Autolite Inline Carbs

Dan Jones in your man. He can answer your questions better than anyone.

Dan?

Yes they will fit a Weber intake manifold

I could never get a pair so I could never run them.

I am told that they have a bad transition problem. Other then that I don't see why you couldn't run them on the street.

Why do you ask? Do you have a deal on a pair? You would want to run the big ones and "choke" them down to about 50mm. You could machine "chokes for them out of round aluminum bar stock on a lathe. You have a lathe right? It isn't difficult.

They were designed to use Ford fuel jets for both the fuel and the air correctors. I do believe that the Holleys have the same thread for the jets. Getting the picture yet?

I can help a little here. Before I had my Pantera I autocrossed a Boss 302 for about 15 years. My memory might be a little fuzzy here but I thing I'll remember most of the facts. The inline carbs came in 2 sizes. I think one was an 850 or so and a larger one was 1400 or so. The would only fit in a specific 2 piece manifold. I think it was called a Cross Boss. The top piece could be changed and you could run 2 carbs if you wanted to. There were supposedly some made of magnesium also. I owned one and we had it on the car for a weekend or so but as I remember the car ran better with a Holley. I think all of the parts to rebuild the carb were regular autocraft 2 barrel parts. It was a simple piece. I think there were 3 circuits designed into it. A WOT it screamed but at part throttle it was awful. It ran way fat. Keep in mind we really didn't know what we were doing either. I remember some guys fabricating a new simple top to their manifolds on other engines to try to make the thing run because it looked so cool. I saw a guy with a Mopar 426 that had one working. I don't know how it ran. It won't fit on a Weber intake. Barry Grant was advertising an inline carb recently that resembled the Inline. If you're going to try to make one work, some where I probably have all the info on set up. The idea of the carb was to get around the SCCA rule book on carb limitations back in the Tran Am series back in 69" or 70". I think the rule book said you could only run 1 four barrel. The carb and intake was something that had to be available over the counter and have so many made. Most of the guys who had one also seemed to have to box that it came in too. That was before people cared about that kind of thing. I always thought that was because we all wanted to make the thing work because it looked so cool but no one I ever knew could get it to run anywhere but a race track. If any one has a picture they should mount it here. It looks cool in 1 and 2 carb configurations. I'd forgotten all about it.

I actually had the Doug Nash mag manifold for the Boss 302 to mount two Autolite Inline carbs to the engine.

The spacing of the throttle bores is close enough to mount the carbs to a "Weber" intake. I think that is what Ron was asking?

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If any one has a picture they should mount it here.

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Dan Jones in your man. He can answer your questions better than anyone.

This is in Dan's own word -

pulled from here -

http://tinyurl.com/2zxt7n

Larry

Wasn't there some kind of magnesium intake for clevelands that had some kind of almost IR thing running 2 inlines? I remember something where there were 8 individual runners that bolted into what I thought was some kind of sheet metal and the runners went between the bottom of the carbs and the engine. That would look very cool on a Pantera. I thought it was cleveland specific because it was dry. Maybe that was a Weber intake I'm thinking of? Dan Jones or some one who still has the paper work or actually has one should comment. It was a long time ago when we used vacuum gauges instead of laptops.

We must have been typing at the same time.

Thanks for the responce.

Doug no I picked up a Boss 302 in Tampa and researching the car got me thinking. But I guess I was right ..if they were so good then why didnt Ford continue them.

One thing for sure they look awsome.

Ron

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Originally posted by accobra:
Can anyone answer some technical questions about the old Autolite Inlane Carbs ?

I have an embarrassing amount of inline stuff.

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1. Do they fit a Weber intake flange ?

Strictly speaking no. The bore centers are not the same and none of the mounting holes line up. However, with welding and some fab work, IDA intakes can be adapted for inlines.

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2. Did they perform well ? I;m guess not since ford discontinued them.

In IR configuration they were pretty good. You would like them on a stroker Cleveland. Not as tunable as IDA Webers but elegantly simple, easy to jet, and the 9510B (1425 cfm) is capable of flowing signifcantly more than 48IDAs. They were never homologated by Ford for TA or anything else that required it. IMO their demise had more to do with regs/sanctioning, timing, and the politics of racing at Fomoc at the time, than the potential for performance.

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3. Can they be run on the street ?

In IR, they're actually pretty good street performer for a fair weather car. Dan Jones will be dyno testing one of my Nash IR set ups in the near future.

Kelly

Good evening MR Coffield ... thinking of a set for a Boss 302 Motor I;m building.

By the way my Pantera motor is near completion and we need to get togther to complete my IR EFI.

So tell me about " I have an embarrassing amount of inline stuff." But wasnt there a smaller SIZE Autolite set carb ... what do you have for my Boss 302 motor ?

Ron

Das es et! Dats de puppies! Nice set Kelley.

I sold my Doug Nash intake because 1) I could not negotiate a pair of carbs that I could afford and 2) the only way to close the bottom of the port is to fabricate a spacer plate to the A3 heads.

I suppose the Devcon epoxy will work but in to many cases it has come loose and gotten sucked into the intake.

As I recall, there was a question whether or not they would fit on the Weber intake and it looked like a 1/2" adapter plate would be necessary.The Hall ida intake had a slightly wider carb spacing then the SB Ford but not by much.

They were tempting because the carbs are not as tall as the Webers and for the Pantera that is a plus.

How many of those manifolds do you think were made?

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Originally posted by PanteraDoug:
Das es et! Dats de puppies! Nice set Kelley.

Thanks Doug

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I sold my Doug Nash intake because 1) I could not negotiate a pair of carbs that I could afford and

They are novel and highly sought after by collectors. They fetch a pretty penny.

