Need help and advice (Intake and carb swap)

[troyintahoe]

1974 318 two barrel, I'm swapping to an Edlebrock Performer with an edlebrock 1406 elec choke. stock 318, with true dual exhaust/flowmasters.

I pulled off the stock two barrel and manifold. The valley has quite a bit of carbon in it. Should I chip it out of there, clean it with a spray cleaner, or leave it alone?

I went down to the local parts store and bought stock intake manifold gaskets. They are metal. With these cause any issues with the aluminum intake?

Can you offer advice on installing the intake. (IE where and how much sealant, torque specs, and any order). Lastly any suggestions on what I need to plug after this install and what throttle linkage to get, if any.

I've never done an intake swap and I'm a little nervous. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Also thoughts on how much HP this combo should put out compared to what it was stock. Thanks a bunch, Troy

 

[rumblefish360]

I pulled off the stock two barrel and manifold. The valley has quite a bit of carbon in it. Should I chip it out of there, clean it with a spray cleaner, or leave it alone?

And risk having those chips fall into tight spots that you can not get to and screw things up. Leave it be.

I went down to the local parts store and bought stock intake manifold gaskets. They are metal. With these cause any issues with the aluminum intake?

I myself would return them and use a Fel-Pro gasket and distilled water in the coolent mix to prevent any aluminum corrsion. Even though it'll take a while to happen.

Can you offer advice on installing the intake. (IE where and how much sealant, torque specs, and any order). Lastly any suggestions on what I need to plug after this install and what throttle linkage to get, if any.

This is an easy read in the engines book for the small block by Mopar. Since you do not have it, use sealent in the corners where the intake meets the head and block. This tri meet area should be given a genourous amount of sealent and then run a 1/4 beed across to the other side of the bloc and head meet point. This will stop oil leaks. Do the front and rear. The sealent is not needed else where.

Torque specs I forget, I normanaly tighten it to around 30 lbs. give or take.

I've never done an intake swap and I'm a little nervous. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Also thoughts on how much HP this combo should put out compared to what it was stock. Thanks a bunch, Troy

Take your time and it'll be fine. These parts will add approx 25 -30 hp on the big end. Tune that carb well!

Lastly any suggestions on what I need to plug after this install and what throttle linkage to get, if any.

IMO, take the intake down to the local hardware store before installing it and get a plug for every threaded hole. Return what you don't use.

Throttle linkage for the 2bbl. differ's from the 4bbl. linkage. You can reuse the 2bbl. linkage with a nut and bolt (2 Washers as well) to adjust and hold the kick down arm in place.

Below are some shots on how to do it. I used a lock/nylon nut and 2 washers on each side (I think) with the bolt comeing through from the carb side. Return spring can be mounted anywhere.

Notice how the bolt holds the arm back. This must be adjusted to operate the tranny for driving in drive as well as kicking the tranny down in gear in while driving. When you test drive the car, it should operate normally, as it did before you did the swap.

Failure to reconect this or leave badly miss adjusted will result in transmission failure. So hook it up!

To far back and the tranny will shift late or never shift, to far foward and it'll shift early.
To far back is more acceptable than too far foward.

 

[troyintahoe]

Awesome answer! Thanks much Troy

 

[QWKSLVR]

Hi. All excellent advice from rumblefish360. I just have one thing to add. There are two dowel pins one in front center and one in the rear center in the block where the intake sits. Alot of aftermarket intakes do not have the holes drilled underneath for those pins,so you can either take out the pins or drill the holes in your manifold. Just use the front and rear pieces of your gasket as a template to mark the spot to drill. You may have already found this out depending how far you are with the swap. Good luck. Bobby

 

[rumblefish360]

Good mention quick!
IMO, Take out the dowel pins, do not drill the intake. That'd be silly. The gaskets are sometimes ill cut or outright wrong.

Reminds me of a time when doing a freinds intake, the end seals were cut 3 inchs longer than the block was wide. Go figure! LOL

Anyways, often MoPar sez skip the end seals in favor of a large beed of sealent instead.