Technical Mopar long ram intake and carburetor questions

Interesting, they were designed to make torque.

 

@X38
I've watched those videos.
And I sure did enjoy them.
Thanks, buddy.

 

So square bore.
That means it's not nearly as critical to have the original carburetors. And I'm not so concerned about not being able to find AFBs that'll work.

Good good good.
That was the main issue.
You guys have made my day by enabling me to make an educated decision.
I'm going to try to buy the nice intake with the balance tube, linkages and other parts minus carbs.

Thank you, my friends.

 

And @57 Fargo
I was also surprised to see the long ram on a dragster. I've read that these setups are awesome at lower rpms, but don't do as well as others at higher speeds. But there it is. I'm sure plenty of stuff has been tried over the decades. Lots of experimentation.

 

Rickybop, that is correct. Any contamination in alum cause problems. From what you said, you wouldn't be using the heat riser portion. That is only necessary with the original exhaust manifolds. I would flip them upside down and machine a flat surface for a blockoff plate. Anything as rare as these has historical significance. Once modified, they go down in value as you all know. In the 80's I sold a good set for $800 to a street rod shop owner. He had a buyer lined up for more than 12oo. I have never spent hours on these in trying to weld up that area. I don't know how far the lead is absorbed. It might be possible to spend time to go over it with the tig and then let it cool and grind away the surface garbage and keep repeating until it becomes weldable. That's a thought, nothing else. I love old Chrysler stuff. It's not as good as the legends but it's different and interesting to mess with.

 

Random thoughts:
I was there back in the day when Mopar Engineering gave HRM a "Chrysler 300H road test car" which HRM then entered in the National Drags. They had the short/long rams, a cheater cam, 4.56 rear gears and cheater slicks. IIRC, it came in second in the finals.

As to why the long rams are on a dragster, some dragsters are for looks, some are for speed.

Going back to when the long rams were new, my mentor, Bo Field's brother-in-law Jim Parsons worked at a Mopar dealership and brought home a complete long ram setup because the owner wanted it replaced with a single 4-bbl. It sat in the corner and gathered dust because no one ran BBMs and everyone knew those were all done at 3500 RPM. I could have had it for asking. Just need a time machine.

jack vines

 

Thanks guys.
You're a bunch of geniuses. LOL
And collectively, with a hundred years of experience to learn from.

Somebody here asked the question a while back...
"Could you build a hot rod without the HAMB?"

I'm sure most of us could.
But not as good.
And it wouldn't be nearly as much fun.

 

Since these intakes originally came on land barges, the runner length was set up for maximum torque at 2800 rpm. Note that the Max Wedge cross ram manifolds were much shorter, for high rpm power. In fact, the first super stock car that the Ramchargers ran had the long ram, but they cut it open and modified the runners for high rpm use.

 

Yup. Exactly right, @HEATHEN
Highest torque at 2800 rpm.
And lots of it.

 

I had a set of these that I bought complete with carbs and linkage for $50.00 from a wrecking yard. I had the carbs redone and used it on my big block in my Plymouth. This was in 1966 and the guys at Speedwin said I would be better off with the inline dual four barrel set up. They were right as these were designed for mid range power in very heavy cars. They do look cool and if I wasn't using them for racing I would run a set.

 

Depends on where and how you are going to drive with it mounted. They are notorious for cold start problems.

Because the cold fuel is atomizing way far from the engine it tends to drop out of suspension and pool in the manifolds before it gets into the engine. That is why they came with "heat tubes" it was a bandaid fix to get the carbs and long tubes heated up quickly so they would at least "run" for the types of people that buy luxury barges most were quickly removed and replaced with "normal" single 4 barrel manifolds to please those fussy customers.

Another problem on a daily is throttle cut off time. Think of the fuel charge coming out of the carb when you are having fun at WOT the charge is like a freight train heading down the tracks at high speed and all of a sudden OH CRAP a cop radar trap up ahead and you quickly let off the throttle BUT that freight train of a fuel charge is already headed for the engine and NO WAY TO STOP it. With a normal manifold the charge is cut off almost instantly due to the short space between the carbs and engine.

And one more if you have to run without heat tubes is CARB ICING. Being that far away from engine heat and in cool or cold weather carb icing will occur just from rapid air flow through the carbs.

