Offenhauser dual quad FE intake problems

[jdlafayette]

Hello, Been working on my Fairlane 500 alot lately. It,s been a long project and still far from done. This weekend I discovered that the dual quad offenhauser on my 390 is a pain in the a%&. I bought it about 4 years ago on ebay. It is lightly used and came with, 2 holleys,1" spacers, and repro oval aircleaner. The first problem was the aircleaner is spaced different than the carbs. I can deal with that ,but the major pain is the front carb hits the dist cap. I reaserched it and found I can get offset spacers from offenhauser to clear the cap, I could use 2" or 1 1/2" spacers but that seems too high' I could change to edelbrock carbs , but dont want to spend $600 or more. Why did they design this intake like this? What have you guys done? Thanks guys.

[JPotter57]

The Offy intake was originally designed for Carter AFBs, which is the same basic carb as the Edelbrocks.  They were never intended to be used with Holleys..  As you have found, the longer fuel bowls hit the distributor, and the only way around this is to use Carter/ Edelbrock carbs, or use the adapters to space it back.  Offy used to sell adapters that allowed you to use Holleys mounted sideways.  You can still get these from PAW in California as I recall...

[hiball3985]

I use to deal with PAW because they were local for me. My last trip there a few years ago they discontinued all Ford parts and I was told they would soon be closing completely.

[Ford Blue blood]

Check with Speedway and Honest Charlies, both have some old timey speed equipment.

[JPotter57]

I wondered what had happened with them. .website been gone for a while now.  My last catalog is from 2010.  Sad to see another good supplier fall to summit and jegs.

[jdlafayette]

Thanks guys, What do you think is better, a 2" or 1 1/2" spacer or the offenhauser offset? Does the offset effect the flow? Summit has the offenhauser offset but the website says they can't ship until March sometime. 1 1/2" spacers are impossible to find and 2" would look like a tunnel ram. This is a pain. No wonder I won all of it on evil bay, It doesn't work!   Thanks, John

[rmk57]

Years ago they used to make a "crab" style cap for clearance issues. Instead of 8 vertical holes for your cap there were 4 on the left and 4 on the right and they were horizontal. Maybe an inch or so lower overall.

[jdlafayette]

Have to look for that cap too.

[gasman826]

Mallory still makes one (summit..221).  I don't know if it fits OEM distributor or only a Mallory.  Offset distributors are available.  Another option is to shorten the distributor/mag or relocate.  I ran into a similar issue with Weber/Inglese fuel rails hitting the cap.  I resolved it by reversing the throttle bodies.  Turning the carbs sideways would be a very nostalgic look!