Man-A-Fre Induction system

V

vintagevetter

Member
I have a classic Man-A-Fre induction system, that has been sitting in my garage for over 40 years now. This system uses (4) 2-barrel Rochester carbs on a manifold that fed 2 cylinders from each carb. This particular manifold was designed to fit a big block Chevy. I had it on my 67 Corvette 427 for several years, before selling the car. Since I'm pretty sure I won't ever be using it again, I was thinking about selling it. I have heard that these units are rather rare, and they are bringing a good price. Just curious what a ballpark figure would be on the price I should ask? thanks

Jeff
 
now thats a blast from the past .... I had a 6x2 intake on a Buick nail head at one time I got in a trade.
at one time those intakes were dirt cheap at flea market swap meets, but with the rat/rod craze the prices have increased a great deal.
a great deal depends on its condition and both the engine they were designed for and the condition of the carbs if those are in the package, but if its in EXCELLENT CONDITION WITH OPERATIONAL CARBS IN EXCELLENT CONDITION, $3000 PLUS is doable, for the time period correct hot rodder crowd.
(but highly over priced for how they run in my opinion)

take the effort to have the carbs rebuilt, the intake cleaned and the linkage installed and adjusted correctly, looks and function are VERY important

heres a couple that are NOT in excellent condition

man1.jpg

man2.jpg

man3.jpg

OFFANHAUSER, and WEIAND SOLD SIMILAR INTAKES
NONE OF THEM PRODUCED REALLY GOOD HP BUT AT THE TIME THEY WERE COMMON THAT WAS HARD TO DETERMINE AS DYNOS WERE RARE, OFFANHAUSER BUILT SEVERAL RATHER UNIQUE INTAKE DESIGNS
with every design change you get a compromise in some area, theres no free lunch, but there are choices to be made and at times those compromises benefit the application,
offy dual port intake manifolds, use a smaller separate lower set of intake runner passages,
to radically boost intake manifold runner air speeds too in theory increase the fuel to air mix and port filling efficiency
offydualp1.jpg

offydualp2.jpg

this actually works rather well in the lower rpms and as the secondary larger upper tandem ports open up that faster lower current of fast moving air tends to help the transition or slower air mix and keep up,the problem is that the divider wall between the ports is thick enough to limit the total available cross sectional area so that while low and mid rpm torque tends to benefit from the designs characteristic flow rates the peak power is slightly restricted over what you could potentially get from a more common, single larger, cross sectional area available in the intake runner port manifold like the wieand or edelbrock designs
RELATED INFO
viewtopic.php?f=55&t=4302
http://www.vapinc.com/carbandkitsspeed/main.html

http://www.vintagespeed.com/
 
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Hi,
Thanks for the reply and the information on E-Bay. It's unbelievable how much old "classic" stuff is selling for these days. I remember when people were removing Rochester Fuel Injections off their Corvettes and selling them for $75.00......I can't imagine what they are selling for now....wish I had bought a dozen of them back then... :D

Getting back to the Man-A-Fre....I bought it from a guy named Harold Graves. He was selling Man-A-Fre set ups in the early 60's out in the San Fernando Valley. Harold gave me a demonstation ride in a 57 Chevy...on how well the Man-A-Fre performed. It was fast...but the suspension in that Chevy left a lot to be desired...so it was a pretty scary ride.....

The first set up I bought, I used on my 57 Corvette. When I sold the car, I removed the system...and later let a buddy use it, on his 65 Corvette. When he sold his car, I got it back, and at the time I had just bought a 67 Corvette 427, so I went back to Harold and traded the small block unit for a big block one. I ran the car with that, until I traded the 67 Corvette for a new 69 Corvette (Man...if I only had that 67 now!! ) I'm not sure if having the manifold for a big block Chevy....would help or hurt the selling price. Since the small block is used in most hot rods...their would be a bigger market for small block Man-A-Fre

I had pretty good luck with the Man-a-Fre has far as driveablity and performance...however the one thing you had to have was a proper ignition curve set up on your distributor for it to run strong. If you didn't have the ignition system tuned....it would just bog down if you open the throttle too fast.

I agree about these Man-A-Fre system being overpriced in today's world...and I'm sure I wouldn't pay that much to buy one myself....but hey!!......if someone comes along with a wad of cash in their hand and wants to give it too me...I sure won't turn them down.

I suppose if I'm really serious about selling it, I should do what you suggested, and rebuild the carbs, clean up the manifold..and linkage...etc. It has some low profile air cleaners on it, so it would clear the hood, and they would need to be rechromed. When I ran the small block system on my 57 Corvette....I had a set of volicity stacks I would run at the drags. I don't know if they helped that much...but they did look..."cool" :lol:

Thanks again for your input on this subject.

Jeff
 
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