My trip to the top of the mountain

[kjspeed]

I took a few hours today to take a scenic ride up US41 to meet the guru of Webers - Jim Inglese. I wanted to make sure that my Webers were working and synchronized properly and to take advantage of watching someone who truly knows what they are doing so I might learn a thing or two.


First off - Jim is a great guy and it was a real pleasure to meet him. He spent an hour and a half with me and he made a few changes and we took to the road to test everything out. I thought everything was working pretty good before I got there but it turns out that there were a couple of things that needed to be tweaked. And tweak he did! The car is actually running better at low to mid throttle than it used to. All the better as it winds up to 7 grand.


I was also impressed at how easily changes could be made with a couple of screwdrivers, a nut driver and a couple small wrenches. As Jim explained; "these carbs were designed for racing so they needed to be easy to work on in the pits." I've played with 4bbls - changing jets, tuning and checking float levels, etc. and these sure do look easier (when you know what you're doing).


Hopefully I will now get the 56 MPG that Barnes promised me when he sold me the car...

[chris NOS]

nice set up !

[deathsled]

They look great!

[mark p]

cool stuff ...now we'll be waiting to hear how close you get to that "56 mpg" 

[gjz30075]

How about a little 'in car video' to get us juiced up

[terlingua11]

exactly.....

http://www.saacforum.com/index.php?topic=1776.0

[kjspeed]

I've been waiting to use my brother's Garmin Virb 360 camera for a little road trip. Might happen this weekend. When I do, I'll post the video. Meanwhile, here is a tease of it warming up a few months ago. 
https://youtu.be/o6yhnLMiWIk

[98SVT - was 06GT]

cool stuff ...now we'll be waiting to hear how close you get to that "56 mpg" 

It'll get 56 mpg if 40 of them are on a tow truck. A jet jockey told me one time fun was in direct proportion to pounds of fuel burned. I've found it to be very true.

[shelbydoug]

cool stuff ...now we'll be waiting to hear how close you get to that "56 mpg" 

It'll get 56 mpg if 40 of them are on a tow truck. A jet jockey told me one time fun was in direct proportion to pounds of fuel burned. I've found it to be very true.

When I had that set up I was getting around 22mpg with it. The biggest difference was I used a different camshaft then John selected.The headers are likely different also with 2-1/8" primary tubes. They were made by a company called "Pro-stock" and had come off of an R model that had been running a Cleveland.


It gave me around 14 inches of vacuum at idle but even so I was running the brake setup out of the Boss 302 Chassis modification book. Manual with a 1-1/8" bore master cylinder.


By comparison the 715 holley gave me at best 13. So really, it was easy to justify the entire setup.

[kjspeed]

My comment about the 56 MPG came from a conversation I had with John a few weeks ago. I mentioned that when I take the car to "specialty" car shows most people seem to know that the induction system is Webers. But when I take it to local shows most people have no idea what they're looking at. Some think it's some kind of fuel injection system, others have absolutely no idea. When I told John about that he said he used to tell those kind of people that these special carburetors would get 56 MPG because they were so efficient. Any of you that know him know that he really likes to tell stories. He's a world-class bullsh***er. In fact, I think a few of the trophies I got with the car might be for that. 

[shelbydoug]

My comment about the 56 MPG came from a conversation I had with John a few weeks ago. I mentioned that when I take the car to "specialty" car shows most people seem to know that the induction system is Webers. But when I take it to local shows most people have no idea what they're looking at. Some think it's some kind of fuel injection system, others have absolutely no idea. When I told John about that he said he used to tell those kind of people that these special carburetors would get 56 MPG because they were so efficient. Any of you that know him know that he really likes to tell stories. He's a world-class bullsh***er. In fact, I think a few of the trophies I got with the car might be for that. 

Well sure, lots of used trophies available cheap. I suppose some collect them? 


I remember the issue with the intake manifold. It was a major issue for him that it said Hall Pantera on it and he would go no further until that was changed and said SHELBY on it.

At one time Curt Voght had the COBRA  and SHELBY "name sticks" for the molds. What these are are premade name labels that would get dropped into the molds at casting time.



I still have a COBRA one here and they are quite thick and easily weldable.

I don't know how much that cost him to have that welded in, but my thought was plenty. I want to say $600 but don't forget that is 1980 dollars.

Inglese had that done for him. In fact, it MIGHT have been Curt Voght who did it. He's quite a fabricator and can copy almost anything. In fact, I'd bet that is Curt's "handy work".



I saw the copy of the Paxton supercharger box that he made that replicated the first car that Shelby American did and showed the press with. The square box with the fins and the COBRA lettering on it. It looked better then the original one did.



The other thing with that manifold was that I was having issues with the Pantera throttle linkage  set up. The center tower is needed on a Pantera but on the Shelby was right in the way and interfered with the, over/under connection because of the carbs mount opposite to each other.

