The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop fenton exhaust and thickston intake - they dont fit

hey all

i have a 261 which has a set of fenton headers and a fenton intake. I never liked the linkage as the geometry is all wrong (this is a re-popped intake and exhaust).

I acquired a re-popped thickston intake. it solves the geometry issues, but i cannot figure out how to mount it properly.

the second bolt (from the front or back) cannot use the dog ears on the intake and exhaust as they hit the intake, and using a short bolt directly on the flanges is problematic as the thickness are very different.

any advice would be helpful.

I seem to remember this problem coming up before, and it was solved by custom-fabricating stepped manifold clamps out of square steel stock, possibly key stock. It takes some creative grinding and drilling and/or a milling machine to fab the custom clamps.
Jerry

Since it is a unique problem pictures would be very helpful. Who is the vendor for the intake? Is it a 216 or a 235 intake? That may seem like a trick question but it is not. How are you heating the intake? Thanks.

Here is some pics
https://goo.gl/photos/nKz95WJL7huAYfXw6

as you can see the dog ears cant be used (photo 1) as there isnt any room.
I can attempt to fabricate mounting it directly on the manifold but I would need to grind off the intake dog ear, and also grind away a bit of the exhaust.
note the differences in thicknesses between the intake (thin) and exhaust (thicker) flanges (next to the head).

As for heating, I dont use any.
what I would really want is an original set of fenton headers that mount directly to the intake like an original manifold. The re-popped fenton exhausts dont have this.

See Denny Graham's post on 6/07/14 regarding William's headers. On page 2, tiny_jaime has pics of his solution. Sorry, I don't know how to directly link the post.

Joe D.

I had no idea Fenton made headers like that.

oh cool i see now.....i now know something new.

here is a picture of an original set
http://www.chevytalk.org/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/242866/
I wish they made them like this.

all that aside, you WILL need to heat the intake.

If that is the Thickstun re-pop intake, now being re-produced, I would be talking with the "producer" of that intake. If it's an original intake, I would be talking with the "producer" of the re-pop Fenton headers, because all of the original stuff fits together correctly.

Is the bolt in the first picture crooked or in straight? It looks like a very small amount of Dremel work to clear a STUD which is long enough to come out to the outer set of ears with the clamp and a nut mounted at that point would clamp it tight.

Actually, that's a good point. After checking on mine, that's what I did. Use the "outer" set of ears with a stock clamp and a long bolt.

this is a very common problem with the reproduction items, As far as I know, the majority, if not all of the reproduction fenton items don't fit without modifying the hold down clips/washers, (whatever those things are called)I have a matching set of fenton intake and exhaust and still had to modify them. There was some fella on one of these forums, that was claiming to be the one responsible for importing of the fenton items. He had said the patterns were being replaced as the old ones were absolutely shot. Which is why the fit was so bad. Probably everyone knows already, but our sacred fenton stuff is now being produced in china. Seems almost as absurd as producing F-18's in china to me. But in all fairness there are very few foundries left in America.

I think the reproduction Fenton headers and reproduction Fenton dual-carb intake worked together with standard bolt-on clamps.

That was at least 6 years ago - the parts and my memory might have changed over those years.

My recent experience with the Fenton repo manifolds are thus:

Brand new repo Fenton dual exhaust manifolds from a popular online provider. When mounting to a stock 1bbl intake manifold the mounting shoulders wouldn't line up (either taller or shorter). Some clamps had to be ground to fit while another needed an angle iron adapter to fit.

Same Fenton exhaust manifolds mounted with a brand new repo Fenton dual intake manifold (from an internet vendor)
The mounting shoulders were the same height (or close enough) but the gap bridging them was closer than the stock manifolds so the stock clamps had to be installed at differing angles and/or ground to fit.

Bottom line for me is that stock clamps can be used but they need to be customized (ground down some) to fit when mounting repo Fenton dual exhaust manifolds.

Dave