[FC] Air cleaner "snorkels" or lack thereof...a real study!!

[N2VZD at aol.com]

this is an FC part missing the baffle shield. it did not have a snorkel ,  
just a deflector that helped with noise and possibly a slight tune of air 
speed  to carbs like the tapered snorkel does on later corvairs and other gm  
cars.  i have cut some up "tuning" them.
off subject: the snorkel was designed to change air speed to carbs ,  
cutting it defeats what it was designed to do , along with flipping lids on air  
cleaners. i went thru this discussion with rochester carb engineers back in 
the  70's who showed me in great detail how this theory works. kinda like a 
tuned  circuit in radios.
if you dyno things , playing with the slightest changes in intake lengths  
(including air cleaners and manifolds ) and exhaust volumes and 
backpressures at  different RPM's you can actually tune major changes in torque and 
horsepower at  a given RPM.
in otherwords , it is more complicated (but very interesting!) than most  
guys want to believe.
sometimes noiseir exhaust is not the best way to go without a lot of other  
changes , which most of us do not understand fully. it involves a mix of  
ignition , carburation , and exhaust , all set up to do what you need at a 
given  speed.
i love working with things like this on the bench here.you should see my  
latest "experiment"  try _www.cnycorvair.com_ (http://www.cnycorvair.com)   
for starters
wish i had the money to do more, like a dyno of some sort...
sorry for the long desertations...
regards, tim colson