Sooo... An original, N.O.S. 1957 Ford dual quad manifold has been on eBay for the last seven days. Item No. 300850037923 13 bidders participated. 34 bids were recorded. Selling price $2,025 plus shipping.



Like many others, I'm eager to learn how Ted's dyno tests went on the different 2x4 manifolds, carburetor combinations and original power pack, passenger car, and 'bird air cleaner set-ups.



Perhaps one or several of the eBay bidders had knowledge of the dyno results.



I'll be interested in how the original '57 Ford manifold fared against the aftermarket units and how the '56 passenger car Holley single quad carburetors with Karol Miller's modifications performed compared to the original equipment '57 Holley 4000 dual quad units...



$2,025 for an intake manifold. It's refreshing to know that there are some individuals out there that are crazier than I am. I'll have to tell my wife...

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

I doubt if any of the bidders had any knowledge of the dyno tests.

If they had any knowledge,they would not have been bidding on that style of intake.

Oldmics

What did Banjo Matthews say? "Speed costs money son, how fast you wanna go?"

I looked at that listing too. Funny thing to see the underside of the intake where the EC and most of the G was missing where the part number ECG 9424-D is placed underneath... wonder what caused that? The intake does look clean. That 2K price was all about the deal for it being NOS I am sure.

Daniel Jessup

Lancaster, California

aka "The Hot Rod Reverend"
check out the 1955 Ford Fairlane build at www.hotrodreverend.com

At a guess, the fact that the casting # was partly missing may be because someone tried to install it over a standard valley cover. Possibly they started grinding on it? And the high selling price might have been paid by someone with an "E" code 57 T.Bird that was missing the intake setup.

Paul

In looking at the pictures, the NOS manifold doesn’t look to be molested.  I’ve a healthy stack of those intakes here and not all have legible casting numbers on their bottoms.  That’s simply an issue with the mold when they are being cast.  As far as the price, it is ‘new’ and that by itself demands a premium.  In this particular case, considerably more.  It’s apparently worth it as that’s what it sold for.

 

While I haven’t quite completed the dual quad testing, the 1957 Ford 2X4 manifold ends up being a well engineered piece when used with the factory carbs.  All the dual quad manifolds tested on the iron heads ran respectably well and especially if compared to the same engine running the ECZ-A intake and a Lincoln Teapot carb.  If a dual quad setup was replacing that particular single four setup, then just bolting on the over the counter dual quad setup would have been an easy 45HP bolt on.  When the ’57 dual quad setup is bolted on in place of the ECZ-B intake with a 750 Holley, there was only a 10HP gain.  But the baseline for this test was the Mummert 1X4 intake with a 750 carb and so far, only a modified 1956 Mercury 2X4 intake has even come close.

 

But there are some other surprises cropping up out of this dual quad testing.  When the aluminum heads were placed on the engine, this became a ‘true’ intake manifold test as now any flow issues within an intake do come to the forefront.  And the factory dual quad carbs are suddenly undersized for the aluminum heads as the larger Ford Teapots, Lincoln and Carter carbs do work better with the aluminum heads on the engine.  While I haven’t entered all the data in the spreadsheet yet, the Edelbrock 257’s may not have the superiority in performance that all have been led to believe.  While not a slug, some of the other intakes do perform almost as well.  More on that when testing is complete and I summarize the data.

 

I’ll add that at this point I’m getting rather adept at soldering up the extra Teapot secondary jets that are on hand and redrilling them to smaller sizes.  Not quite something I planned on being good at but I guess it goes with the territory.

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)