Quoting: Roadkill
I don't want to go into details too much, yet . . . .
I'm trying to be fairly transparent with this project so I'll fill-in some details regarding the intake.
Originally, I discussed the intake with Clive at Stromberg and he'd come up with a price of £400 to fabricate it (with me supplying the basic "kit"), plus supply the valley cover (required on Poncho and Caddy motors).
Good price, I thought, so that was how it started . . .
Although quickly it became apparent that he'd not got his head around the level of work involved in fish-mouthing all the pipes and the fettling needed to weld it up.
We originally discussed making it off of the engine, but he'd suggested - quite rightly - that it'd be best fabbing it on top of the motor . . . which was why the motor was sent to Stromberg in the first place.
Don't get me wrong, these things are a PITA to make from the "kit" (which is why I didn't want to do it) BUT this is not anything out of the ordinary when it comes to these "dual log" style manifolds . . they've been around since the late 40's and haven't changed at all in that time so I was surprised at some of the questions I was getting asked.
Clive then said he was nervous about fabricating over the motor in case anything contaminated it so asked for me to create a (fairly elaborate) jig.
I was also then left with designing and supplying the valley pan, too . . .
And also a new set of intake flanges as the ones in the kit were too small for the massive ports - this was nobody's fault but mine, really, but the list of things I was now having to sort was growing.
In the end I decided to scrap the "dual log" design.
I love the look of them, but in reality they don't flow that great and If I'm going to be left with loads of work I may as well design something truly unique.
So, I'm in the process of designing - from scratch - an all-aluminium intake and am now looking to increase the number of carbs from Six to an even Eight.
Yeah, yeah, I could buy an off-the-shelf 4BBL intake and be done with it . . . but I've got an idea in my head and that's that.
Unfortunately, with the delays on the manifold this has effectively pushed the actual start date of the project into next year, now. I was planning to start taking her apart around now but it won't be until spring '15, at the earliest.
I'm a bit put out with Stromberg for the messing about BUT aren't holding any grudges.
At the end of the day, they're a couple of guys running a small business that's in the U.K and in a very U.S based market. That in itself is really cool but on top of this they're releasing multiple new products and a completely new "big" 97.
I could start throwing my toys out of the pram but what they're doing is cool.
I can't argue with that . . .
