Waking the sleeping beast

The clouds parted over the weekend,

and I became a 4-barrel convert.

The old 40 ran pretty good,

the tame that I blamed on the rear 2.80 gears.

The electronic ignition conversion really helped,

but there had to be more.

Back in February I scored an edelbrock performer manifold for cheap,

complete with a later holley 4180 carb,

with way too much smog stuff engineered in.

A 4150 was scrounged up,

but it needed a rebuild and even now it's in pieces.

Then on a Craigslist hunt I found the $45 missing link.

The autolite 4100 was the stock ford 4-barrel,

and holley made a modded version - the 4010.

I liked the traditional top cover,

versus the split side covers of the 4150.

May be easier to tune,

but seemed like future leakers.

The 4150 did donate it's choke mechanism.

As usual there was a little fabricating.

The kit spacers didn't match up,

so a riser was made out of a phenolic scrap,

along with a Uncle Steve special gasket.

Hey it saved me $30!

Plus this one was made to fit.

As usual these carbs aren't set up for the AOD TV cable.

No problem.

The old weld a washer trick version 3.

I stick welded this one,

too lazy to drive to the tig machine.

If you notice the measuring is precision,

just equal 1:1 ratio to the throttle pin.

Next was the TV cable mount.

Still planned to use the stock ford/Lincoln  one.

I thought about making a new bracket,

and keep the 2-barrel mount around just in case.

Nah way too much time in that little slider piece.

Cut...stick weld...paint...

Another version 3.

Little by little everything came together.

Not too stoked with the gas line routing,

for now it works fine.

Thanks Mike for letting me borrow the air cleaner!

So how does it run?

Holey Chit.

Now it's a moonshiner.

With a light foot,

it drives like the two barrel.

With a lead foot,

the vacuum secondaries kick in.

After a little lag,

BAM this thing moves!

If I don't watch out,

I'll need to find a donor 302/5.0 to rebuild.

Next up some proper exhaust headers.

TP