Got a Blue Thunder Intake Laying Around?

Adams,

FYI, there is a Pantera version of this manifold with a "flat" carburetor mounting pad. The other (standard) versions have a 10 to 15 degree angle, like most manifolds designed for American V8's. These manifolds with angled carburetor mounting pads are available for Holley 4150 & 4500 series carburetors. So make sure you're buying the right version.

The angled version with the 4150 carburetor mounting pad would function just fine in a Pantera, but the flat carburetor mounting pad gives you a little bit more verticle clearance.

I believe Art Stephens has a BT manifold, and from what I've read he will be switching to CHI 3V heads & the Scott Cook manifold for his new motor. You guys should hook up.

cowboy from hell

I had to add a 1/2" spacer (couldn't find a 1/4"-all I needed- so I chose a 4 hole 1/2" barry grant phenolic) to my BT to get carb linkage clearance at the manifold.

Since the BT pantera version is actually a "standard" manifold with the angle milled off, you may find a "standard" manifold and a angle plate turned round may meet your needs.

I also found I had to do a bit of die grinding to port match my carb and spacer.

Throttle cable bracket was custom too. A bit taller and forward to get reasonable throttle cable pull geometry.

With a Speed Demon 650 and a 2"x14" aircleaner the engine cover on 7102 fits well.

Pleased so far.

quote:

Originally posted by Cowboy from Hell:
Adams,

FYI, there is a Pantera version of this manifold with a "flat" carburetor mounting pad. The other (standard) versions have a 10 to 15 degree angle, like most manifolds designed for American V8's. These manifolds with angled carburetor mounting pads are available for Holley 4150 & 4500 series carburetors. So make sure you're buying the right version.

The angled version with the 4150 carburetor mounting pad would function just fine in a Pantera, but the flat carburetor mounting pad gives you a little bit more verticle clearance.

I believe Art Stephens has a BT manifold, and from what I've read he will be switching to CHI 3V heads & the Scott Cook manifold for his new motor. You guys should hook up.

cowboy from hell

Thanks Georgie and larryw. So the 'standard' BT for Pantera is "FLAT" as I understand, and should NOT require any additional custom work for throttle cable bracket, etc. Correct?

If so, I'll proceed with Art Cook, presumably a member.

Adams you might try Art Stephens. Yes he's a member here. Art Cook??

With any aftermarket intake manifold, you never can predict when a little die grinder work might be needed to insure the linkage and butterflies don't hit or hang up on anything. That's a common necessity, not a deal breaker. Obviously I can't predict which carby or reverse linkage you'll be using.

A little FYI, the Blue Thunder manifold is a copy of a design originally sold by Holman Moody. I believe the actual design can be traced to Ford. After Holman Moody, Shelby America put their emblem on it and sold the manifold under their name. The manifold fell out of production for a short time and then A.T. Francis (Mr. Blue Thunder) began reproducing it around 1980, and its been in production ever since.

I can remember the excitement back around 1980 when this manifold hit the market. Fans of the Clevo were quite happy to have this manifold back in production. Ron Miller was showing off the copy he had in stock at the annual car show he held at his shop, and was offering discounts on pre-orders.

The Blue Thunder and the Holley Strip Dominator are hands down the two favorite street intakes amongst Clevo enthusiasts, and have been since the '70s.

How many 350 cubic inch motors could make 500 bhp at 7000 rpm naturally aspirated in 1972? One, the Clevo! The little motor that competed successfully against the 7 liter hemis on the NASCAR super speedways (Bud Moore Racing Team, 1973).

Sorry for getting nostalgic....

cowboy from hell

I changed from a stock, EGR equipped smog manifold with a 4300D to the BT "pantera" intake and a 650 Speed Demon. I think that's what you're looking to do too.

As I said, you will require a different throttle cable bracket. Any conversion away from the stock style carb to a holley/demon will. They pull from different locations. Wasn't hard and the stock cable seems to work fine. Maybe you could modify your existing bracket. I wanted to keep all my stock parts unmodified.

I'll try to post you a photo of my final arrangement tonight.

