1965 carburator spacer

[Mammut Mann]

Hello everyone,

Im currently rebuilding the engine of my Thunderbird. after i removed the carburator i found out that the spacer is milled to an angle.

has this a specific reason ( hood clearence maybe) or has it something to do with the carburator itself?

 

[kbuhagiar]

It's not related to the carburetor.

The tapered spacer was used because the Tbird engine sits level to the ground, as opposed to other FE applications which are raised in the front. Do a search on the Tbird boards and you'll find lots of back-and-forth from amateur automotive engineers about whether this is necessary or not.

 

[inspector]

If the spacer wasn't tapered, the carburator would not sit level and the gas would not flow properly to the rear float bowl.

 

[DannyInNJ]

Unlike the other cars in Ford's "stable" that used the FE engines, the TBird had the motor mounted level rather than an incline like the Galaxie 500, for example. Because all the manifolds were wedge shaped to accommodate the incline, the TBird got a wedge under the carb to correct that.
This is a good thing, as it also allowed them to add some plumbing - specifically to eliminate gas boiling in the carb bowl. It worked well but I know some folks who either didn't reconnect it (bad) or put in a separate circulation pump that used even cooler water (good) as it made the engine perform better. They used an old transmission cooler (separate from the trans of course, and mounted in the wheel well, a neat setup). Ask anyone with a turbocharger the value of colder gas!