As far as the Edelbrock that takes his carbs. Those are the continuation of the Carter AFB design with his improvements and name on them. The advantage to them is that they are shorter then the Holleys.
I can tell you that the original Ford design of the 2x4 manifold had the carbs mounted backwards. They first appeared on the FE's. I think the 427 in 63was the first to get them.
By mounting them backwards there are two advantages. 1) the front carb becomes the primary carb and the primaries it are very close to being centered into the manifold 2) the set up uses the 1860 series Holley with the metering plate in the secondary. That reduces the overall length of the carb by about 1/2" and enables the carb to be centered in the manifold and have a little breathing room against the distributor cap.
The 2x4's that were built for the Carter carb design do not have that issue.
My 302 (347) has it's carbs mounted this way, i.e., backwards. Even so, the secondary carb is right up against the firewall and overhangs the back of the engine.
Since there is excellent, and some claim the best, carb linkage for this setup from the 427 Ford, the car runs around town on only the primary 2v barrels of the primary carb. The primaries in the secondaries start to open around 3500 and at a faster rate then the primary/primaries so that at full throttle they both are wide open.
You would think that the engine was drastically over carbed with this set up but I can tell you that in both cases of both my Shelbys, 68 GT350 and 67 GT500, they are not.
I have Webers on my Pantera and I have the ability to compare these things all side by side and can tell you that the small block with 2x4's is the best set up of them all.
Of course I always wanted to try the Doug Nash with the two Autolite inlines on the Pantera but couldn't put all the parts together at the same time and gave up and went back to the Webers.
You wouldn't possibly know who might have one of those set ups now would you Kelly...Kelly?
