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The oval air cleaner on my engine is filthy and when I removed it, I discovered the PO or the one before that one drilled two larg holes in the bottom so it would clear the float adjusters on the Holley carb! It also rubbed on the inside of the big block hood given the engine has a high rise manifold.
Today, I started the process of making the hood functional via the L88 mod. My engine is a small block 427 rated at 520HP. I had to relocate the fuel pressure gauge, throttle return spring, and accelerator rod (not complete, yet). Here are a few pics. It will take me a while as I have to remove the hood to modify it and move the plenum back about 11/2” to fit the small block. Should be fun!
So far, so good! Throttle rod needs to be rebent. Love this picture!
Haha....depending on who you ask, that may not be a lead you want to follow! Id definitely go hole saw over sawz-all in your case. I dig the car, give me a shout if you need any info about the 3-pt belt install....pretty simple
Finished the engine clearance modifications and mocked up the location and changes I will need to make to the hood plenum.
I rebent the accelerator rod to clear the drop base air cleaner. It really just needed some profiling while maintaining the 10” distance between the linkage points. I also finished the fuel line routing which is much cleaner and maintains both the regulator and fuel pressure gauge. As you can see, the plenum will need to be sectioned and shortened about 1 1/2” before bonding it to the hood and then filled at the front end. My rough measurement (the cross) was really close. The white dot was from threading all thread into the carb carefully, putting a dot of white paint on the tip, and carefully closing the hood.
Someone here posted a while back how they adapted a SB engine to the 427 hood by making an adapter between the intake and the carb. The carb needed to be raised and moved forward to reach the plenum of the stock hood.
I use the factory FI cold air inlet in the rad support to feed the air filter housing on my car, and that filter gets incredibly dirty in a few thousand miles. Lost of oily dust and debris kicked up off the road. There is no engine crank case ventilation to the air cleaner, so its all from external sources.
Doug
Someone here posted a while back how they adapted a SB engine to the 427 hood by making an adapter between the intake and the carb. The carb needed to be raised and moved forward to reach the plenum of the stock hood.
…. Good luck... GUSTO
THAT is ingenious, and Bubba at his finest.... ....
Bill
I saw that adapter and he said it didn’t negatively impact the engine performance at all. I have my engine tuned to perfection and don’t want to mess with it. Plus, I have the height, I just need to move the plenum back a bit. I plan on sectioning the plenum before bonding it to the hood. More pics to come!
I trimmed the front end which will will need some filling once bonded and measured the rear for the 1 1/8” section. I’ve decided to cut the rear piece and bond it to the hood first and then bond the remaining section in place. This will allow me to more easily achieve a flush bond as the plenum only roughly follows the conture. It would take much more work if I bonded the sections together first and it will be fairly easy to lay up some fiberglass strips to seal the gap once the entire plenum is in place.
The blue tape marks the center of the air cleaner opening and the green the two lines to cut (the black line and the edge of the tape closest to the air cleaner opening).
I removed the hood today and started the installation of the plenum. The fiberglass mold they used to make the plenum is an approximation at best! However, a little trimming, a lot of heat and weight on the hood as the epoxy set up will make it perfect.
Since I have to remove an 1 1/4 section I decided to bond the rear piece to the hood as a reference, but it is not a very good fit! I positioned the remaining section to ensure everything would line up. I think it will work out just fine. I marked the cowl opening I have to cut. And used the rotary cutter on my Dremel to zip right through it. Both of the rear sides complete and rough sanded. I plan on making a grill to cover this opening, so it doesn’t have to be perfect. On to the inside of the hood and done!
Somewhere under there is the rear edge of the plenum, hopefully curing into a tight and flush seal! I used four screws to secure the rear most lip to the hood holding it flush and the weights on a 2x4 to hold the side flanges in position.
The rear edge bonded nicely and is laying pretty flat, so I moved to the most problematic piece. It was warped down in the middle and up on the edges. I built a wooden brace I could stack weights on to hold down the edges and made a spaced that you can’t see, but it is braced between the hood and the inside of the plenum where the air filter mounts. With both in place, the cut seam I used to remove 1 1/4” of material lines up uniformly. Tomorrow when I remove the weights, I’ll leave the spacer in place temporarily while I glass the seam from the inside and fill the outside to make it flush and smooth. I plan on finishing this project by Friday so I can go to C&C on Saturday morning. We shall see!
The small piece aligned nicely to the conture of the hood with a little heat, sanding, and weight. A little weight and some bracing to hold the main section of the plenum on place while the epoxy cures.
09-29-2018, 03:19 PM
Functional cowl induction on my 1964
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