I purchased an aluminum Edelbrock intake manifold at a car show/swap meet (Turkey Rod Run). My question is whether this intake will fit on my L-48, 79 with the original hood? And also... what carb would work best with this intake?

The rebuilt motor has been bored 30 over and has a better cam then the orig one, (Melling) with a 2000-4500 power range (I think). I have the orig heads also 172/150 with z28 springs. I also put on a reman Q-jet to try and get better performance. I also put new advance weight kit in the dist. I don't seem to get the performance that I feel I should be getting.

I've been told that changing the orig intake and carb will be a day and night difference. I'm also thinking of porting another pair of heads I have to see if I can gain more that way. The heads are the same as orig 172/150?. Is it worth porting these stock type heads? I still have the stock exhaust manifolds with a Y pipe. I know that can make a difference too. It's on the list to replace.

Your opinions will be greatly appreciated........ Paul in Naples, Florida

 

Please excuse my error... the heads are 194/150. Both on the motor and my extra pair.

 

I am using an edelbrock performer with a holley 650, and an lti dropbase air cleaner, and have no problem with hood clearance. I put in a comp cam 262, and a set of headers with flowmasters also. It is a very tractable engine for the street, with good idle and vacuum. It's a 72, and with a turbo 400 and 3.36's, and turns 13.9's at about 100 mph. I have done no head work, so I can't help you there, but I recently bought a pair of vortec heads to try. These require a vortec specific intake though, so I had to get a new edelbrock for them. I haven't tried them yet, but have heard good things about them for the money ($300 plus setting up for higher lift cam) Good luck, Tom

 

I have the same intake on mine also. There is no reason that this intake should not give you a improvement in performance. Go for it. Should put a smile on your face. I have my factory intake setting on the shelf in the garage if for some strange reason I want to ever return it to stock, but I can't see that happening.

 

Tom, Eddie, Thanks for your input. I'll look into the 650 and the dropbase aircleaner.

So...you think I'd notice a big difference getting away from stock intake and carb?

Tom... How does your car sound with the headers and flowmasters? Does it have that cool throaty/tinny sound? I love that sound with a cam! How much did the headers and exhaust cost you? was it bolt on or custom?

Eddie... What carb are you using?

Any other input on the heads...anyone?

 

Intake will work fine with a Q-jet. No need to pay for a 650.

Also recommend headers to improve exhaust flow. You will need to tune the carb since any generic reman carb will not have an ideal jetting combo.

Recommend Lars' paper at www.corvettefaq.com for tuning info.

 

My headers came with a bunch of corvette parts,and I bought the cam and intake on ebay. My total investment in the motor is not to bad. Just wait until you can buy it right. Maybe $800. The sound is awesome, maybe a little too much so. I'm using flowmaster 40's, and with the t-tops on there is noticable interior resonance. With them off it's great, definatley sounds like a bad boy.I went with an entire new exhaust system and it ran around $300.
The Q-jet is a good carb, and with the right rebuilt will give great performance. I went with the holley because I can work on them and get all kind of parts for them easily.
The more you add to a sb, the better each part will perform. Play with it and read books by good builders.
Good luck, Tom

 

Where did you get the lti drop base air cleaner? I can't find one at any of the typical auto part chains?

 

I am using the Holley Street Avenger 670. Carb seems to run pretty good right out of the box. I did step up the primary jetting 2 sizes and it seems to be pretty good. I haven't checked my plugs lately but the car runs nicely IMO.

 

Paul, I swapped out my stock intake and carb on my '75 and put the Edlebrock performer intake (2106) and an Edlebrock 600 electric choke with an Edlebrock drop down base with a K&N filter with no clearance problems at all. I swapped out the stock cam with a CC XE268 and had the stock heads ported and there is a definite improvement. My next mod will be the headers.

Ron

 

i put one on my 80...with edel 1904 carb replace. You can tell the diff from stock with muffler and cat delete... About to buy a 87 grand national V6 turbo to put in the old wuss.

