Finally found a decent air cleaner that clears the decklid with tall carb

As a rule of thumb I don’t like cutting the engine screen, but what must be done must be done and this looks like a quite reasonable solution.

I think your idea of painting it black is the right approach. I would go further and suggest you take the air cleaner cover and all three engine cover pieces and have them powder coated in wrinkle black. I did this many years ago and I know you would not be disappointed.

Larry

I bought an extra engine cover and I had my friend modify it.

Jimmy and Mardy

and I have to say both solutions looks great and solves a problem  I currently have .

I brought a halls Pantera cast platen style top and it will not fit under the engine cover with the 2 1/2 inch high filter. If you go to the thinner 2 inch rise filter the cast platen clashes internally with the snorkels that are protruding from the top of the Holley. I suspect this is similar to where you got to.

So its either stick with my old beaten up pressed chromed air cleaner cover , which fits under the cover and allows the 2 1/2 filter, or modify the carby vents , which I don't want to do , or lose the engine cover, or do what you have done !

Old and beaten up wins the day for now,  until I can emulate something like what you have done here.

PS Jimmy - please tell friend I am in first in the queue to buy one the next one of these beasts...!

It was always a tight fit, but with my Moroso dropped base air cleaner on my Holley carburetor I was able to clear the early open screen engine cover using a 3” filter.   Edelbrock performer intake on a Cleveland, no spacers or phenolic insulators.

Larry

Hey Larry - thanks for that information .

The engine was previously running a Edelbrock strip dominator high rise intake manifold but no engine cover. In order to make everything fit under the engine cover it was changed to a Edelbrock twin plane low rise with a 3/4 spacer . With the 2 1/2 inch element and no platter it all just fits. About 1/8 inch clearance to the engine cover at the closest point.

I have measured the clearances and using a  drop base 3 inch , if it came down 1/2 inch on what I have , would be very close to the oil dipstick casing alignment. Did you have to do anything to your dip stick sleeve to make it all fit with the 3 inch element  with the drop casing ? It must be tight- how close is it ?

Pretty soon I will have purchased all possible dimensional combinations of air filters and intake manifolds - then the task will be complete !

when I was using the Moroso dropped base air cleaner the stock oil dipstick tube remained in place.

I have moved on to something entirely different now.  😉

Larry

Percy, I told my friend that I was trying to keep the factory theme if the factory was building a taller lid.  He cut the top off of it then tapered the sides to the top.  I had him add a strip across the bottom and put a screen on the back.  He came up with the idea of putting small tubing around the edge of the cover to finish the look.  The first one he made looked ok but was too boxy.  It would have worked but did not look anywhere near as good aesthetically.

I believe there is a thread on the forum of what different solutions owners came up with for their engine cover fitment issues.  That is where I got the idea for mine.

I also have a dropped air cleaner base and the carburetor opening is offset or asymmetrical.  Summit Racing has quite a few different base options.

Thanks Larry and Jim . All really good information and ideas that I had not previously considered. I did not know you could get offset or asymmetrical mounting plates which could make all the difference.

The split air intake setup Larry has got looks wild. Larry , any chance of a couple of close up pictures showing the arrangement and how it relates to the deck lid? Is it mounted on a commercially available  intake housing or is it a custom ?

What are the filters ?

I did this conversion years ago and it was one of those projects that got more complicated once it was started

I had to order, calibrate and install a flexible SS dipstick tube from Lokar. I had to relocate my coolant tanks which required changes to the coolant piping.

The Plenum with the two outlets just …..barely…. fit under the screen using the Edelbrock performer. With the new stroker that uses CHI aluminum heads and the blue thunder Pantera-specific intake, I had to mill the plenum’s carburetor flange to bare minimum and even with that I wound up raising the screen just under 1/4 inch by modifying the two side mounting points.

I had to shorten both elbows a little bit to allow the air filters to clear the luggage tub

not a job for the faint hearted but I have always been very pleased with the final result

Larry

That is one epic effort!

With some combinations of engine parts, one needs an asymmetric air cleaner base. At least one SVO intake used with A-3 and C-302-B aluminum heads, the carb pad is offset back towards the distributor cap by over 1".  Some V-6 air cleaner bases are offset because the space is so small on their short block lengths.