When it's got all the right info. we do! I just read through all the other half dozen or so pages of threads on the MAN-A-FRE Manifold and found a lot of good information but none have this article i just found in my stash of old car mags. The article is from my March '65 issue of MODERN ROD. Enjoy!
Great article, thanks for the post. Now I have to stop working on flathead Fords and build a chevy to put my Man-A Fre on.
You could make your own. This is a plate on a B&M blower intake, 4 Weber 32/36 carb adapters and 4 Pinto 2 bbl carbs with mechanical secondaries.
Hmmmm. So let me see if I have this straight. We have an intake that is close to an IR, with one small csa runner connecting the carbs, and we "copy" it with an intake with four carbs dumping into a huge common plenum, right? I had a feeling I didn't wanna open this....
Digging way back with this one, as I remember this,Harold Graves started out in the Atlanta, GA area as a carb modification specialist, and then moved to CA. My contact with his Co. was in '67, as I was building a dirt oval car and wanted a "racer's edge". The tracks in the area here were running a 302 cid limit with a 2 bbl carb. Somewhere I had read about Graves and his carb modifications, and wrote (no emails back then) and got info on his carb after I was running with the above mentioned '57 Pontiac Roch 2bbl. After looking over his literature I ordered a carb, and the difference was unbelievable, both in appearance and performance, We were allowed to run any stock Chevy manifold and most of us ran an aluminum high rise Chevy manifold with an adaptor, btw. Instead of 2 venturi, this carb had one large oval venturi positioned over the throttle blades with a smoothed entry to them., and it put the stockPpontiac 2GC, no slouch itself to shame! Ran this carb several years, always had a rag stuffed in the top whenever aircleaner was off! When the Holley 2 bbl 500cfm came out, and a friend bought one, he was very happy with it and when he moved up a class to cars allowing a 4bbl and other bigger, better stuff, he pestered me till I put his Holley on my car one night to try it,and promptly put mine back on after that one race, slowed me up big time! Harold Graves knew his shit when it came to carbs!
To continue this on, at one time I was working on boring a Pont. 2 GC throttle body base out and installing larger throttle blades from a pair of large 1 bbl GMC truck carbs in the base and boring the middle venturi section out so far I was fabbing thin wall ss sleeves to go in because I was all the way thru to air outside the carb, planning to epoxy them in. But along about that time they opened up the rules for limited sportsman to run 4 bbls and I never completed that experiment.
There's another guy out there building rochesters with the oval throttle plate, but I can't think of his name right now, I have it at home.
Looking at the Man a Fre intake, the one I have is made in Atlanta and has the ring order instead of firing order, My understanding is the first run of these intakes the Fi didn't come thru and this was rectified on the second casting run. I've tried finding production numbers but to no avail as of yet.
The Jalopy Journal
