Quad Webers - without cutting up the deck?

Marcus,

The short answer is no.

Here's the details:

Weber manufactures 2 different 2 venturi, downdraft carburetors. The model in your picture, which is the model most commonly seen on Panteras, and Fords in general, is the IDA model. It is a racing carburetor. It is a tall carburetor, and low profile air filters are not commonly available for it. Its design does not favor street driving, it is inteneded for cars that are either accelerating or braking.

The second Weber 2 venturi downdraft carburetor is the IDF model. This carburetor is most commonly seen on small block Chevy's, Volkswagens, Porsches, etc. Its a "street" carburetor, it has a more easily tuned mid-range circuit, it is shorter than the IDA, and low profile air filter assemblies are readily available.

You will have no luck fitting the IDA below the engine screen.

However, with the IDF there is hope. There are a couple of Pantera owners in Europe that have IDF Webers installed on their Cleveland motors, everything fitting below the engine screen. One of them is the GT5-S of Kjell Iseborn, chassis 9558. Pantera International did a story on the car in issue 121.

The hitch (there's always a hitch) the intake manifolds available for this application are designed for small port (i.e. 2V) Cleveland heads, which some people have a strong negative reaction to(I do not feel this way). The intakes are also very rare and hard to locate. I have been looking myself for about 3 years. I do not recognize the intake on Mr Iseborn's Pantera, it is a finned unit I have never seen before. The other manifold I am familiar with is made by "Cain" of Australia. See its picture below.

Also from Australia, there is a Weber manifold made by Redline. It is also designed for 2V heads. It has adapters allowing it to use either IDA or IDF carburetors. However, due to the height of the adapters, the IDF will sit too high with this manifold, and you will not be able to keep the assembly below the engine screen.

cowboy from hell

Coundn't you just drop the engine further down into the bay so that the tubes still clear? If you have two inches of interfearance, just drop the engine down two more inches. It also lowers the center of gravity for the car making it handle better.

Here's another solution...if you just don't want to cut the deck because you don't want to alter an original deck lid, buy a fiberglass decklid cut the deck lid to fit. I have wanted the 48IDS's but am not altering any of my original Pantera parts....so what ever I do it's bolt on and I keep my old parts that can be bolted back on any time and the car is original...but very drivable and more current today.

On the the cobra owners site they do make a cross ram intake manifold that fits under the hood ...but not sure if they make it for a 351C.

Ron

Hum, interesting. The answer is technically is yes, you can.
In order to do so you need to shorten the velocity stacks and the auxilary venturis.
I have done this on other cars but not on the Pantera.

The problem is not that they won't fit, because I think they will, the problem is that the carb "requires" an equal amount of distance from the top of the stack to the nearest obstruction (the bottom of the deck) which is equal to the diameter of the carb throat, i.e., 48mm. (1.912")

On the Pantera, I think the most clearance I can give you is about 3/4".
So technically you can do it but because the IDA is a maximum performance carb, the installation would need to provide maximum performance and my opinion is with only 3/4" clearance you will restrict those two throats severly.

However, one could cut a round hole through the deck over each throat and put a round screen fit into that hole. Nah, scratch that one.

George,

Thanks for your very complete answer.

So the Weber options are:

1. Cut up the deck, and install one of the readily available quad Weber 48 IDA setups.

2. Replace the 4V heads with 2V heads, buy 4 Weber 48 IDF carbs, and start a lengthy search for the Cain manifold you have pictures of. (My web search turned up nothing on Cain except tangential references by various Aussie car buffs.)

Last year, I looked into getting some custom parts cast in bronze for a small boat I have under construction. The process is not as daunting or expensive as one would think. Looking at that Cain manifold in your pictures, it occurs to me that it is not a particularly difficult part to cast. So there is one more option:

3. Design, cast, and machine a manifold to fit quad 48 IDF carbs to a 351c 4V engine.

My immediate problem is that my Holley 700 double-pumper has not been tuned for street use. It is a pain to start (choke plate was removed), and runs very rich (you can smell gas while following it on the highway with your windows closed). It probably runs great at full throttle. When the quad IDA setup was offered to me, I thought that would be a great answer until I learned of the height problem.

The immediate, cost-effective solution is to either tune/rebuild this Holley, or go buy a new Holley 650 with vacuum secondaries and install that. That's what I'm going to pursue.

(To me, drivability and responsiveness are more important than ultimate horsepower.)

Long-term, I think I will explore option 3 above. If this proves feasible technically and economically, I'll bet it's worth keeping the mold around to make a few more. If you still need one when/if I do this, the second one has your name on it, George.

Thanks,

thank you Marcus.

Keep in mind, the 2V port roof is 3/8" lower than the 4V port roof, and the lower port may contribute to the ability of the IDF carbs to fit below the Pantera engine screen on the 2V manifold.

take care,

George

I did mine all wrong... LMAO... LOL...

Dennis,

I still have a picture of your motor pinned to the wall next to my bed!

George

Very cool, Thanks George.
LOL...

This is what you get for running with no air cleaners.
How are you going to get those tomatoes out of the stacks?

How come no one liked my idea??? You just take the ZF and turn it right side up, get a bell housing from a GT-40 kit, cut the motor mounts andlower them two inches and weld them back on and viola, you have clearance for your velocity stacks. You can also run a bundle of snakes under the crossmember bar now and get a shallow trunk made so you can get your trunk back, although it won't be as deep. But it will be every bit as deep as the front trunk. I think I had a good idea.

I think that the chassi of the Pantera will not allow the engine to sit low enough to reverse the ZF like in the Mangusta.
Even if it does, you will run into the insufficient ground clearance problem for the bell and the oil pan.
You need to stay above the bottom of the frame rails with that stuff.
I'm not sure that the 351c was what Detomaso had in mind when the engine bay was designed.

GT-40 bell takes care of that and of course you would need a dry sump, but that is no big deal right. I think they just wanted a lot of ground clearance for a road car. If you race it, no ground clearance is ok.