THE INTAKE…
To keep the vintage look of Webers I decided to make things far more difficult by changing the position of the fuel rails from the outside of the throttle bodies, to the inside. I was hoping to “hide” the rails, giving the intake a more carburetor-like look. Because the 351w has a wider block at the top, there was enough room to simply swap the throttle bodies from left to right and with some clearencing on the fuel rails, it seemed like it just might work, This center fuel rail conversion will NOT work on a 289 or 302. I had to lower the throttle center pulley and linkage and fashion a throttle cable system that looped around the front of the throttle bodies on the left side and fabricated a cable holder that lined up pretty well with the stock ERA throttle linkage.
There were a few fitment issues. First, I had to grind the sides of the intake about 1/8th of an inch on both sides so the intake would go down between the heads. I’m not sure if this will be an issue with different manufactured heads but it was with mine. Luckily the mating surfaces were all fine and it bolted down with no leaks. The four centered intake bolts had to be changed out for studs and nuts, not horrible, just another thing to do. A couple of tapped holes in the manifold for vacuum fittings and some more “clearancing” of the alternator bracket for the water neck made the intake install complete.
