[prostreetC-10]

I picked up the tunnel ram at a swap meet for $100 in great condition so I was on my way. It's a Wieand "hi-ram" for oval port heads. Has the carb bolt pattern to mount the carbs either inline or sideways.

Now on to the carbs. I was to try and cover a few things to hopefully help others out that might be thinking of a 2x4 setup. Some of the initial choices where a pair of 390's, 450's and 600's. After talking to Holley tech, I decided to go with the Holley list 9776 450 "tunnel ram" mechanical secondary carbs. Notice I said "mechanical secondary" and not "double pumper"? The 9776 is a very unique carb because it is the only carb in Holley's lineup that has a mechanical secondary but no rear accel pump thus not making it a DP. I called Holley and asked how they could get away with this because basic carb logic would tell you that you should have a nice lean spot in the secondary transition once the rear butterflies open and before the signal gets to the booster and they can have time to react. Holley claimed that the venturi is so small, and the booster is positioned just close enough to it that you will get an instant signal (I would later find out that this is not the case in my setup.....but I'll cover that a little later).

So I had the carb....now what? Do I take the easy route and mount them inline like most every other guy out there or do I complicate things by mounting them sideway. Of course.....let's complicate things and make them look bad ass at the same time. The one problem I saw right off the bat was that when sideways, the carbs hang farther over to one side than the other because the 450s only have a front block and not rear. Easy fix though. I just removed the rear metering PLATE and put on a couple of rear block conversion kits. Now she's setting dead center. Only problem left is it looks like two little carbs on a great big engine. What to do. I know....what's the baddest fuel bowl Holley makes? That's right DOMINATOR racing bowls. What's cool about Holley carbs is that just about any bowl will fit on any carb. You can take a pair of 450 carbs and make them look like 850+ carb by adding the right bowl. All the main bodies on the outside are the same shape. The CFM is controlled by how big or how small the venturis are on the inside (along with throttle bore diameter).

I knew that in order to have to carbs setting sideways and not have a real "heavy" pedal, I needed to go with quality linkage. I think the best out there is Enderle blower linkage, and that's what I got. All kinds of adjustments to really fine tune the to. It is very important to have the carbs 100% sync'd together so they act like one, or as close to it. This linkage allows you to do that. After getting the carbs on and the linkage mocked up, you have the look in the pic below. As complex as the linkage looks, it's amazing how smooth the pedal is. It has less pressure than many single carb pedals I've felt. More later......