Reply to "Air Cleaner"

A view from the deck.

This started as a small air cleaner that could fit the car and still offer enough flow. The reason behind this is once I was fortunate enough to roam a shop and sit in an office of the man who was a well known creative engine genius who helped design the Holley four barrel most of us run. During the hours of fantastic stories including flying 50 plus WW2 B-17 sorties, he started talking about how air enters a carb and with many hours of dyno testing, the simple velocity stack was best to correct the shape. He explained that you need at least 4 inches of height to help the air re-shape and enter the card correctly especially "at speed" in his words. He said the best working air cleaner was the large diameter open on top type---looked like a giant stack with a foam filter. He said it didn't do much to clean the air but was great for "shaping". He explained the best air cleaner to use was not practical because it would be 8" in DIA and a foot tall. Next best option is a 10 to 12 inch DIA with at least a 4 inch gap from the top of the carb. He gave me one of his velocity stacks along with a proto type dry sump pan from the 50s---one of the first ones he ever made.

Of course the only way to prove this is to, in his words "dyno the same engine 5 times minimum the velocity stack and the air cleaner back and forth and measure the HP-Torque drop---10 runs minimum to get a real comparison.

In my case gaining a 1 or 2 HP is not the issue so if any of the air cleaner talk input helps someone, I hope I did my part. Thank you all for the additional ideas and support.