I had a stock 1956 4V intake on the +060 over 312 dyno mule so I could sort out some Holley Teapot, Carter WCFB, and Rochester 4V carbs in preparation for the upcoming dual quad intake test.  The peak power numbers were so dismal I had to take a second look at the carbs to insure that the secondaries were opening up; the carbs were working just fine.  Final conclusion: the 1956 ECZ-A intake is obviously very restricted compared to the stock 1957 ECZ-B intake.  It’s no wonder that so many of those ’55 and ’56 Fords that had dual quads installed back in their day had a significant increase in performance.

Here are the peak HP numbers for three different intakes used on the dyno mule with a set of mildly ported 113 heads.  All these values are with the same carb just to keep all the intake comparisons on a level playing field.

– 240HP at 5100 rpm - ECZ-A Teapot, stock unported

– 276HP at 5200 rpm - ECZ-B Large flange, stock unported

– 311HP at 6000 rpm - Out of the box Mummert aluminum, stock unported

While the Teapot intakes are obviously good daily driver manfolds, the step up in performance in just changing to the ECZ-B intake is more than impressive.  Ford engineers were on top of their game in ’57.

Thanks Ted

For the comparison between the manifolds, I used a 750HP vacuum secondary Holley.  On the teapot intake, this required a tapered adapter for both the 600 and 750 carbs.  The Lincoln Teapot used the factory ½" phenolic 4 hole spacer.  The idea here is to make sure that the various intake manfolds that are being tested are the limiting factor and not the heads and/or carburetors in this type of test.  While I used the teapot manifold with a variety of small flanged carbs simply insuring that the carbs were suitable for the dual quad test, I used the 750 Holley to insure that the intakes were being fully utilized in regards to cfm requirements.  Had I tested all three intakes with the smaller carburetor, the differences between manifolds would not have been as obvious.  I trust that makes sense.

But as part of this particular dyno test, I did test the ECZ-A Teapot intake with three different carbs.  Here are the results.

238 HP – Lincoln Teapot

239 HP – Holley 600cfm vacuum secondaries

Holley 600cfm sounds like a fit for a stock 272 that gets driven mostly locally, every few days..., right?

Mark

Performance will depend a lot on how it's jetted. But that sounds to me like a lot of carb for a 272 with that manifold. Your setup is not going to approach that 600 cfm of air. Holley makes the 4160 390-cfm, vacuum secondaries carb which would be the first thing I'd look at. Straightforward and affordable. Holley also makes a 450 cfm 4 barrel but I think it's only available with mechanical secondaries, intended more in a multiple carb setup. Demon makes good carbs, they have 525- and 575-cfm versions available with vacuum secondaries, but they're pricey and they may suck down more gas, apples to apples.

Mark, I was running a 600 Holley Vac on my 292, I now have on a Holley 450 Vac [yes vac secondaries] it wasn't a revelation for me, I had the 600 running well, also this is on a 'B' Manifold

Dispite coming down to 58 jets in the 450 over the 64's in the 600 the fuel economy hasn't been that much better..

If you have the 600 try it and see.

Chuck & Jeff.  I do have an Edelbrock #548 aluminum 4V intake sitting here that I plan on running on the dyno mule in the near future.  I didn't have to give much for it probably because it was in sad shape when I got it.  The repairs to the front of the intake have just been completed as that intake was very corroded in the thermostat area when I received it.  In doing a quick visual comparison, the Edel #548 intake ports are much smaller than those on the 1956 ECZ-A manifold.  This is likely attributed to the Edelbrock intake being specifically designed for the 1954 Ford 239 & Merc 256 engines.

Here’s a picture of the Edelbrock intake I have after repairing the thermostat housing area.

Mark.  While I’m not going to test that particular scenario on an ‘A’ manifold, it does help the ECZ-B manifold to convert the four holes to two slots.  With that in mind, then I’ll go out on a limb and say that slotting the ECZ-A manifold and also slotting the adapter will help the overall air flow.  And as you mention, labor is cheap when you do it yourself for yourself.  Go for it.

J.D.  There are no plans to put the ECZ-A manifold back on the engine.  The dyno mule is currently sitting here with the ‘B’ intake on it and that one will be run again with the Teapot on it just to confirm the performance of the ‘B’ intake with the smaller carb.

But I do plan on testing the Edelbrock 548 aluminum 4V intake on the mule engine with the same Lincoln Teapot that was used on the ECZ-A manifold.  That will be a simple test in which to compare the Edelbrock 548 and ECZ-A intakes against each other.  I do have a Merc WCFB carb here but it needs a kit and because I only had one of those carbs, there were no plans to use it on the dual quad intake test.  Hence  the Merc WCFB carb was not kitted.  I do have a nice matching pair of GM WCFB's with mechanical secondaries that I am going to use in the dual quad test but the venturies on those look to be larger than the Merc units.

Frank.  I can run the Lincoln Teapot on the ‘B’ intake but the 600 Holley that was used on the ‘A’ intake manifold test will likely be gone by the time the dyno mule gets back on the dyno.  I currently have a Chrysler engine on the dyno awaiting a new intake manifold for an upgrade in performance.  Because the Holley 600 carb used in the ‘A’ manifold test belonged to a customer and was used on the 312 dyno mule to simply sort it out after a freshen up, that carb is scheduled to leave the shop before I get a chance to put the 312 with the ‘B’ intake back on the dyno.  But I think just a simple comparison of Lincoln Teapot to Holley 750HP will suffice in determining what kind of differences these two carbs exhibit when used with the ‘B’ manifold.  Comments always welcome.

Hollow Head (12/18/2012)

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Ted, please, give us fair hp numbers with all tested at 5000 rpm. We all know 5100 rpm  and 6000 rpm are not the same. As at our dyno sessio we got about 10 to 13 hp more with every 100 rpm increase it sure makes difference.

What was stated above were the peak HP numbers and the different manifolds do peak at different rpm values.  But I see what’s being asked so here’s a chart with the HP values in 500 rpm increments that should make everything clearer.  All this is still with the 750 carb as that's the only data sitting in front of me right now.  I'll have to dig deeper for the other carb data.

Doug T., I used a cast factory "B" intake (on a 292 +.060 flat top cast pistons modified C1TE heads)with the same mods that you show on the Uni the first three runs out at Bonneville last year and ran 120 mph on all three passes.  When I switched to the ECZ-G heads that were originally on Charlie Burns' "Yellow Brick" plus an extrude honed Blue Thunder intake on loan from Ted we gained 7 mph.  From Teds cylinder head dyno test I know that the "G" heads made 30 more HP than did the modified C1TE heads. With this info I think you can draw some conclussions about how well a modified "B" intake performs.

Here are charts showing horsepower and torque using the ECZ-A intake with different carbs.  It still boils down to fuel metering and not necessarily the carburetor size.  But for all intent and purposes, all three carbs are reasonably close to each other on the ECZ-A’ intake manifold.  And when considering that there is ~55 years between the Lincoln Teapot and the 750HP Holley, the Teapot holds it own quite well on the ‘A’ manifold.  We’ll see what happens though when the Lincoln Teapot is matched up to the ECZ-B intake shortly.