It was twisting the linkage and after a full throttle run, the engine wouldn't idle back down since the linkage wouldn't return to zero.



Inglese had designed a side mount for the Shelby's that worked well.  So all this considered  the tower had to go and the SHELBY stick had to replace it. It just all worked out together.

The parallel linkage is a compromise. Part of that compromise is that "adapter kit" that mounts the carbs parallel to each other.


The original design for the Cleveland engine was said to have originally been built for Detomaso by Hoolman-Moody through Ford's connections and the molds sold to Detomaso after completion.


If you start to look at significant numbers of the manifold like the length of the intake runner to the intake valve, you will notice that on that manifold, it's right there. About 4.5" from the throttle opening to the valve.

In addition, when you mount the carbs opposite to each other, you enhance the throttle response because of line of sight from the throttle opening to the valve.

When you parallel the carbs on that manifold, you loose that on one side. I ran them both ways then. To me, the throttle response loss was significant. I had no choice but go that route because of the linkage issues.



Back then, no one had a dyno in their garage like they seem to have today, so the only dyno available was a seat of the pants dyno. So what was lost and what was gain is speculation anyway. The loss was noticeable to the driver. The passengers were still leaving finger nails in the dash pad and because they were in terror anyway, never noticed a thing? 


I think what John said about horsepower at around 500 is very close to reality. How much more is there is hard to tell. JUST living with ONLY 500 , 539 is a burden I suppose? Life can be tough? 



John used to tell everyone it was the only SHELBY intake Weber manifold ever made. He is absolutely right. He didn't say by whom though? It did come out nice. 

It's a great car and he did a beautiful job on it. I think you were VERY wise to buy it. I'm just trying to help you to understand it more.

[mark p]

My comment about the 56 MPG came from a conversation I had with John a few weeks ago. I mentioned that when I take the car to "specialty" car shows most people seem to know that the induction system is Webers. But when I take it to local shows most people have no idea what they're looking at. Some think it's some kind of fuel injection system, others have absolutely no idea. When I told John about that he said he used to tell those kind of people that these special carburetors would get 56 MPG because they were so efficient. Any of you that know him know that he really likes to tell stories. He's a world-class bullsh***er... 

Great story.
My guess would be that he had different versions of b.s. about the Webers to help keep himself entertained 

[kjspeed]

As Paul Harvey would say; "Now you know the rest of the story."


He did tell me that manifold was one of only 4 made although he didn't say who made it. Jim smiled when he saw it and mentioned that it was very rare.


Shelbydoug, I appreciate your insights on the background on the car - thank you!


I did get the dyno sheet from 2006 when this motor was rebuilt:

[shelbydoug]

As Paul Harvey would say; "Now you know the rest of the story."


He did tell me that manifold was one of only 4 made although he didn't say who made it. Jim smiled when he saw it and mentioned that it was very rare.


Shelbydoug, I appreciate your insights on the background on the car - thank you!

Even rarer than you thought! 


A thought on the dyno numbers, those are PROBABLY obtained with dyno headers. You want to test with YOUR headers IF possible, or possibly with the two to compare.

Those are nice hp numbers especially considering those are with the iron heads which have a really restricted exhaust port.

Still, not a slouch at all considering the Cleveland was aimed at a 500hp package by Ford when conceived of.


There were "complaints" from "the mechanics" that the 48 ida's were showing restriction in the 289's at around 6,500 rpms's in the GT40's back then.

Some NOW have bored them out to 51mm, which if you are a theoretical mathematician would extrapolate a 351 to need to be equal to a 289 on steroids.

EMPI sells them now, 51mm bore carbs, off the shelf. Those would be interesting to test. If you pull off a carb and put a dial caliper on the bore of the intake manifold, it is most likely going to show right on 51mm. Mine does at least.


If you watch the "in car" cams on some of the vintage racing Panteras, many shift the car right in the 6,500 to 6,700 rpm vicinity. Even though this is all circumstantial evidence, it tells me something about the power range of that engine.

6,700 rpm in 5th gear in a Pantera on a road race course is nothing to take likely. It's up there with everything of the period including the GT40's.



If people ask, I tell them 550. Then I get this choking reaction with a BS remark. You've got dyno proof. Many will accuse that of being counterfeit. Hardly.

My difference is that I am running a set of race prepped FORD A3 aluminum heads along with 180 headers and a .606 lift cam.

The heads have raised exhaust ports and are good out of the box for another 30hp and the headers build torque and depending on the tube size and length peak at certain rpms. Probably conservatively good for another 30lb-ft at 6500.

The Clevelands are very tuneable for power curves but the chassis can be very limiting to the exhaust gains.


Of  course all of this doesn't mean I can go faster than anyone else at all? As Austin Coyle once said about John Force, the "monkey needs to be able to pedal the car" and I'd need stay ON the course BUT it sure gets a lot of attention with all of the noise and smoke? 

I still need to work on that. I'm tired of touching up the paint.