Does anyone know if an Edelbrock Air Gap Intake will clear the hood on my Gen 2 1973 Stock 454 with its additional height? I am looking to replace the intake and carb with a Holley Brawler carb and (Hopefully) an Edelbrock Air Gap intake. Also, would anyone know what size/shape ports my stock heads would be or do i need to remove the stock intake before buying an upgrade intake? Any advice or experience would be greatly appreciated

 

I expect the manifold and carb will clear but you won't have much room for a proper air cleaner. Edelbrock is really good about listing the dimensional specs of their manifolds and I would expect Holley to be equally informative. I have a 350 SBC and upgraded from the Edelbrock Performer to their Performer RPM Q-jet and was able to accurately calculate the height of the air cleaner that would fit.

Pull off one valve cover to get the part/casting number. Do an online search of that number and you should be able to find all the specs you're looking for.

By the way, what's your ultimate goal with this car? Daily driver, trailer queen, demo derby, fair weather cruiser, tire scorching burnout king, quarter-mile sprinter,…??

 

Thanks for the info, my goal is to have a reliable weekender for car shows and cruising.

 

For reliability, may I suggest starting with upgrading the ignition system from points to HEI with 8mm spark plug wires and iridium plugs.

As for swapping the carb and intake, consider the old saying, "If it works, don't fix it." Assuming the car is running ok now and you want reliability, why not stick with what you have? The air-gap is good for circle track performance but not all that suitable for casual cruising. For one thing, the intake and carb will never come up to optimal operating temperature for that old engine. It will tend to run rich which will cause excessive carbon fouling in the combustion chamber.

I acknowledge that the biggest drawback with malaise era cars is the lack of horsepower due to the implementation of emissions regulations. Up to 1970, the 454 had a 10.25:1 compression ration and was advertised/rated as producing 390-465 h.p. depending on application. By 1973, it had a compression ration of 8.25:1 and was rated at 270 h.p.

With that said, the easiest and least expensive way to raise h.p. while maintaining reliability is to bypass most of the emissions controls; e.g., A.I.R. pump, thermal vacuum switch, E.G.R, etc. If you're considering going this route, be sure to do your research; there's a right way to do it and lots of wrong ways.

Good luck and keep us in the loop.

 

Zucchi,
wow! Thanks for the all that info. I guess I better explain my situation better. I bought this car in late February of this year. I only paid 15k for it cuz the body, paint and interior are in excellent shape. The car ran (sounds like it has a mild cam and headers) but was leaking a little fuel on the intake and flooding real bad when trying to start (it floods without even hitting the gas). Upon closer inspection I realized whoever was working on the engine over torqued the fuel intake line and cracked the carburetor housing. My thought was to replace the carb and since i was going that far, to put a good stock style intake on it as well. I really like the look of the Holly Brawler in black and red. Eventually I will pull the engine and repaint black w/ red Ceracoat accents ( I have a ceracoat spray gun and a converted gun cabinet made into a curing oven). I am trying to figure out the best carb/ intake combo that allows me to get the car running for the summer season. I’m not overly concerned with adding too much extra HP. Looks and reliability are my main concern. Any knowledge or experience you have for carb/ intake combos is greatly appreciated.

 

For ease of installation, functionality and reliability, I would go with an Edelbrock 1901 carb. It's a Q-jet clone that's had the flaws of the original Quadrajet engineered out. Unfortunately Edelbrock doesn't make them any more but you can find them on eBay. Another consideration is to get the same carb that's on the car now, simply do a search using the number stamped on the carb body. Unless you find one that's NOS, you'll likely need to refurbish it which is no big deal; same goes for the 1901. As a direct replacement, the 1901 will simply bolt right on without having to reroute the fuel line, vacuum lines, transmission kick-down, choke & accelerator hook-ups, etc.

When I got my Monte Carlo 40 years ago, I was where you are today, albeit I paid way less for mine back then. Mine had the stock iron manifold with 2-bbl carb. I pulled a stock iron 4-bbl manifold and QJ carb from a wrecking yard; I couldn't afford anything better back then. About a year later, I put in a rebuilt engine, got an Edelbrock Performer manifold for it, and put the same QJ I got from the wrecking yard. By the way, I used that carb and manifold on my engines until my latest build some three-years ago.

With that said, were I in your shoes now, I would get an Edelbrock 1901 to replace the carb you have now and top it off with the tallest open element air cleaner that will fit under the hood. That carb would not only give me the reliability I want, it will be suitable for an engine with more pep later when I have the time and money. The Edelbrock Performer is a good, all around upgrade manifold for the kind of driving you've indicated you'll be doing.

Can you post some photos of your engine bay? I may be able to give you additional helpful tips.

 

Zucchi,
do you have any knowledge or experience with the Holley 4175 “Quadrajet style” carb or even the Holley Sniper EFI quadrajet ? I want the install to as easy as possible, but would rather go with something new. I travel a lot for work and won’t Be back home until mid - late May, so I will post some pics of the engine bay then.

 

I looked into them… here's my take:

The Holley carbs have external float bowls whereas the QJ has a centralized internal float bowl. Each has their pros and cons. The nice thing about external float bowls is the ability to make tweaks without removing the top of the carb, however, they allow the fuel to slosh during hard steering which can result in fuel starvation. I agree that removing the top of the carb to make float and jet adjustments is a hassle but once the carb is dialed in, you're done, whereas a design that's prone to fuel starvation is forever.

The Sniper EFI is a throttle body injection system. These types of systems have been around for decades. Fuel injection is undeniably more fuel efficient than carburation and I personally prefer the throttle body type vs the individual injectors. They do not function with the stock fuel pump so a high pressure fuel pump with a gauge will need to be installed which adds more "stuff" in the engine bay – at least the throttle body has a regulator built in. The Sniper system adds more wiring in the engine bay which I find unsightly. Not to mention that every additional electrical doodad is another circuit that needs to be mapped out as well as a drain on the electrical system. If you're going to do that, it's recommended to install an auxiliary fuse panel and you really should upgrade your alternator from the stock 10SI to a 12SI and upgrade the charging wire from the factory 10ga to 8ga. By the way, electrical issues are a whole other topic. Anyway, each additional circuit is another potential point of failure at some point down the road. I don't disagree that the benefits of the system are appealing but I also think that Holley's marketing is a bit deceitful by saying there are only four wires (Battery +, Battery - , Switched Ignition & RPM) to hook it up, but then the included oxygen sensor is easy to install; doesn't that need a wire too? Then there's the dedicated fuel pump wire. Since this system is computer controlled it's also going to need its own temperature sensor – yet another wire.

I would probably select the Sniper system if I were going to pull the engine and do a resto-mod, and in that scenario, I would go for broke and get the in-tank fuel pump retro fit, the synched distributor, etc., so as to take advantage of every benefit this system can offer.

I'm hip. With a new off the shelf item, you'll have tech support and a warranty. Just throwing this out there… getting a correct replacement QJ for your car then having it rebuilt by a competent reputable carb guy will be as good as new and come with a warranty.

 

Again, thank you for the advice and insight. I guess I have a little more planning to do. I will let you know how it goes