Question about Mr. Norm's six pack (intake / carbs) setup

I recently acquired a V-Code 70 Challenger (Ice Blue) with a dealer-installed shaker hood (installed 8-1970). Provenance to this car (the guy who sold it to me) goes back to 1974 and comes with several pictures from the days it was being races in the mid/late 70s. The car was recently restored but there are a few things that were done incorrectly and I'm fixing those things now.

When taking off the shaker assembly, I noticed that the fuel line enters the carbs from the driver's side, etc...so I called the prev owner and he said it was the original Mr. Norm's carb setup that he installed so he would not have to keep removing the shaker to squirt gas in the carbs to get it started... OK, I get it, it was the 70's...

Currently, the car starts up (immediately) with zero issues/ever... so I'm perfectly happy with the current setup and I'm afraid of changing anything, but I'm curious if there is any info out there on these setups, I've never heard of them or seen one before.

Is there any documentation, brochures, anything out there on this six pack setup ?

Thanks in advance...

It's probably the direct connection mechanical carb setup.

Well, if the center carb is 4782, it’s a 350 cfm. If the outboards are 4783, they are 500 cfm and mechanical secondaries. They were an over the counter setup available through a Mopar dealer. The bowls will all be the side hung Holley with driver fuel inlet. If they are center hung bowls with vacuum pods, they are Corvette carbs or bowls. I picture is worth a thousand words. Carb numbers will help too.

The Direct Connection mechanical carbs have always been my favorite. I have two sets sitting around here.

The Grand-Spaulding cars used Corvette carbs, with the other-side fuel inlets, and a cast air cleaner lid.
I've seen the correct #s somewhere, but don't recall where to direct the OP.
Sorry 'bout that, but I'm sure that info can be found if I was able to stumble across it.
That lid always looked backwards to me when installed, due to the lettering.

Good information, thanks.

Center carb is 4782 and both outboards are 4783 with the following list numbers:

C: 2641
F: 1380
R: 2241

Pass side:

Equally important question:

What was the advantage of this setup vs. stock ?
Why enter the fuel line from driver’s side ?

Was there an advantage or did he just want to be different ?

Thanks

1. Marketing
2. Vette carbs
3. Marketing

Mechanical vs Vacuum secondaries
No secondary idle adjustment
Ability to change jets on the secondaries
the fuel line is due to the way holley offered them.
I have run multiple sets of these carbs on different motors since about 1976. They work REALLY well on 440's and Stroked SB's. When those secondaries open it's much like a passing gear. If you happen to be in an automatic car and it does drop to second or first it's a real experience

The reason fuel inlet is on the driver side is that is the only bowl that will fit the carb spacing using the regular metering blocks in the rear. One advantage, as mentioned, you can change the jets in the outboards. These were marketed as an over the counter carb or ones that you could get from Holley. The mechanical secondaries do give you a big kick when you get into them. I had a set on a race car and they ran great in testing around on the street. On a race cars with slicks and a sticky track, I had a bad bog. I never could spend the time to try and work that out. I went back to the oem vacuum secondaries and started playing with the springs. It went much faster and consistent without the bog. I figured if the stockers and super stockers could run as fast as they were with vacuum secondaries, I could be satisfied with oem as well.

You should fix that line to the rear carb , that little piece of rubber line is an accident waiting to happen.

it's a corvette set up and you can find a lot of info on them and I believe on the vette the fuel line has to run on that side to fit

Norm bought the Corvette carbs for his GSS builds because they were $20 cheaper than Chrysler carbs, it was as simple as that...LOL

Actually they are not Chevy carbs they are a modified Ford carb. Chevy carbs have the vacuum pods, center hung bowls and only one metering block

And vacuum pods cannot be removed? Mr. Norm told me which Chevy dealer he bought them from in 1971...

So you think he removed the vacuum pod, added side bowls. metering blocks and pumps? I read somewhere they were Ford carbs. Take a look at the old Ford tri power. They are identical. Here's a 406 Ford Tri Power.

