2007 Improvements: Price Motorsports Dual Quad Intake manifold, Edelbrock Performer Heads, and a Mallory Unilite Distributor

At long last, Price Motorsports has finally brought their long-awaited dual quad intake manifold for the 351W to market and I was one of the first to pounce on one. The intake is a beauty with individual runners for crisp throttle response, a low-riser design to avoid hood clearance problems, and carb mount spacing to accommodate Holley Model 4160 carbs, dual mounting bolt pattern to accommodate either Holley or Edelbrock (Carter AFB) carbs, and available in two models, one for Cobras (flat carb mount, no power angle) and Standard (with 4* power angle carb mounts). While not cheap ($485) the cost is comparable to the Blue Thunder intake for the 289-302 block. Some additional specs on this item, the intake height is 3 5/8" tall measured from the front end rail to the carb mounting surface. The location of the carb mounts will allow running your Holley carbs reversed similar to the 427FE motors even with a large diameter distributor. If a small diameter distributor is used, the carbs can be run facing forward like the original 289 setup. Original carb linkages for the low riser intakes can be used. Carb spacing is correct for the Ford oval dual quad air cleaner setup. Contact Price Motorsports for information and purchase of this item.

                    

I am very impressed with the design and workmanship on this manifold. The machined surfaces are extremely smooth with no visible machining marks. All the tapped holes are done cleanly and screws fit smoothly and without slop. I can't wait to mount a carb. According to the Prices, running the carbs reversed using the flat style intake will necessitate using a carb spacer due to the lower extension of the rear carb throttle shaft contacting the #4 runner on the intake. It looks like a spacer of 3/8" thickness will allow the carb to clear nicely. More photos will be posted as I get closer to installation.

Also on the agenda for this year is the installation of a fresh set of Edelbrock aluminum cylinder heads #60379. I opted for a set sporting 1.90 intake valves and pedestal style rockers because I wanted to reuse my roller rockers. Since my car is a cruiser and not a dragster there was not need for the gigantic 2.02 intakes. Anyway, I picked them up real cheap and they were in near mint condition. I had the local machine shop take a cleanup pass on the gasket surfaces just to be sure.

Last on the list is replacing the stock distributor with a new Mallory Unilite unit.

Finally, on April 2 the weather has warmed enough to allow work to begin. Luckily, I have a friend who has a side post lift in his huge garage which should make it a lot easier to do the work. First came the task of tearing down the motor. The first task was to drain the coolant including removing the drain plugs in the block (the lift was VERY handy here), then disconnect and remove the upper radiator hose and both heater hoses from the water pump and intake manifold fittings. This was easy because I had coated the fittings with anti-seize compound prior to assembly. Next the throttle rod was removed followed by the choke cable, coolant temperature sensor and fuel lines. The fuel filter and bracket were unbolted and removed, then the radiator expansion tank assembly and finally the alternator. Of course, the battery shutoff switch was in the OFF position. Sparks would not have been good. I elected to remove only the distributor cap and wires as a unit to prevent mistakes upon reassembly. The intake manifold can easily be removed without disturbing the distributor so I probably won't even have to tweek the timing. Am I lazy or what?

Now that all that stuff was out of the way the valve covers came off next. Now the intake manifold assembly was removed exposing the lifter valley. Out came the breaker bar and with plenty of muscle all of the head bolts were loosened. I decided to completely unbolt the headers and remove them from the vehicle not only to give more working room but also to allow inspection of the tubes and give the opportunity to clean them up with some lacquer thinner and fine steel wool. The headers and side pipes are ceramic coated so a little shining wouldn't hurt anything. The heads came off easily as did the head gaskets revealing a nice clean deck surface. All I had to do was a little scraping on the end rails of the block and I was ready to begin the installation. Below are a couple of photos of the motor when ready to receive the new parts.

      

First on the assembly leg was to install the new heads. I used FelPro head gaskets #1011-2. The gaskets were placed on the head dowels in proper orientation. Then the heads were lowered onto the dowels prior to installing the studs. I opted for ARP head studs with the aluminum heads. These were lubed with moly assembly lube and screwed in finger snug and then backed off one full turn from seated. The supplied washers were lubed and finally the nuts. Using the proper sequence and a four step torquing sequence the nuts were torqued to 85 lb/ft as per ARP instructions.

      

Now the push rods, which had been carefully removed, cleaned and arranged to install back on the proper lifter, were lowered into place. I reused the Crane 1/7 roller rockers and placed each one back on the same push rod as the original installation, torquing them to 20 lb/ft.

