A nice free flowing exhaust. As others have said, it will lay a foundation for more HP down the road. Your budget is a bit tight for a complete SS system, however.
I would do something with the exhaust. You have the old "twisted" torker right ? Which 4160 Holley do you have ? List number would go farther than the model. Lots of different 4150/4160's. Doing the rear metering block isn't going to net you anything in the seat of the pants meter. If it's a single feed, you could improve it's looks by converting it to a dual feed. I don't have access either to a good exhaust shop here, so I built mine. But I also have a MIG welder. I pieced it together using pipe bought from Summit with a Magnaflow (or was it flowmaster?) 65-66 Stang tailpipes. But I also had to ditch the stock fuel tank to do so and went with a Nascar fuel cell in the trunk.
List is 6619-1. I'm gonna have to put one together also. I'm ordering the kit so I can tune it cheaper. I've got it close but need to dial in the secondaries. Yes its the older twisted torker. Already have fuel cell but no desire or practical way for me to bend good enough bends to even consider going over the axle.
Save the money until she gives you another $300, then take the $600 and get a good exhaust system and a better intake manifold.
The Holley 0-6619-1 is an early 1970's emmissions aftermarket replacement carb.It is a 4160 series that flows approx 600 CFM.These carbs have a fairly lean idle circuit and a relitivly large PVCR (Power valve channle restrictor) that allowed decient power.As assembled from Holley these carbs had a Black secondary diaphram spring.The Black spring is the heaviest spring made and designed to not allow the secondaries to open fully.Changing springs is necessary to allow full secondary opening. These carbs were never intended as performance carbs.Their idle circuits were designed lean to be easy on emmissions and as such they dont respond well to big camshafts.These carbs ( there were several of this family of carbs 0-6619,0-6909,0-6919 ect ect ) were discontinued several years ago. I would look at a new Holley 1850 carb. Easy to tune and better than the smog carb you have. Don't waste a dime on that carb. Would work good on a Weiand Stealth. If you don't want to do the carb swap, go for the exhaust. Build a good foundation that will be able to grow as the car does. SPark
The 1850 is the list number for the old stand by 600 cfm vac secondary carb. Nothing fancy but easily tuned and a good match for a small block on the street. I can pick up core carbs all the time for $25-50 and put a kit in them and return everything to stock pretty cheap. They are a good way to learn to work on Holley carbs since they are cheap and respond well to changes. Here's a pair of them on my '62 F100 unibody. Yes, they mount backwards on a factory 8V setup so it looks a little different. As a carb, they are nothing fancy but they work. They won't over carb you, have good throttle response and if you use the re-usable gaskets are cheap to tune. SPark
I've never seen backward-mounted carbs. I've seen them sideways on tunnel-ram and blower setups. How does the throttle linkage attach??
i used this system on my car and several others. http://www.jegs.com/images/photos/300/387/387-53631.jpg its pretty easy to install. it can be installed with out a welder but its better to weld it. you will need some sort of saw to cut it to fit. it comes with all the clamps you need to put it on. that will leave you with $150 for mufflers. if you go this rout i would suggest getting it clamped together, then taking it to a welding shop to have the joints welded up.
This is an OEM system for a '63 Galaxie dual quad. The throttle linkage hooks to a bell crank bolted to the base of the rear carb, it then actuates the gold pieces of linkage seen in the picture. The original carbs had a shorter stroke on the linkage so that's why the side linkage on the carbs looks different. The engine runs off the front carb until you reach around 40% of throttle travel then the progressive linkage brings the rear carb into play. The front carb also has choke linkage and the rear does not have a choke. All this linkage is reproduction of Shelby Mustang linkage from Tony Branda Mustang Parts. The reason they are backwards was the original carbs used would not clear the distributor cap unless mounted backwards. These are not original carbs but they are the same configuration so they mount the same way. If you picture it, the primary side of the front carb is sitting right where the primary side of a normal 4 bbl setup sits on the engine. It's pretty trick for 1963. Here's what the driver's side looks like: The big gold thing bolted to the base of the rear carb is the bellcrank assembly. One hole on it is for the throttle linkage and the other is for a return spring. In this picture, there is just a plug in the distributor location to keep crap out of the engine. The engine is a 390 with a 428 crank (makes a 410). SPark