Ford had to mount those carbs backwards to clear the distributors on the FE motors

Seriously? You can’t see the difference in the two pictures YOU posted? The Mopar carbs he has are made by Holley for Mopars. They use the same body as a Mopar six pack using std Holley metering blocks and bowls from a regular side hung Holley carb. A Mopar air cleaner will not fit the Ford setup. I’ve got about 90 six pack carbs, as well as a set of the same as the original poster. I sold a ford set long ago. Corvette outboards have a different main body Mopars. Corvettes and Ford outboards both have an air horn on them with the choke parts removed.

You "read" somewhere, well I worked for Mr. Norm for 15 years and believe what he told me. He also didn't use the Tri-Power air cleaner on the first few cars, went to Western Auto and bought the three tiny chrome air cleaners for those also because they were cheap...

I think I have a misunderstanding here. Correct me if I'm wrong. Mr. Norms carbs did have vacuum secondary's. Now it makes sense and I agree with the Chevy carbs. I assumed that mechanical setup was used on Mr Norm, but it was strictly a DC item made just for DC.

I have been using these carbs since the early 70's.
I was told back then and believe they were originally developed to replace the vacuum operated big block tri power corvette carbs which were introduced in I believe 1967. This I always believed to be true due to the L side fuel inlets.
Somewhere, someone figured out these would also bolt onto the mopar six pack manifolds with the only issues being the L side fuel inlets which many worked around employing different approaches.
Hustle stuff/ Direct connection jumped on the bandwagon and began offering the carbs for both big and small block applications.
IF the carbs had been developed strictly for Mopars I believe the fuel inlets could have easily, and would have been put on the other side.
I also believe that someone at holley looked at the earlier Ford tri power carbs that had been around since 62 or so and said with some minor mod's we can adapt these over to the corvette and the 4782 / 4783 series was born / introduced. Along came the 69-1/2 cars followed by the T/A & AAR's and as mentioned above someone bolted them on a Mopar. So, we sit here almost 60 years later disputing the original intent for the carbs with no one really knowing the actual facts.

Well, I think we are splitting hairs here. The Ford tripower has completely different air horn than the Chevy. It is pointed on the ends. Both Ford and Chevy both have the tall air horns on the outboards. The parts to build these 4782/4783 combo did not even exist until early in 1969 and these outboard main bodies were only used on the outboards on Mopars. They modified the machining process to make them mechanical secondaries. The outboard throttle shafts were made strictly for these 4783 Those other parts are just std Holley parts that they were already making. They wanted metering blocks on the end carbs that were easy to change jets. The short bowls had to be used because the rear carb would not fit with the regular center pivot bowl. The part numbers tell me Holley came up with this idea in the early 70 year. The dates on the carbs verify that. I believe Rhino on the Mr. Norm deal about him using the Chevy carbs. They did not have the idle circuit in the base of the outboards or the hole drilled in the outboard throttle blade. I could see that saving $10 in machine work in the 70’s. Mopar wanted the outboards to meter a little gas in order for fuel to stay fresh and the needle and seat to not stick.

On a side note to the OP. If you are happy with the performance of the carbs, keep them. If you want a nicely restored set of date coded 70 440 4 speed carbs, i just finished at set. A shaker air cleaner is so big, no one can even see the carbs. Even a regular six pack air cleaner is so big, very little of the carbs can be seen. I’ve got nice carbs on my AAR so I take the air cleaner off at shows. People like to see those nice Holleys all lined up.

These carburetors were developed by Holley for Ford to use in NASCAR racing, when the NASCAR guys had to go from big blocks down to small blocks.

https://www.ford6vcarburetion.com/ford-6v-tech/

You can see in the story here, that NASCAR banned them before Ford even got them on the track. Ford scraped their program, which left Holley with a fully developed mechanical Six Pack and no customer.
They offered them to GM and MOPAR. GM said no, MOPAR said yes. The Carburetors were then sold through the Direct Connection program.

Robert

Thanks, I knew I read that somewhere.

hi

the carbs that mopar used were not the ford verson .


the artical even states that ,.

the mopar ones do not have the square pointed corners for the air cleaner to sit on . diffrent gasket .

also mopar ones do not have air horns on the outboards ! different list numbers ! diffrent jetting .

exactly correct, I run these on my demon 340, they flow about 200 cfm more than the stock mopar carbs, the outboards are basically 850dp cut in half, thin throttle blades and slabbed shafts !!