Would removing the (thermostatic air control) door in the snorkel help?
CK5
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70's stock air cleaner restriction?
- Thread starter Shawn
- Start date
Anything restricting air flow removed will help but it’s highly doubtful that you will notice gains on an air cleaner neck that narrow and as anemic as those motors were they can’t gulp enough air in the first place.
And that was before K&N filters were a thing. After seeing K&N filters not filter as much dirt particles as paper, my opinion on them has gone down.
Agree but Jay at the Carburetor shop claims 10whp by flipping the lid on those air cleaners alone. I would love to do another dyno just to verify on these stock engines.
It might but you still have that 1.5" air restriction. Trying to keep it all factory so you want to block off the heat once warmed up.
I came here to verify that this was the reason.
Then read this a s support for my theory.
Flip the lid like all of us cool kids did in the 70's and 80's. WOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUT. With WOT.
In the late 70’s my Mom drove a 78 Monte Carlo with a 305 Q-jet - my brother and I learned the air lid flip from the teenager down the street driving a 74 Formula and so we secretly did the same to Moms car.
Her nickname was “Hotrod Anne” so needless to say she was heavy on the skinny pedal a lot - as soon as she heard the Q-jet “sing’n” she looked at us and said “ that new unleaded gas sure does make cars run well”.
We never said a word and Mom was very happy with her car - that is until Dad got her an 82 Olds Cutlas with a 3.8 V6, Mom was not happy and wanted the Monte Carlo back! All because we flipped the air cleaner lid one day.
Haha!
This was my 78 Montie, 305 Flipped lid!
I paid 500 bucks for it because it wouldn’t run good, needed a fuel pump.
Put Corvette rally’s on it and drove it like a stock car! It was great!
Looks good!Haha!
This was my 78 Montie, 305 Flipped lid!
I paid 500 bucks for it because it wouldn’t run good, needed a fuel pump.
Put Corvette rally’s on it and drove it like a stock car! It was great!
View attachment 492189
Gotta flip those lids and let all that extreme hot under hood ambient air get sucked in - our priorities were sound over performance back then…good times!
Indeed!
We flipped the lid on my buddies 71 Delta 88 Olds Rocket 455 one night - that skinny pedal stayed on the floor ALL night long lett’n those beautiful sounds play.Indeed!
For some reason that thing developed a rod knock after that…
I was harassed multiple times for working hard to get a cold are feed. No sound improvement.
My 1974 came with the small trumpet air inlet but it also came with a manual choke and stovepipe heater. I always reckoned that it was for colder climates and helped with warm air from the stovepipe blending....dunno, just a thought.
Just fyi, here's what chevrolet did in the same year (1970) with their breathers. The first is my stock 1970 K-10 350 cuin somewhere between 250 and 300hp with a very restrictive snorkel-type breather. The second pic is my stock 1970 Corvette with a 350 cuin, 350hp motor and Chevrolet's completely open element air filter....you can easily make an argument here that the snorkel-types are indeed restrictive....Maybe they were/are sufficient for a 250 hp 350, but if you're trying to get all the ponies out of that mouse motor, you might want to think about different breathers....
That does bring a question into the mix with the open element vs closed style. I know we’ve had that discussion in the past when Bent was looking for a better option.
But as we’ve discovered over the years sucking in hot air from the engine compartment is less than helpful when it comes to making power and being efficient. And While I can’t deny how dangerous cool a 14” open element air cleaner is, I also understand now while you have max flow, it’s less than ideal if you are sucking in 150-200+ degree air down the gullet of the carb. It explains why the cowl induction setups came to be as they knew some back then that cooler air made better power.
Plus if you’ve ever started a carbed small block in dead cold below freezing weather with an open element air cleaner (no heat riser type setup) you know how cold blooded those things are to warm up.
I would love to do some back to back dynos on a typical 350 engine and run open, stock 350 air cleaner and a 454 air cleaner and maybe the newer style with the cold air duct. I think you could run the 454 air cleaner and still look factory. I doubt anyone would even know.
70's 454 air cleaner inlet:
70's 454 air cleaner inlet:
