What if...?

[StanJ]

During my time as a member of this and other high-end automotive forums, I’ve noticed several reoccurring themes; among them, a general appreciation for the appearance, heritage, and drivability of Weber carburetors. Quite often however, two other themes accompany this one – those of having to compromise either low or high RPM performance based on venturi sleeve I.D. due to traditional IR style manifolding for these carbs, and “packaging” issues that complicate inlet air filtering and further limit performance due to compromises in inlet runner length.

My questions to you all then, are these:

How important is the “traditional” IDA/IDF individual runner “look”?

Would a cross-runner, adjustable plenum (both volume and pairing) style manifold that utilized side-draft DCO/DCOE-style carbs and potentially eliminated most of the se compromises be of interest to you? I realize that the basic cross-runner concept isn’t new, but we’ve developed some technology during the past year or so that greatly enhances the efficiency and flexibility of this design. Also, it seems to me that under-hood packaging and air filtration issues might be simplified with this type of setup.

I realize that “how interested” is very often closely tied to “how much?”, but even that doesn’t matter if most of you picture such a setup and think “Eeewww…” or “Sacrilege!!” If the majority’s gut reaction to the concept doesn’t include either of those, I’ll proceed a bit further with the idea...hopefully to the point of being able to give you some idea regarding price. At that point too, I’d like to have some input from the membership regarding most-common application parameters – what deck height and what type of cylinder heads would you like to see such a manifold developed for?