[Tom Wells]

You know, after I looked at the above picture it occurred to me that those who use carbs are not necessarily doomed to absorb that 1-1/2" height difference between the carb and the throttle body.

A carb user could get probably 3/4" of that height back by using a drop-base filter lower pan.

Any more than 3/4" might begin to interfere with the throttle linkage, or potentially cause float bowl heating and the resultant boiling of the liquid we now laughingly call gasoline; since the alcohol has been added with the accompanying lowering of the boiling point, it created major problems for my cars. The short version is that when the liquid boiled, the carb(s) dumped lots of liquid into the intake, killing the engine and making a restart a genuine frustration.

I wasn't able to use the drop-base approach because of the fuel rails - which stuck up high enough they interfered with the 14" x 3" filter base. That's why I ended up using the oval filter.

Tom