 

What model Edel. intake? Performer or Performer RPM? Performer fit using my stock Q-Jet and stock air cleaner on my '76. Performer RPM requires a drop base open element air cleaner.

Original heads are 882 castings, I believe, and are known to be prone to cracking. I would not waste time or money on these heads.

Did you follow Lars' timing paper on how to adjust the advance curve?

Didn't know Mellings made cams! Thought they were strictly oil pumps. You really should get the cam specs.

Best bang for the buck will be true dual exhaust.

 

I have 69 350/350 with performer manifold & 1806 Thunder. Had to use edelbrock air filter. Stock will not fit over carb. Don't use wingnut as clearance to hood is very minimal. Also do not drop hood. Just close by pressing down. As me how I Know But the car runs GRRREAT.

 

Yes, fits fine however you are looking at about +12 assuming the 2101. Will not make a day & night difference if stock carb is working well.

Cam & exhaust will: http://www.corvettefaq.com/c3/ganeyexhaust.htm

 

First I want to thank everyone for responding. I think this is a great site and love the sharing of information.

I just dug out the intake and it is a #2101 Performer. I also just downloaded the Lars tuning guide, as I know by reading this that it definatly needs tuning.

Another question I have is... when I replace this intake and use the dropbase air filter, do I just take off the dual air rams that are stock? Will that restrict the airflow to the carb at all?

 

Where is everyone getting these dropbase air filters. I have a 2101 performer and edel carb and with a stock size 3" filter the hood hits the wing nut, had to buy a shorter filter, would like to go back to the 3"

 

Yes it will fit just fine - is essentially the same height as the stock cast iron dual plane mani.

However I disagree that it will provide a meaningful difference in performance (The RPM version might be a bigger difference). In my experience it provides a very modest difference at best in flow over a stock Chevrolet dual plane cast iron manifold (unless you swap a bunch of other stuff out too). The real advantage IMHO is lighter weight and much easier to port match. Alum manifolds look cool too!

 

Fitting a 2101 Performer intake on mine didn't make a night & day difference as far as I could tell. It definately ran a bit better, but not in a way that'd make you kiss the guy that sold it to you! With the stock Q-jet fitted to it there is plenty of hood clearance on my 'stock '81. If possible I'd try to keep the air ducts to the filter in place. They don't look too nice, but they're pulling in colder air than you'd get from under the hood, which should help power. A Performer rpm won't fit under my hood with a stock cleaner, I'd need a drop base one, but then I'd not have the cold air ducting.
As somebody mentioned above, true duals will give a big difference. Out of all my mods that was the one that gave the greatest seat of the pants improvement, even with stock mufflers hanging on the back. Changing the mufflers later on made a slight improvement (I think?) & a whole bunch more noise Fitting headers certainly helped at the high end of the rev range, but I didn't notice any difference over stock tubular manifolds & true duals at the low to mid-range. The ceramic coated headers also caused a reduction in interior temps. If you intend to fit Headers then do it & a dual exhaust at the same time, as doing it in steps like I did just causes more work & expense. Don't forget to adjust the carb to account for the exhaust work.
Setting the timing as described by Lars is an easy & free improvement.
Something else I did that made a noticeable difference was to fit a high output coil & new plug leads (wires). I could actually feel the engine "picking up" cleaner on acceleration after that. It might have been due to the more powerful spark (as the glossy promised), but it could also have been because the originals were tired, but it definately felt more "alive" afterwards.
Setting up the original Q-jet correctly might make a massive difference. The Q-jet is quite complex and many previous owners set them up badly. Just un-Bubbaring the "tweaks" made to my Q-jet made a major difference in overall running (but I've got the advantage of having a "Check Engine" light flashing at me if the mixture is wildly off - without that I would have been running around for months not knowing that the carburation was wildly out).
OR...... you could just leave it as stock, because once you start spending out on performance enhancements it just doesn't stop