P.S. If you decide to go the Demon route, mind the choke linkage/air cleaner base clearance issue. Without some clever dimpling at the interference, for example, the popular 14" K&N drop base (as supplied with the Hall aluminum "pantera" set-up) won't work.

I found a Mr Gasket 14" base that fit much better, no interference, smoother contours inside too, IMO. However to get under the engine cover a 3" tall filter doesn't make it, 2" will. To make up the airflow I'm going to get one of those filtering lids. Right now I've still got the cheapo Mr Gasket chromie lid.

As for Art Cook, I invented him. (Posting after 11pm should require additional editiing.)

I did indeed email Mr. Stephens. We'll see.

I love the nostalgia/history lesson. Makes me appreciate what these cars are and can be with a little coaxing.

Thanks again Larry, and I'd love to see a shot or two of how yours is set up. Keeping my options open, but my hopes are to do as little modification as posible, and early indications were that the Holley Street Avenger plus BT would fit under the screen with a stock lid, which is my preference.

Diddling with the brackets and linkage is fine with me, yet in keeping the stock lid, have I just created a new challenge? I guess knowing the difference in height between your Demon vs. Holley will give the answer.

> The Blue Thunder and the Holley Strip Dominator are hands down the two
> favorite street intakes amongst Clevo enthusiasts, and have been since
> the '70s.

Out-of-the-box, the Holley Strip Dominator out-performed the Blue Thunder
by a wide margin during our last dyno test. We tested a ported Ford
aluminum dual plane (the over-the-counter version of the Boss 351 intake
with Holley carb pattern), Edelbrock Torker, Blue Thunder and a Holley
Strip Dominator. Unexpectedly, The Blue Thunder performed worst and was
down 45+ HP to the Strip Dominator.

The engine was a street 408C (10:1 compression, hydraulic roller cam
peaking around 5500 RPM) and tests were conducted through the GTS headers
and Magnafow mufflers on 93 octane). With the unported Blue Thunder dual
plane, it made 437 horsepower and 463 ft-lbs torque, at 5500 and 3900 rpm
respectively. Adding a 1 inch open spacer to the Blue Thunder helped the
torque about 6 ft-lbs but horsepower stayed the same. The ported Boss 351
intake made 468 horsepower at 5500 rpm and 486 lbs-ft at 4500 rpm. The
Holley Strip Dominator with a one inch spacer made abother 15 HP, peaking
at 5600 RPM. The torque curve with the Strip Dominator was smoother,
likely due to the long runners of the Boss dual plane going into and out
of tune. On a subsequent test, Dave found the Strip Dominator intake
liked a 4 hole 1 inch spacer better than an open or fancy HVH spacer,
at least with his dyno carb. That engine was identical to the 408C we
tested except it had more cam (best pull so far has been 510 HP at 6300
rpm and 481 lbs-ft at 4600 rpm).

Like the Ford Boss 351 dual plane intake, the Blue Thunder responded
with a big improvement on the flow bench with just plenum area work.
As with the Ford intake, Dave concentrated on bringing up the worst
runners to match the best. However, the pattern of the Blue Thunder
good versus bad runners was completely different than the stock Boss
intake. On the Blue Thunder intake, the good and bad runners were on
both the top and bottom planes. On the Ford intake, the top runners
were all much worse than the bottom ones. After porting, the worst
Blue Thunder runners are the top front ones, number 2 and number 5 but
they both out flowed the best runners of the unported intake. A typical
runner went from 250cfm to 276cfm. The resultant numbers are a fair bit
better than the ported Ford intake so we'd expect better dyno numbers
but did not get a chance to dyno the engine with that intake (it's
on a 393C in Mike McDougal's 1972 grabber blue Pantera). The flat pad
Blue Thunder did not fit under Mike's early style flat engine screen
with a drop base air cleaner but might clear with a later style screen.

Though it performed best, Dave also thought the Strip Dominator would
benefit from some plenum entry work.

Dan Jones

Hi Daniel - COULD YOU BE A LITTLE MORE INFORMATIVE NEXT TIME???

Man, thanks for that, even though not wildly supportive of the stock BT, a greatly fact-filled read.

When I get mine, I'd like to have it flowed/ported. Are you available for this work or anyone you'd recommend nearer my part of the world? (You can test and report all you want; my needs aren't immediate. I'll be in St. Louis later this fall; would love to meet you in person.)

