Inliners International Forums General Discussion Hi Performance phenolic mounting plate ??? 4 Tony P

Tony P
On another thread you said you made a "phenolic mounting plate" to mount a 2 barrel on your stock 261 manifold. I have been wanting to make a better adapter for the Holley/Weber 5200 on my 250. I have the strangulation model from Langdon's at present. I was going to use a 4GC Rochester with an offy manifold, but man, the Weber just works so good that I hate to give it up, but I don't see how you could ever expect the best flow out of that strangulation adapter. I'm getting ready to rebuild the 250, and I am using a mild clevite performance cam. It's 194/204 duration. Plus I'm going to do the ports and manifolds per the info on the standard abrassives web site, and use the 1.6 exh valves, and have the head milled. Anyway, I'd like to stick with the Weber, but I need to jet it up a bit, and use a better adapter, so what exactly is a "phenolic" mounting plate?

Boo

Well I did a "phenolic" search on yahoo and got pretty much what I expected.

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&q=define%3APhenolic

Phenolic doesn't really say anything about the design or function of the adapter. It does say what kind of material it's made of. Phenolic plastics are thermosetting which (if I can recall from my 'engineering materials' course) means that they're strong, hard and have good heat tolerance. But as a plastic are still light weight and have several other advantages. I'm thinking maybe it would be easier to fab something out of this than metal? Thoughts. I guess what matters is what Tony P says.

Thanks Greg, I looked it up too, and came up with the same conclusion as you. Personally I see no reason not to use 5/8" mild steel.

Boo

Boo, phenolic is heat and gas resistent, and can be worked with wood tools, like routers,hole saws. Roughed the piece into shape on the table saw,dressed the edges with a router.
I opened up the top of a stock 261 intake by using a hole saw in the drill press, then attacked it with a grinder to dress it up.Made and oval hole to match the carb,In my case, the carb is a Holley 2300 two barrel.
I had to do a little welding as the grinding punched into the exhaust heated cavity in the intake manifold.I used a MIG welder with steel wire,welded up a few small holes in the cast intake ,no problem.Brazing will also work or if you're a gambler, JB epoxy weld may work.
I then machined a piece of 1 inch phenolic as a carb flange, drilled 4 holes ,tapped the intake so I could bolt on the flange, made a gasket,etc.
If you're interested,email me at alltruckedup@earthlink.net, I can fix ya up with a piece of phenolic for free,just for you buddy,lol.

where do u go to buy phenolic pieces? would a regular hardware store be able to order it in or something?

Thanks for the offer Tony, but I think I will just use 5/8" mild steel. My design will be very similar to what you did. Just different material. Funny you should mention JB Weld: I had a 750 Yamaha with the outside right hand carb held on by JB Weld for Years. Never came off until my nephew pried it off. I'm going to use JB Weld to put on the finishing touches and get it leak free after I weld it on to the manifold. I use to weld mild steel to cast with hardwire all the time at my old job, but I haven't tried it with oxy/acetylene which is all i have at home. I'm going to get a manifold out of my buddy's junk pile and run a few practice beads before I tackle the job.

Boo

Trueslayer,you can buy large or small phenolic stock from McMaster-Carr online, they are a large industrial supplier.There are different types available,so check the specs.

thats not a bad price really...although it is american i suppose so i'd have to figgure a bit more than twice the cost of that by the time its all said and done...I think i'll check out the price of aluminum here first...thats pretty easy to work with too.

Slayer,if you want a piece to build an adapter,I'll mail it to you,you pay postage.

Thanks Tony that would be awesome...approximately how much are we looking at...I'll do mail order