It seems there are quite a few old Offenhauser intake manifolds for Y-blocks available, as they regularly come up one way or another on this site.. The name Offenhauser has a storied historical background. Many are aware of the connections years ago with the 1960s & earlier Indianapolis & USAC Championship racing & also USAC Sprint Car & Midget racing. Offy's were the engine to beat. Briefly, Fred Offenhauser was associated with people like Leo Goosen, the original chief designer, I believe, of the engines & even  going back to the time of Harry Miller, owner of  historical front wheel drive race cars of the 1920s or 30s.. The last of those famous engines were issued under the name Meyer-Drake.. However, to get back to the Y-block intakes, they were apparently manufactured by a company run by a younger relative of Fred, "not" the original Fred Offenhauser.. Unfortunately, the Y- Block intakes were a very simple & inferior inner design than intakes by others such as  Edelbrock, Edmonds, Weiand & others.. Before buying an Offy intake or going to considerable trouble & expense to install one, I recommend going to (or linking from here to) our moderator Ted Easton's site, where he went to some trouble to test 7 different Tri Power Y-Block intakes. In short, the Offy intake finished dead last in all the testing..  (Sorry for the error in the posting title, edit won't let me correct it)..             


Paul

This is to supplement Paul's comments above.
Below is a link to the testing of (7) 3x2 intake manifolds done by our moderator, Ted Eaton. 
The link will take you to Ted's web site posting on the Internet
http://www.eatonbalancing.com/blog/2013/12/18/y-block-ford-3x2-intake-testing/


NoShortcuts
a.k.a. Charlie Brown
near Syracuse, New York

In all honesty, if you were looking to build a high horse engine the 3x2's would be on the bottom of the list. I think most of us run them for the look in lue of performance.

Durham Missouri

Another side issue with converting a stock intake setup to a Tri Power setup, was & is the mix & mismatch issues with the 2 different distributor setups that Ford used. The 1954-56 engines used the Loadmatic vacuum only distributors, designed to work with original carbs only. Then in 1957 Ford finally smartened up & went to vacuum & centrifical advance distributors, compatible with 1957 & later carbs. This has caused problems with installing Tri power setups.. I'm not qualified to discuss all the naunces of putting together the right setups, but thought to mention the problems that can occur..      


Paul

All good points to consider. A little homework goes along way when considering a 3x2 set up. Thanks for putting this up. I think the Offenhauser is appealing because of the availability. They must of made a ton of them. I see them everywhere.

Durham Missouri

If you had a 3 bolt two barrel carb on your engine, then the 3x2 offy would certainly be an improvement.

  Dennis in Lititz PA