      

Next came the intake manifold. As one might expect, no job ever is completed without at least one snafu. Here was mine. When attempting to trial fit the intake it wouldn't drop down between the valve cover gasket ridges above the gasket flange. Several quick measurements identified the problem. The distance between the valve cover ridges on the heads was 11 1/8". The width of the intake manifold was 11 3/16". I took this measurement with the intake sitting flat on the bench and a right angle square against each side of the intake. The distance between the two squares was then measured. A quick call to Price Motorsports brought the problem to light. My block is a 1969 351W block with a deck height of 9.480 rather than the customary 9.500. What a difference that .020 makes.

      

After several minutes of collaboration with Bill Price I decided to chuck the intake on the milling machine and take a vertical cut off of each side of the intake to reduce the total width to less than 11 1/8". This was accomplished with a 1/2" three flute cutter after aligning the side rails of the intake along the X axis of the mill table. I ended up taking .080 off each side and the intake dropped into place perfectly. Here are a few photos showing how this was done.

                    

The intake now fit perfectly and the cuts I took are virtually undetectable. Now to proceed with further assembly.
The FelPro 1250 gaskets were installed, side rails first, using a bead of ultra black silicone around the front and rear water jackets on each head. I placed the self adhesive cork end rail gaskets on the rails and added a dab of silicone at each corner both underneath and on top of the gasket. Then I laid a 1/8" bead of silicone along the length of each end rail gasket. Using a set of four long guide studs screwed into the end holes I lowered the intake into place and hand tightened all the intake bolts. Then the studs were removed and the last four bolts were installed. Using the proper tightening sequence I brought the bolts to 20 lb/ft of torque using a three step torque sequence.

      

Because I wanted to run the carbs reversed as I did before I had to use a 1/2" carb spacer because the throttle arm hit the #4 intake runner. Since the Price intake was 3/4" lower than my homemade intake I could use the spacer and still end up with an extra 1/4" hood clearance. In an orderly fashion, I re-installed all the parts removed. Much to my relief, everything fit exactly as before. I ended up re-installing my valve cover adapter plates and FE valve covers. Since I didn't have to disturb the distributor the initial firing of the motor was uneventful, just a little cleaning fluid burning off the headers. Here is a photo of the finished installation taken before I began cleaning and polishing everything under the hood.

And now for the cleaned up finished installation.

      

I really thought there would be no further changes this year but, of course, I was wrong. I got the bright idea to change the throttle arms on the carbs from those ugly universal arms to the flat ones originally used on the Ford FE dual quad carbs. Since I was already using an original style progressive throttle linkage and trunnions I figured it couldn't be that difficult. First off was a call to Holley Tech Support. They actually had the Ford throttle arms in stock for a meager $2.50 each (see photo #1 below). With their $10 minimum I ordered four throttle arms. All four throttle arms came through with only the trunnion mounting hole for the primary carb drilled. The mounting hole for the secondary carb is approximately 3/8" closer to the pivot point of the arm so that had to be drilled. Not having an original plate to copy created a dilemma so I went searching for a good photo of a secondary throttle arm which I found at Carl's Ford Parts under his Holley Parts list. I took the photo of the secondary arm and enlarged it to perfectly match the size of the arm to be drilled. This I used as a pattern to locate the trunnion hole in the proper location and drilled the arm to accommodate the trunnion. The throttle shaft mounting slots are the same as on the old universal arms I removed so that eliminated a lot of aggravation (see photo #2 below). Holley peens the throttle shaft over the arm to retain the assembly. I decided to partially disassemble the carbs, removing the base plates to get access to the shafts. I removed the butterfly plates, marking each one to ensure they would be returned to their original bore and position, and slipped the primary throttle shaft out of the base plate. Then it was a matter of removing the throttle arm from the shaft. To do this I used a Dremel and a barrel shaped cutter to remove material from the throttle shaft until the shaft was flush with the old throttle arm, removing all the peined shaft material. Removal of the arm was now quite easy with several taps using a hammer and drift. I then carefully filed the end of the shaft taking off any sharp edges. You might ask, if I removed the material used to peen the arm in place how could I hold the new arm in place? Oh ye of little faith, read on. Holley uses 10-32 x 0.5 screws to retain choke pieces on the throttle shaft so I decided to do the same to retain the replacement throttle arm. I drilled a #20 hole in the shaft and tapped it 10-32 to accept a screw and washer which would retain the new throttle arm very nicely (see photo #3 below). This was an easy task on the drill press after aligning the shaft correctly. Reassembly was a snap. The new throttle arm was placed on the end of its shaft, indexed correctly, and secured with a 10-32 x 1/2 machine screw and #10 washer, secured with a dab of blue Loctite on the threads (see photo #4 below). The only concern was to ensure proper alignment of the butterfly plates before tightening everything down. As you can see in the photos below the finished product looks like a factory assembly. Swapping out the throttle arms not only makes the Holley #8007 carbs look more original but also allowed me to toss out the 1/2" carb spacers and gain another 1/2" of hood clearance. While I had the carbs off the car I decided to replace the plastic accelerator pump arms with original metal assemblies and also fiddle with the jetting a little. Since the plugs seemed to be running on the lean side I replaced the primary #51 jets with #53s and replaced the 6.5 power valve in the primary carb with an 8.5 since I pull close to 18 in. Hg vacuum at idle. This did seem to perk things up noticeably during "spirited" accelerations and imparted that nice tan color to the spark plug electrodes. Another project completed. What next?

