Some of the Dove hardware can be a challenge.
I was at the All Ford Nationals in Carlisle, PA in about 1998. I was talking with a well established vendor there. He stated he'd typically receive x-number of Dove intakes, look them over, and reject about 50% of them, and then sell the remaining 50%.
Well........I looked at one of the vendor's "keepers", a Tunnel Wedge that was on display. That one wasn't for sale. So I gave him money and he shipped a Tunnel Wedge to me several days later.
When it arrived, I built my own Rube Goldberg pressure testing set-up and it passed my test. I figured all was good.
After mounting it and my pair of 600cfm Holleys I was giddy with anticipation. (I had just taken off a Sidewinder intake and single 4-bbl.) While driving with the new set up, I noticed the water temp gauge was unusually high. I came home and looked at the plugs. The engine was running so lean the plugs were whiter than white. I installed larger jets and test drove it. Still lean. Installed larger jets, still lean. And...........I installed larger jets and went for a short interstate drive. The engine was missing and popping because it was still too lean.
All this occurred in my formative years, and I realized I wasn't capable of finding the root problem.
I removed the intake and took it to an engine builder's shop knowing he had a bare 427 block on a work bench. He popped a pair of heads on his block and mounted the intake without gaskets, then inspected all around it. The intake was not seated on the heads by a noticeable amount. We installed gaskets and the intake was still standing above the gaskets by maybe .030-.050".
After lifting off the intake and looking at the bottom of it, we discovered excess casting thickness that hadn't been properly machined off, to be the culprit.
I went home with the intake and attacked it with a die grinder. When I did the final installation, all was good.
David
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