Strangely enough, at a friend's shop I found a coupla stock iron cast $BBL manifold for an FE like mine ("strange" 'cause you don't see FE parts everyday). He asked if I was looking for one, I told him I was gonna replace the stock 2-BBl on my 390 with an aluminum Edelbrock. He warned at great lenght the problems with aluminum manifolds added on to stock blocks, how the aluminum doesn't properly contract/contrast with heat of DAILY driving, and often causes leakage and electrolosis. Ever heard this before? Frank's no green horn, he's a been there/done that kind of mechanic. But I do (or did) plan on an Edelbrock mani for daily driving. Think it would cause problems?
shit,on a FE the weight savings alone make it worth it.i wouldn't ssweat it,just be sure to run the right mix of coolant/distilled water,and maybe get one of those rad.caps with the "sacrificial" element-george
Your pal is wrong. Improper installation, shitty gaskets and bad machining cause leaks and failures. Probably not too many Hot Rod guys on this board running cast iron intakes. Hell everything coming off the line nowdays has an aluminum intake.
besides which,i'd guess that 90% or so of everybody on here has an aluminum manifold on their car right now with no complaints.my bet is your friend has too many cast iron FE 4bbl. manifolds and not enough boats to anchor them with
Well, it'd anchor, that's fer damn sure. Damn right about the weight savings, but especially need help with that 390 keepin' it's cool.
I totally agree. As long as you use the right gaskets, and have any sort of a clue what you're doing an aluminum intake would work great.
A whole lotta cars came from the FACTORY with aluminum intakes on iron heads and blocks, too! Not a problem at all!! (Although getting steel and iron based fittings out of an old aluminum intake can be tricky....the dis-similar metals tend to almost fuse together over time! But...a little anti-seize on the threads during installation usually prevents that!)
One of the problems with the aluminum heads and/or intakes, even from the factory, is how easy they are to strip threads and another is the disimilar metals together causing corrosion and trying to remove heads, intakes and studs or bolts can be a problem. I can't see any problems with sealing other than aluminum components will need retorqued after a few heatups and over a period of time. The soft aluminum loses it's torque over time.
i've owned several with out any problems. permatex makes a sealant called "the right stuff" the shit cost a fortune, but it's very good. use a little of that in the corners and put a little on your intake bolt threads and you shouldn't have any problems.
Ive had a few bone stock 1965-69 390 drivers in the past and always had a problem with 2 bbl versions overheating and burning valves. Never any problem with the 4bbl. Dont know if they were just built to run too lean or what. Perhaps an FE expert can venture an explanation.
286merc- my experience with this 2-BBL FE was under-carberation, even with a 500 CFM Holley 2300. Runs great in spurts, you can hear the hiss of fuel mix squirtin' in, but hard to tune. But that could've been the carb itself. Still, I felt it was undercarberated, not from a Hot Rod sense, but from just sufficiently feeding it, especially when beefing up the mill in other aspects. The particular prob my bud had pointed out was aluminum getting along well with the iron heads and block. Well, we'll see. I'm dead set on going for it, anyway. Thanks for all the input!
Tri power: sweeeet. I've often wondered: with 3 2-Barrels in a tri-power, do you get any effect like a 4 BBL secondary boost? What's the Fringe Benefit with tri-power?
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