Stovebolt.com Forums The Parking Lot '73-'87 Trucks -- "The Rounded Line" 1973 454 Edelbrock tuning

At one time I had over 30 years' worth of dyno run documentation, some of it recorded by my father, and some I did myself, from the high school auto mechanics shop where we both taught from 1971 to 2010, with a 7-year gap between us. That shop was equipped with a chassis dyno, a water brake bell housing dyno, and all the equipment needed to build high performance engines except a crankshaft grinder. During my tenure, an over-zealous assistant principal discarded a filing cabinet full of "obsolete" paperwork that included dyno run documentation on at least 100 engines! He didn't get a Christmas gift from me again!

Those runs proved one thing beyond the shadow of a doubt- - - - -headers, compared to stock cast iron exhaust manifolds are good for three things- - - -increasing the under hood temperature, blowing out gaskets, and burning up spark plug wires. They also rust out in a hurry unless they're stainless steel. The only measurable power gain is achieved at RPM's far above anything the average street engine ever sees, and to get a power gain that's worth the effort, each header tube must be exactly the same length from the exhaust port to the collector. The best way to achieve that is to use a collector about 6" in diameter, and let the pipes from the last three cylinders extend into it. I ran a 460 cubic inch "440" MOPAR pull truck engine with that setup, and sized the diameter and length of all the header tubes to hold exactly one cylinder's volume of exhaust gas. The tubes were about 6 feet long each. We won several pulls in the Super Stock class with that engine- - - -running one carburetor and gasoline, and producing just over 700 HP at 6500 RPM.

BTW- - - - -that "one carburetor" which was required by the pulling class we were running was not a big Holley, Edelbrock, or Carter- - - -it was a Qjet for a 455 Buick with a little bit of jetting change to accommodate the "Street Tunnel Ram" intake, radical roller cam, and ported heads were running.
Jerry

That’s a lot of references material lost to the landfill.
Thanks for teaching what you learned from it. That information is not entirely lost in a way but that’s still a tragedy.

I’ll pull down the cast iron manifolds out of the barn and give them the business!
Then they will be ready to go back on when these pipes eventually cause trouble.
Meanwhile I’ll rebuild the Quadrajet and get it a manual choke linkage.
I appreciate you guys helping with a game plan!

Does the engine still have the spread bore Q-Jet manifold or had it been changed out to a square bore? If you use the Q-Jet you'll want an intake to match.

I went all in with the hype and put an Edelbrock manifold on it. I still have the factory intake somewhere.

"I love it when a plan comes together!" Good luck! If you want to dress up the engine with a little eye candy, an aftermarket manifold for a Holley "Spread Bore" carburetor has the same footprint as a Qjet. I'm not even sure if those manifolds are still available, except maybe at a swap meet somwewhere.
Jerry

As it turns out that Aluminum doesn’t age well If you don’t keep it polished. I will just repaint the factory manifold eventually when I make the swap later on.
I think changing the gear ratio (as you suggested first) would be the best performance modification for a stock setup anyway.
Thank you kindly for the help!

Check which Edelbrock intake you have. If it's a single plane, it's a high RPM manifold & will be a dog at low RPM's. Your dad may have gone that route to match the cam he installed back then. For a low end torque application you want a dual plane intake.

Google it for more info. Also, have you dug into the ignition timing any? That might be something to look at, depending on what your dad might've done . Does your distributor have a vacuum advance? Is it hooked hooked up & working off of a manifold vacuum port?

I put a Gen V 454 with a modern Edelbrock dual plane in my C10. I checked with Edelbrock tech dept about which carb I should use on my mildly built 454 & they recommended the carb you have. Just saying that a 750 is not too big for that engine.

The Holley intake Hotrod Linc mentioned had a great reputation back in the day but is no longer made.

Do you realize you're responding to a zombie thread that hasn't been active in the past 18 months? I doubt if the OP will see your comment, since he hasn't been around since then.
Jerry

No, I didn't. Usually I look at the posting date. Thanks for pointing out.