Reply to "Intake question"

As George says, there are two manifolds with the same part number.

The "torker" came first, the spider came later. They have the same part numbers.

The spider has smaller ports and is intended to use with the B351 aluminum high port heads.

This A331 won't fit iron heads as is. The bottom of the port is raised 5/8" and will leave that open.

You can use it with a custom made block off plate sandwiched between the intake and the heads that blocks off the bottom 5/8" of the heads ports.

If I was looking to buy one, I'd expect to pay $850 to $900 for one. They are that rare.

This manifold really is ONLY intended to be used with the Ford aluminum A3 heads. Those have now become very rare also.



John Vermersch was the guy who ran the Ford Muscle Parts/ Ford Motorsports Parts/ Ford Racing Parts program (all the same program with "evolving" name changes). He is the single guy that approved the parts and ordered them from the vendors.

He told me that manifold had only one minimum order of 100 placed with Edelbrock. Gary Hall also told me that as well. I personally have had four of them. One of them had special small ports cast into it for custom porting.

John did say that "he heard rumors" that there were a number made "unofficially" by an unknown source for the purpose of "cheating". He speculated that if so, the PROBABLE source was the company that cast the racing blocks for Ford but didn't know how they got a hold of the original molds from Edelbrock.

OFFICIALLY, there is ONLY the casting for the A3 heads. The B and C castings are counterfeits unauthorized by him. His words, not mine. Complain to John if you don't like it.



Kelly would probably say that my "small port A331" was made for the C302 head and maybe so but it never appeared in any catalog that I ever saw. Port sizes would be about the same as for the last 302 Windsor production iron heads...approximately.

I do question the 100 number, but even so, there were probably not thousands of them cast. Probably mid hundreds?



Other VERY rare Ford manifolds like the 427 magnesium manifold for the lightweight 427, the Shelby Boss 302 2x4 Holley manifold and the 289 Ford 2x4 T/A manifold had varying production numbers in the mid hundreds. Those three right there are like gold right now and this A331 manifold fits into that group as far as rarity.

The kicker is that even with those manifolds, they are only valuable to the person that needs one for that application. To others they are just another curiosity.

By contrast, Holman-Moody manifolds, which look similar, can be considerably rarer, often only a dozen or so of them cast, BUT many of them are small production runs of "prototype" manifolds that were never approved by Ford and in many cases inferior and don't work right or at least up to what the "production" manifold is BUT they are not Ford products so shouldn't be considered in the same light.


You can find a nice used Torker on ebay that will bolt on your 4v heads for about $150.