So if you are trying to run it on a daily driver good luck and learn patience when starting cold.

 

I do remember that the Heat choke Wells We're rotted out on my friend's car also. And he just kept mixing up epoxy and pouring it in till it sealed it up. And it just lasted many, many years.

 

Regarding contamination of cast aluminum parts ... many years ago I wanted an aluminum AN fitting welded to a cast aluminum motorcycle valve cover. I took the two parts to a local chassis shop that had been around a few years. Their "welder" took on the project while I was there. He had a terrible time attempting to tig it. After him throwing a pair of vice grips across the room in a fit of rage, he finally gave up, claiming the porosity of the aluminum was holding oil and preventing it from being welded. I had my doubts. I then took the parts to another local(ish) chassis shop that had been in business for many decades (one-man operation that is still in business today) and he (Eddy Bryck) was able to weld it without issue. No baking out the contaminants or any other method of contamination removal. I ended up with a beautiful weld.

I am not saying lead can't or hasn't contaminated cast aluminum rendering it un-weldable as I have zero experience with that, I am saying that I was told oil contamination made my cast aluminum item un-weldable by someone and in my case that information was proven to be incorrect.

As for purchasing that rotten/corroded intake ... no thanks. Buy the good one, use it as a pattern and have a bunch made

 

Good stuff. Thanks guys.

 

As said, if you can get the small parts then make patterns or, at least, take a lot of pics with a scale. Plenty of bare manifolds are out there and unused due to lack of the linkage.

 

I could be Mr. Long Ram.
Parts and service.

"Long Ram, thank you ma'am"

 

If driveability and cold starting was a real issue, I wonder if you could adapt one of these EFE heaters to help with fuel atomization? They would add at least some restriction to air flow but were used only on the primary throttle bores. And they were wired up so they didn't get any current after the coolant temperature came up.

But they only seem to have been used on GM vehicles which means spread-bore Q-jets for 4bbl applications. Maybe the heating grids could be transplanted into a sandwich of square-bore carb mounting gaskets . . ?

 

It should not be a huge job to make it fit in a square bore gasket.

 

Thanks! I forgot to add the pic to my post . . .

 

All of the linkage and balance tubes are reproduced by the Chrysler 300 Club, so really just a matter of guys with bare manifolds putting together the parts necessary to get them running. I think linkage is $425 or so and includes everything from the Firewall to the Carbs.

 

Trying to get this nice set.
If it's in real good condition... solid with no leaks... and I believe it is... I think I can run coolant through the heating chamber. Small diameter hoses/tubing. A valve to adjust flow.
Some of them were set up by the factory to use coolant to warm the carburetors.

 

Carburetors nestled among some fender-well header primaries might be enough.

 

Mopars Rule !

 

And Rickybop is pulling up to the line...

Warming his carburetors...

Still warming his carburetors...

 

...that seems pretty steep to me, maybe others have more discretionary funding...

 

https://www.chrysler300club.com/rcmstuff/jy/ramparts.html

Seems pretty fair considering all those parts are a lot of work to fabricate individually if you happen to have patterns to work off of. I guess your time must be cheaper than mine.

 

With your location I would consider water heated carb spacers

 

@sunbeam
Coolant heated carburetor spacers? No kiddin'... I didn't know there was such a thing.

That's it. That's gotta be it. The answer for these setups. Thanks.

 

I think I'll like the looks of this setup even more without the throttle linkage and coil sitting on top, busying up the lines of the sexy runners.
Put the coil elsewhere.
Use throttle cables.
Clean off all the bosses and bumps. Sand and polish.

 

At $450, I'd be making my own throttle linkage. I'm retired and I have more time then money. I have done this kind of stuff before, so that makes a difference too.

A coolant carb base might help some, but it wouldn't help much until the coolant warmed up. A thermostat controlled exhaust heat duct to the carb base (or air intake) would be more effective, much faster then anything coolant related (think 70s heated air cleaner tubes). Its not likely he is going to be driving this in the middle of a cold winter, so it would be assumed that once past the first start up of the day, the motor will be running in conditions above the carb freeze concerns. If it really is going to be driven year around, adding the coolant heat to the carb base would probably be helpful as well.

I've edited this post since some people can't tell the difference between a made up story and facts.