side draft webers

[Ford of France]

The side draft Webers, which use the 48mm DCOE style carbs, were manufactured years ago by Mickey Thompson. Phil Remington, SAI Chief Engineer for SAI, hand built around four units, of which one was built exclusively for the 289; the others were for GM and were used on their 215 cid aluminum V-8 (testing purposes only). One unit used 58mm DCOE carbs.

It took Remington over 60 hours to make the Ford unit. To this day, he says that it was probably one of the most daunting pieces of fabrication he ever performed in his 60 yr. career. When I asked him why, he responded: "well.....you have to take square tubing and eventually progress it to a round shape". Pictures of the unit can be found in Pete Brock's book on the Cobra Daytona Coupe, although the picture in question might be a photo of the cross ram on a Chevrolet.

I once saw a piece of old SAI sales literature showing the completed cross ram and the brochure indicated it as "upcoming" option for potential Shelby buyers. No such luck. Remington said that, at the time, there was really no way to mass produce them and that is why he built the downdraft Weber intake. He said that the initial downdraft intake was made out of wood and sprayed with silver paint, photographed, and sent to FIA for acceptance. It passed with flying colors.