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A friend sent me the following writing. Although I have no idea who actually wrote this I feel it definitely conveys the feelings of many Cobra enthusiasts and therefore is worthy to post here.

"If you want to just gas and go, and never have to worry about replacing an alternator, or snugging down the header bolts, or getting a wet leg driving in a rainstorm, or learning how to set your carb float level, or driving in traffic on a warm winter day with 'winter gas' in the tank, get a Corvette. "
"With a Cobra Replica you have to remind yourself that you are driving a hand made race car on the street. There is no compromise for anything other than pure speed. These cars are brutal and unforgiving, with all the refinement of a medieval battle ax. Like being in a relationship with an exotic dancer, you can never take anything for granted. These cars don't have millions of miles of testing refinement before you get yours. For any trip longer than an hour, you need earplugs, and goggles, and carry Advil and eye drops. You will need to learn to "read" the clouds for rain in your path, and have experience in unwrapping your frozen fingers from the MotoLita. You will experience lady passengers 'wetting' the passenger seat when you merge into traffic from an on ramp, and then nearly burn their calf getting out of the car."
"You will have all the invisibility of a burning Hindenburg, and flee from underground parking lots when uncountable car alarms are screaming your departure. When you shop, you will remind yourself that these cars get more attention than a dead body in a parking lot."
"With a power to weight ratio better than almost every supercar, you will find your 1/4 mile times traction rather than power limited. On the other hand, when you stage, out of the corner of your helmet's visor you will see almost the entire audience lining up at the fence, most with cameras up. If you track on a road course with a Porsche club, owners of expensive German machines will come to the fence to watch you power out in smoking oversteer. You won't even try to start your engine in the garage, but push it out onto the driveway, else your loyal watch dog will croak from the exhaust fumes. If you idle next to other "sports" cars at a traffic light, by the green, their girlfriend will be coughing green phlegm into her hanky, yelling at her date to just go! When you refuel, you might as well prop the 'bonnet' open, because you are going to have to show your motor to just about every other guy there. When you order your wings at Hooters, your waitress will whisper in your ear 'take me for a ride.' When you stop at the red light, the girl in the convertible next to you will invite you to 'take my top off too.'"
"When you slowly pass a troop of Harley riders, they will look over and give you thumbs up. When you want to ease out into traffic, other cars will immediately pause to let you go ahead of them. When your engine has its hot, crackling, intimidating exhaust sidepipe aimed right at the flank of the GTO, or the Z28, your exhaust pulsation's slowly unscrewing his lug nuts, the other car will remain motionless, as if the slightest quiver of his car will cause your car to stomp it dead. When you leave it open in a parking lot, and come back to find your sunglasses and cell phone still sitting on the tunnel, it is because your car has sullenly warned those who came over to admire it 'touch me and I will rise up here and kill you dead.'"
"When you put that tiny silver key into the ignition, and begin your start countdown, your car will whisper 'take me for granted, and I will kill you.'"
"When other drivers just hop in and snap up their belts while backing out of their parking space, you will still have two more minutes before you even get all the Simpson's properly on and snugged down. Pulling up in a Cobra Replica is like landing an F4U at an ultralite convention."
"In summary, very, very few drivers want this kind of attention, or can tolerate all that a formidable Cobra Replica demands. These cars are intolerant mistresses."
"But remember, there will come a day when you have to hang up your car keys for the last time. And perhaps you want to say then 'I did it.'"