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2) the only way to close the bottom of the port is to fabricate a spacer plate to the A3 heads. I suppose the Devcon epoxy will work but in to many cases it has come loose and gotten sucked into the intake.

Very true. All depends upon how permanent the intent of installation I suppose. People tend to reinforce Devcon with pins or fashion aluminum chunks for the bulk fill, mechanically secure, and Devcon the rest. I think it can be done reliably but certainly understand the angst.

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As I recall, there was a question whether or not they would fit on the Weber intake and it looked like a 1/2" adapter plate would be necessary. The Hall ida intake had a slightly wider carb spacing then the SB Ford but not by much.

Yes, but inlines have 4 3/8" bore centers. IDAs are 120mm between the carb centers and the distance between the center two barrels on weber intakes vary but is always less than 4 3/8 usually no more than ~4" (at least on most small block versions). Because the IDA bores are only 48mm, you can usually get the IDA bores to fall within the bores of the larger 9510B inline, but you will end up with fair asymmetry in your runners by th etime you match. The adapter plate would save cutting up the IDA intake but their may be some challenges getting uniform flow in each runner. Where there's a will there's a way.

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They were tempting because the carbs are not as tall as the Webers and for the Pantera that is a plus.

It's still very difficult to get a set under the lid of a PCar. I have a modified tunnel ram base that will go with 1 1/2" tall oval filter elements, pictured below. No way to get inlines under the hood on a Nash intake with any reasonable filters.

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How many of those manifolds do you think were made?

Very difficult to say. Pure speculation but I would say in the hundreds of sets, perhaps a couple thousand. The only reason it could be thousands; the Nash intakes were actually intended for mechanical injection. Inlines were an after thought. Hilborn, Falconner Dunn, Enderle, and other sbf mechanical injection intakes all have the proper bore centers. The Hilborn B302 intake works very nicely. I've seen some nicely done adaptations of other intakes, usually tunnel ram bases with adapter plate(s) welded on. I've collected lot's of pictures over the years. I think I've rebuilt or restored between 50-75 of these carbs now.

More later.

Kelly

Korina asked about a Cross Boss picture.

Here's my Cross Boss. I've done about a half dozen like this for folks and sold a couple on eeeeeebay. Sorry Ron. No Cross Boss for Sale. A Nash unit may be a possibility but it won't go under the hood of your B2 without a scoop. Ron, PM me your phone number so I can refresh my memory on the EFI components.

The 9510A (875cfm) carb was designated for Cross Boss use. In my view they're streetable but sort of depends on your definition. OK for a fun car you keep the Rs up on. Good high end performance but as expected with a big plenum intake and an 875 carb, not something you want to dog around town in. Some people try to run the 9510 B on them. Thta will get you pretty much WOT or nothing.

Kelly

> Dan Jones in your man. He can answer your questions better than anyone.

I've been out of town and just got back. Looks like Kelly and others have
answered most of your questions.

> The inline carbs came in 2 sizes. I think one was an 850 or so and a larger
> one was 1400 or so. They would only fit in a specific 2 piece manifold.
> I think it was called a Cross Boss. The top piece could be changed and you
> could run 2 carbs if you wanted to.

The smaller 850 was meant to run on top of a plenum intake (Cross Boss and
Bud Moore maxi plenum) and the larger (1400 CFM) units were meant to be used
in IR applications, though were also test for Pro Stock using an IR lower
with mini-plenum.

> I think there were 3 circuits designed into it. A WOT it screamed but at
> part throttle it was awful. It ran way fat. Keep in mind we really didn't
> know what we were doing either.

The early ones didn't have an idle circuit but Ford added that later.
I do know of one guy running a set in a Cobra replica who says they
work great. Richard Openshaw had a set installed in a Pantera but
I'm not sure if he's got the car on the road yet. We'll have a wideband
O2 sensor to tune and monitor the inlines during the dyno testing so
we should be able to see how stable the air-to-fuel curve is.

> Not as tunable as IDA Webers but elegantly simple, easy to jet, and
> the 9510B (1425 cfm) is capable of flowing signifcantly more than 48IDAs.

According to Vizard, the 48mm IDA's start becoming a restricition at
480-500 HP. The larger the Autolites should have the edge above that.
As Kelly mentioned, I'll be testing a set of his Autolites as part of the
dyno project as well as a set of 48mm IDA's.

> Wasn't there some kind of magnesium intake for clevelands that had some kind
> of almost IR thing running 2 inlines? I remember something where there were 8
> individual runners that bolted into what I thought was some kind of sheet
> metal and the runners went between the bottom of the carbs and the engine.

In addition to the Cross Boss plenum intakes meant for a single carb and
the mechanical injection intakes used for dual IR set-ups, Ford also built
an intake for dual carbs for Pro Stock drag racing evaluation. It can be
seen here (along with other inline intakes) near the bottom of the page:

http://www.bacomatic.org/~dw/engine/fordv8/cleve/cleve.htm

"As of 1975 this was the strongest engine Ford's engineers had built when
testing packages for Ford's drag racing program. The Autolite inline four
barrels had some problems carbureting during hard acceleration and kept the
setup from being successful in competition. Notice the small cast aluminum
plenums under the carburetors; even at 2 x 1400 CFM the Autolites were too
small for a high-winding Cleveland when being used on an independent-runner
intake; the plenums let the runners share venturis for more airflow."

> But I guess I was right ..if they were so good then why didnt Ford continue
> them.

As Kelly noted, they were never made legal in the series Ford intended
to run them in (Trans Am in particular) and then Ford ended the entire
Muscle Parts program so they were dropped.

Dan Jones

I did a search for these on the web and some literature popped up on eBay (they aren't my listings I promise) that may be of interest to people reading this thread - I punched Autolite inline carburetor into google.