Inliners International Forums General Discussion Engines Clifford C4500 w/heat plate on a 235

Hello:

Curious to know whether anyone has used a Clifford old style 4bbl intake (with heat plate) on a 235 vs. the water heated manifold, and how well it worked. Thinking a Holley or equal 390 cfm 4 bbl carb.

I have acquired an original manifold that has been split, and I suspect that the Clifford manifold would not align with the original, but I am wondering if perhaps some machining could be done to "make it work".

Any info on this is appreciated.

Hi. I have not done what you are asking but I am in the process of an engine rebuild that should be done & engine swap completed hopefully next week.

I have purchased one of the current Clifford intakes with dual 2 barrell Webber's for this 235 engine. I have given some thought to the situation of water heat as compared to exhaust heat & have come up with a few ideas on this.

First I will just run the heater hose thru the water chamber in the Clifford manifold to see if this works well or not. If it works then there is no problem & nothing to fix.

But if this is not enough heat I see some solutions that I could try.

The easiest is to just run an exhaust heat line against the bottom of the intake water chamber to see it this warms the water enough OR run the exhaust heat line against the back or front of the intake above the water chamber to just add heat to the manifold body. This could be done with bendable copper tubing & hose clamped to intake. I do not recall which catalog but I have recently seen a heat unit to be used with stock intake when stock exhaust manifold is not used, perhaps with the Fenton exhaust. It is designed to just bolt to stock intake BUT on the Clifford or other brand mainfolds that do not have the bolt holes it likely could just be hose clamped to the bottom or back of the intake manifold for exhaust heat.

OR as my Clifford intake has 4 acess points for fittings to the water chamber, 2 on front face & 2 on the bottom it could be possible to run water in & out the front fittings and using soft copper tubing fish a line in & out of the 2 bottom fittings to add exhaust heat diretly to the water. This might be a good solution due to the fact that the intake manifold likely would actually have a cooling effect on the hot water going to the car cab heater & make it less efficent on cab heat. By running an exhaust heat line thru the water in the manifold water chamber in the intake it should actually increase the water temp going to the cab heater & should this add excess temp to the water circulation for the engine the proper thermostat should solve any overheating effect. As I will have tube headers installed I would just have to weld 2 half couplings to the tube headers then drill out the manifold thru the center of the welded coupling to get exhaust heat access & return.

Right now this is all speculation as I have never used a water heated system for the carb heat risers.

So for starters I am just going to hook up the water as Clifford recomends & see what happens & if problems happen experiment with some of the above possible solutions.

Just my thoughts on something that may or may not be a problem.

Good luck with however you choose to do your manifold.

Jimmie

Hi. I missed part of your question on the Clifford aligning with the original (I assume you mean the original exhaust).

The Clifford's with the lower water chamber it is just too large
vertically for the original exhaust to fit. The water chamber adds about 1"or so in height thickenss to the intake on the lower side. According to Clifford the cast iron Fenton headers will not clear it without some severe machining & modifying.

This is why I followed Clifford's reomendation & went with the shorty tube headers to eliminate any machining which likely would not look too good & would end up with some thin walls to the cast manifolds.

I will have mine all assembled & installed next week & then I will know how it all fits & works.

Jimmie

Yes, I was aware that the water cooled version would not clear. My question is would the older Clifford intake (C4500? designed for a heat plate, I think) mount up to and align with an original 235 exhaust manifold? I've got an original manifold that has been split, and I was curious as to alignment/clearance issues.

I am using a Clifford water heated 4 bbl. manifold along with the Williams headers on my 261. No problem at all !