I'm just looking for opinions on my particular situation. I have a 1956 88, but the guy I got it from had installed a Holley Pro-Jection 2d kit on it prior to me getting it. I am finally getting fed up with how finicky it is, so I am looking to go back to a carbureted system. I was looking for your opinions as to whether I should go for just the orignal carb or maybe look into getting an aftermarket intake manifold and an aftermarket carb. Also I was wondering if anybody had any experience ordering aftermarket intake manifolds because I was looking on a couple sites and hadn't seen any for this engine so I was wondering if they would custom order.

Thank you all for your help.

-Shaun
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Probably the only place you will find anything is something used on ebay or some site like this one. Three 2's were common in the day but will be expensive. I am interested how they got the Holley Pro-Jection to work with the linkage for the hydramatic unless you have a standard which would be rare. I would probably go with the original 4 barrel manifold and look at carb options.

 

Red it's a Hydramatic. I really don't understand how it's set up, I just know it's a pain in the rear. I would have to locate a 4 barrel. I have a two barrel right now. I talked with someone at Holley to see if they had a carb that would be compatible with the adapter that is currently on there with the Pro-jection kit and was told my only option would be to get a universal carb. I'm a little lost on the whole situation.

 

The reason you are not finding aftermarket intakes for this particular engine is because they stopped making them a very, very, long time ago. However they were very popular in drag races in the 50's and 60's, so there are speed parts out there for them... Anything you could dream of- intakes, superchargers even. These vintage units command a high price unfortunately.

Your best bet for driveability would be to obtain the stock 4 barrel intake as it shouldn't be too hard to find if you look. Now the next step depends on whats become of the transmission shift linkage.
On those old hydramatics, they shift off the linkage on the carb, not by vacuum like a newer turbo-hydramatic.
If the original linkage is unmolested and complete, easiest to buy a rochester 4gc of the same vintage with the appropriate linkage as it will bolt right up. This will be expensive unfortunately unless you score on ebay.
If the linkage has been modified, best bet might be to go with a modern carb, like a holley or edelbrock. Those carbs would certainly be cheaper. This will most likely require that you get crafty and make the linkage work, but i've seen it done. I'm curious to see what they did to it to make it work. If you're super lucky it might be somewhat close to what is needed to make a holley carb work.
Its your call based on what you're comfortable doing really. Remember you're smarter than that car!

 

Thanks for your input. I'll snap some pictures over the next couple dys since i know a lot of people have been asking how it's hooked up.

 

Here are the pictures. The order is Driver side, front, passenger, rear

 

An update to my situation for those who are interested. As it turns out I already had a 4 barrel intake. I pulled all the components of the fuel injector and put a Holley Carb on there. My issue now is I'm not getting any power so I'm going to check the battery by hooking a charger up to it and seeing if I get lights or fan. My next step after that would be redoing the wiring harness, which I was going to do eventually anyway. If anybody might have any easier suggestions I am all ears.

 

Okay so battery has power, now I just need to get power to the electric fuel pump that was installed with the pro-jection kit.

 

That electric fuel pump might be too much for the old V8. It only requires about 5 lbs. of fuel pressure. Much more will likely flood it. I had to install a fuel pressure regulator to drop the pressure to 5 lbs. Works great now (the electric fuel pump).

 

I just put a fuel pressure regulator in today. Have it set at 5 psi. also. My issue now is the car will start up then cut off if I don't put a little power behind it. I am guessing I have to mess with the idle a little bit. I haven't had a chance to tune at all yet. It looks a lot better than that fuel injection system though.


Addition: ...And now it's not starting. I'm going to let it rest over night and continue to research it.

 

It's going good so far. I had to put on a new pump that was lower pressure. Even with the fuel pressure regulator it was flooding. The regulator I have doesn't have a return line on it, so there was just immense pressure build up at the input of the regulator and it would shoot fuel out of the connection. New pump is on and things are going good so far. Haven't driven it yet though.