

And...do the swap to the Chevy distributor OR an old flattop Mallory first, and get the rig shaken down before you do anything to carbs. The stock distributor is a significant problem on post-1948 flatheads, and you will get an improvement that you can feel...but main issue is don't change carbs and distributor simultaneously or you will have no idea where any tuning problems are coming from.
Blueprinting piston clearance is a good idea, as if it is sloppy it will generate some limiting issues...like souping up an SBC with 1979 smogger dished pistons. The '52-3 cylinder head is probably the best of the litter in common stock heads.