well i have 500 dollars and am about to get an airgap intake with an 600 cfm edelbrok manual choke carb and i was wondering if anybody has used a carburetor spacer? does it help low end torque or what does it effect and what size would you recommend 2 inch or 1 inch?
Ditto what newtoford said,you may have hood clearance issues with anything taller than say a half inch with a stock profile hood and an airgap intake(I could be wrong)though.My clearance is tight with a performer and a holly with a half inch spacer and a drop base open element air cleaner thats 3" tall.As for performance gains,it will depend on the RPM range your engine operates in.The spacer fools the carb into thinking its dumping fuel/air into a bigger open plenum thereby increasing the velocity of the incoming fuel/air at the throttle blades.They allow for better fuel atomization as well aiding the burn efficiency of the mix in the cyl.You will see improvement in the area of 1 to 11 hp depending on the engines capacity to utilize the fuel and capitalize on the increased velocity.Use an open spacer, four hole spacers are a restriction above 3 grand and mainly just look cool.That said: spacers are hit and miss depending on application.A fairly hot engine making alot of power will see modest gains in the mid range to top end area since they are built to rev high.Street cars with mild or stock engines will see low to modest gains in the low to mid range area.A mild small block ford will gain some efficiency fuel consumption wise as well as slightely better throttle response and mixture velocity through the intake.Hope this helps you.Good luck.
Run it without one before trying something different. 4 holers help the bottom end, open spacers help on top (as a rule) sometimes you gain nothing with either. If anything, I'd recommend an insulated one over solid aluminum ones.
I have this setup. I did the measurements and with my 3"drop air cleaner id be able to do only a 1/2" one. Unfortunately i havent been able to source one. I could cut one on the table saw but that plastic would foul my blade! Anyone know of one?
When I ran a 228/235 cam, I needed a 2" open spacer on my RPM just to get it to respond. I took a mild single plane (Torker 289) off the engine for the RPM. Worst mistake ever. It took the 2" open spacer to gain some of my single plane power back. Of course I tossed the RPM and put my T289 back on. Much happier that way, and got my hood clearance back. That said, if you have a mild cam, you might like the RPM. I just found them lazy after 3k rpm. Try it without a spacer first...
Summit Racing p/n SUM-G1405-1 (OPEN SPACER) SUM-G1402 (4 HOLE) Edelbrock also lists an open 1/2" spacer p/n EDL-8724. I used to have a stacked spacer which was also a 4 holer that consisted of alternating stainless plates and gaskets. This one served also to insulate the carb. Only drawback was a broken carb base if you over tightened the carb nuts. Plus side was you could use as many as you could to customize the height.
That's a good idea D... I have had those plates both ways. Open and 4 hole. The ones I had were aluminum. You could use it with or w/o the carb shield, and you could stack as many of the plates as you wanted. They sold them separate from the shield kit back in the day. Don't know if they still sell them or not. I bet someone sells them. That is a good way to get whatever height suits you.
Yea, just watch how you tighten the carb though, I can tell you from experience that with a "squishy" spacer like that, it don't take much to break the mounting ears of a Holley base plate. I think I bought that one from Summit, but I don't see it in the catalog now. The two Summit spacers I listed were Phenolic's, the Ed was a wood laminate.
