Carburetor and intake question

Yep, I lucked into one of the last US mfgr'd a couple years ago when I bought the one on my Comet...

BTW it's a great intake...

 

Sad as it is to say, I don't care as much where they're cast so much as the machining tolerances for the final product. Edelbrock is, and has been for some time(ever look the castings over really well at swapmeets and parts stores?), all over the place with their geometry sometimes. Not just by my eyes either, lots of other guys having issues with them too.

From nearly every one I've seen and ported, the Weiand is generally a cleaner casting and the machine work is undoubtedly a little bit better than the Eddy. Wouldn't doubt that some of Eddy's old cores are getting pretty long in the teeth too. Core shift and casting lines are sometimes in the same ballpark as the Procomp/Speedmaster stuff used to be. Not too long ago I just sent a 351C air-gap back because it was horrid and the carb mounting pad was drilled all the way though into the plenum on 2 of the 4 holes. Oh goody, now I get to use thread sealer on my carb mounting studs. lol

IMO, Eddy needs a newer gen casting that leverages some of the technology used in the larger upper end race manifolds. Keep the volume a bit smaller for somewhat streetable torque spreads but modeled after the bigger rpm racing brothers. Tapered runners, closer to equalized lengths, tapered and extended plenums(more volume without having to raise the carb so high and simultaneously shortens the end runners for better airflow/AFR equalization), etc. I will say that I don't care for the Weiands shortened runner with its cockeyed entry angle on #1 cylinder. I can only assume that they may have found something more in the average power vs making it better match the Eddy's longer/smoother curved design.

In the end, the Weiand manifold is more well matched to the regular non-airgap style RPM manifold. There was a video floating around years ago that showed the Weiand responding to the notch being milled into the divider like the air-gap has out of the box. Came within a few horsepower of the air-gap at a considerably cheaper price. If Weiand made the old Stealth Air-Strikes(their version of Eddy's air-gap) for our engines.. that's the one I'd buy and run a spacer to extend the rev range another 200-300 rpm.

 

Groberts, have you ever looked at Professional Product's intakes? Some of the roughest looking castings I've seen in a long time ( dishonorable mention going to Summit's stage 3 dual plane air gap). The worst of the worst was my old TFS/Wil Burt tall tunnel ram that I ran on an A460 headed BBF in the 80's. It could have been used as a shower head it has so much porosity and core shift.

 

Yes.. quit a few. My advice would be to order 4.. then pick the best one. 3 years ago i was at a local speedshpp and my buddy wanted a pro-products.. crosswind maybe?.. can't remember for sure.. but we had them pull all 7 they had in stock to find a decent one that I could port. Cross section widths were all over the place and the casting ridge down in one of the runners was sharp enough to slice skin. No lie.. sliced my fingertip as I was pokin around into the runner entries.

Not that I condone intellectual property theft.. but I will say that the newest castings from Speedmaster have improved over the older Procomp branded stuff. Still get some crappie castings.. but overall they are very usable castings for guys that like to whittle them out with grinders and cnc machines to sort them out. Same with many of the China heads.. lots of bigger name porting and cnc shops offering them in their entry level lines. Just a bare cast chunk of aluminum to me and I always check and rework everything while adding my own parts.

Would never trust Speedmaster ripoff version of Mahle power pack pistons.. but I have to say I'm intrigued by their Cometic MLS knockoffs.

Oh.. and the other one is the Speedmaster/tds aluminum 9" modular housing. I could build one he'll of a rear suspension with that piece. Probably have to touch every machined surface to straighten out and machining inconsistencies.. but still money ahead.