Thanks for the input from all. Oh, and RacerDave, thanks to you for the great set up (BT and Avenger) you were kind enough to let me get - - can't wait!

For the purists who were concerned of this deviation, as with EVERY THING from this car, if it was original, it was cleaned, tagged, and bagged.

Same will be done with the carb (provided I'm still in the mood to do the swap after I get my car back from the tuner) manifold, vacuum lines etc will all be sanitized, bagged, stored.

Whoever want to revert my car in the future will have virtually brand new, original parts to put back on.

And for those looking for a Strip Dominator...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/pantera_W0QQitemZ1701316...QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Enjoy.

> When I get mine, I'd like to have it flowed/ported. Are you available
> for this work or anyone you'd recommend nearer my part of the world?

Dave McLain ported both the Blue Thunder and Ford intakes. His shop
is McLain's Automotive in Cuba, Missouri (573-885-3920, frd460@misn.com).
BTW, Dave is a former Engine Masters contestant.

> I'll be in St. Louis later this fall; would love to meet you in person.

I'd be happy to meet up. Drop me a line when your plans firm up.

Dan Jones

Dan, you mentioned the dyno results of all but the Edelbrock Torker. How good/bad did it do?

Did you ever dyno the Edelbrock Scorpion?

> Dan, you mentioned the dyno results of all but the Edelbrock Torker.
> How good/bad did it do?

The Torker did pretty well. It was better than the ported Ford intake
on horsepower and within 5 HP or so of the Strip Dominator but IIRC the
Strip Dominator and Ford intake both made more torque. The Torker
seemed to like the extra cubic inches. In previous testing by a
couple of Pantera club members on stock stroke engines, the Torker
did poorly. Tim did a bunch of drag and road testing of 351C-4V
intakes. His engine consisted of an Erson hydraulic flat tappet cam
(232 deg duration @ 0.050", 108 LSA, 0.545" lift), Rhoads lifters, 4V
quench heads, flat top pistons, 735 Holley, coatings, C&A rings, MSD
ignition, wrapped headers, and MPG Stinger exaust port stuffers. Intakes
tested included an Edelbrock Torker, Weiand Xcelerator 4V, Offy
Port-o-Sonic 4V, Holley Strip Dominator, along with a couple dual
planes. Tim spent a lot of time optimizing the carb for each intake.
The Holley Strip Dominator was 4 tenths quicker in the 1/4 mile than
the Torker and had, by far, the best driveability (smooth with no flat
spots) of the single planes. It rivaled the dual planes down low, as
far as driveability was concerned, and by 3000 RPM was pulling away.
He could never get the Torker to smooth out at lower RPM, despite a lot
of tuning time. Unfortunately, he didn't have access to a Blue Thunder
dual plane for those tests. Note that the single planes tend to be
more sensitive to carb tuning due to the weaker metering signal and Tim
was using a 735 Holley with the Ford truck boosters. A 3310 vacuum
secondary Holley with the straight boosters might not work as well on
the single planes with their weaker booster signals.

> Did you ever dyno the Edelbrock Scorpion?

No I didn't have one of those. My guess would be that it would behave
like the Torker with a 2" open spacer. I did bring along an Edelbrock
A331 which is a raised port version of the Torker that matches A3 Ford
Motorsport high port heads but did not test it. During mock up, it
looked like the A331 wouldn't seal at the bottom of the port without
milling it to drop it down, so we passed on testing it.

Dan Jones

Got my Blue Thunder (I'm a TOTALLY street 'driveability' seeker) and Holley 770 Avenger.

Actually have TWO Holly 770's now - one used that I'm keeping and a brand new one. Anybody needs the new one, lemme know. I have the correct fuel lines for it, all brand new in the box, never touched. You pay what I paid, dead out. I'll eat the shipping. Fair enough?

PM me if you want it, free shipping to you in the U.S. I'm NOT in the parts biz, there is NO mark-up, just a one time thing to the next person who speaks up.

Thanks All!

I tried both single and dual plane with mine. here are the dyno results.

DUAL

And the SINGLE plane...