Edelbrock EP4B on a 1960 Catalina
 

Hey Guys,

So I ended up taking my 69 GTO off the road for a ton of work, which leaves us without a third car for 6 months or so. As a result, I need to activate my 1960 Catalina. The 2GC on it is completely shot, so I picked up an old EP4B intake and an AFB to put on the car. The engine is the high compression 389 2BBL, and is running dual exhaust, so I figure it will like the intake and carb.

I have a few questions, and I am hoping someone out there can help me:

1) I understand that these intakes can be used on 55-60 as well as 61-64, depending on how you have the front water passage blocked off. I have included a pic of the current way that my intake is set up.

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Is this good to run as is, or do I need to swap which holes are blocked off? I've taken my fair share of later 389s and 400s apart, but never anything this early.

2) If you look at a pic of the top of the new intake, as well as the pic of the top of my engine, there doesn't seem to be the mounting bosses to mount the coil and the throttle bracket. I was hoping that someone has put one of these intakes on their 1960 and has some suggestions.

3) Last question - looks like the factory intake is held down with studs and nuts instead of bolts. The Edelbrock intake looks thinner. In anyone's past experience, will the studs work OK with the intake, or should I try to get some sort of bolt set.

Thanks in advance,

Shaggy

You have to swap out the freeze plugs for 55-60,the intake is now setup for 61-64.Tom

You will need to swap bolts for all studs.Tom

Thanks Tom!

I'll get a bolt set and a pair of freeze plugs. I think those are 7/8"

Now I just need to figure out how to mount the throttle bracket and coil.

-Shaggy

Coil is no big deal.You can mount it on the firewall if you want.Dont know what your linkage looks like.Just go to any hardware store and get the length bolts you need.No need to get anything special.Tom

You mention that your car will probably like the addition of the AFB. FYI.......it's only good for another 20HP.......283 (2bl) vs 303 (4bl). Hope that meets your expectations. BTW this is not intended to be a negative input in any way. Just thought I'd throw it out there. I'm in the same boat with my 60 Ventura.

Yeah - I'm not expecting much out of this from a performance perspective. I think the AFB itself will improve the response a bit. The intake itself should gain me a little bit as well. It's definitely not as flat at the factory one!

Turns out that the intake doesn't just bolt on once you have swapped the freeze plug location. I have ended up making a few more changes to get everything to work. I'll post pics and an update in a couple of days.

-Shaggy

As I remember the 60s dont use the rubber donut to the timing cover so you would have to tap that location in the intake and put in a plug.Tom

Advertised horse power.....:D

What did you ever end up doing to get the EP4b to work right. I have an option of doing the same thing on mine. I keep hearing conflicting stories on the freeze plugs, and plugging or unplugging the hole from the water pump. Mine would be going in a 63- 389.

True for the original cast iron intake. I don't believe the edelbrock will add that much.

Compared to the original cast iron 4-barrel intake, the edelbrock should lose both pounds and ponies.

Jon.

Sorry for the late reply - I haven't been on the board for over a year.

Ironically, I logged on to post an ad for the 60 Catalina, as I have decided to part with it :D

That said, the intake job turned out well. Basically, I cut off the back part of the intake, as it stuck out further in the back than I liked. I moved the plugs for the water inlets, and plugged the water pump inlet on the front.

In addition, I made a couple of threaded aluminum bungs that we welded to the intake so that I could use the factory carb and trans throttle linkage.

Here's a couple of quick pics I took tonight. I'll see if I can dig and find the more detailed pics of what we did to the intake in the next few days.

-Shaggy

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