Weber Carbs on Small Block Chevy?

[Snake45]

Have any kits (other than the Accurate Miniatures GS Corvettes) featured Weber carbs on a small block Chevy engine? I have plenty of the carbs themselves, and BBC manifolds, but I want to put some on a small block. What kits have that manifold? 

[Ace-Garageguy]

The AM GS kits are the only correct Weber-equipped smallblock Chebbys I can think of right off hand.

The kits feature sidedraft carbs, mounted correctly.

This is important, as Webers come in two distinct and NON-INTERCHANGEABLE designs...sidedraft and downdraft. Mounting sidedrafts as downdrafts, or vice-versa, is as wrong as mounting a Holley upside down.

The AMT '63 Stingray fastback has a set of SIDEDRAFTS mounted incorrectly as downdrafts (on a big-block).

To get a decent set of downdrafts for a little Chebby, I believe you're in for some light fabrication of an appropriate manifold, and sourcing a good set of carbs from one of the Cobra kits, or aftermarket.

These have been covered extensively elsewhen on the forum, but note: one set of aftermarket carbs sold by RepMin as EITHER side-OR-down is incorrect for one or the other.

Edited October 3, 2018 by Ace-Garageguy

[Ace-Garageguy]

 

 

 

 

[Ace-Garageguy]

If you already have decent downdraft carbs, you can use a modified Hilborn-style injection manifold on a kit engine...but because the little Chebby pairs intake ports very close together, the spacing of Hilborn-style manifold ports will be somewhat wrong for Webers.

One source for a starting-point manifold is the AMT '55 Nomad.

For correctly-mounted downdrafts, you're going to need a manifold that looks like this...and I don't know of one right at this moment.

 

Edited October 3, 2018 by Ace-Garageguy

[Gramps46]

I found these in the parts box and they look similar to Bill's picture above but they are small, definitely 1/25 as is the ruler.  I do not know what kit they were in nor do I have the manifold.

[Snake45]

Thanks Bill and Gramps. 

Reason I'm asking is, I'm building a custom Camaro and want to use this hood, which has already been opened up by someone long ago. Thought it might be cool to have Webers showing underneath it, but I'm not sure a big block would fit under that flattish hood with Webers (the whole reason for the bump on all First Gen SS Camaros was that the room was needed for the air cleaner on the 396). 

Looks like I'll have to try. It might work (using the setup from the reissue AMT Vettes). Or I might be able to piece together the 4-carb Man-a-Fre setup from the AMT '67 Camaro annual kit. I have at least two of those, neither one complete, but I might have one full set. It would be appropriate for this particular build, using so many original AMT '67 pieces. 

[Ace-Garageguy]

The cross-ram sidedraft setup from the Accurate Miniatures kits would be cool, but it's noticeably large for 1/25 (being scaled as 1/24) to anyone who's used to looking at the real things.

The carbs on the AMT '63 big-block are sidedrafts, but they're incorrectly mounted as downdrafts...again, immediately noticeable to anyone familiar with the real deal...and almost certainly wouldn't fit under your hood as downdrafts anyway.

BUT...the carbs themselves...sidedrafts... are decent, and could be the basis of a cross-ram setup like the AM GS kits have, but scaled to look right in a 1/25 engine bay.

Still, you'd have to build your own intake manifold.

[Ace-Garageguy]

1 hour ago, Gramps46 said:

I found these in the parts box and they look similar to Bill's picture above but they are small, definitely 1/25 as is the ruler.  I do not know what kit they were in nor do I have the manifold.

Those do appear to look more like downdrafts than sidedrafts, and they have stub Y-manifolds that could be used to convert a Hilborn-style injection manifold to a Weber-compatible manifold as in the photo I posted above.

[Snake45]

33 minutes ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

The cross-ram sidedraft setup from the Accurate Miniatures kits would be cool, but it's noticeably large for 1/25 (being scaled as 1/24) to anyone who's used to looking at the real things.

The carbs on the AMT '63 big-block are sidedrafts, but they're incorrectly mounted as downdrafts...again, immediately noticeable to anyone familiar with the real deal...and almost certainly wouldn't fit under your hood as downdrafts anyway.

BUT...the carbs themselves...sidedrafts... are decent, and could be the basis of a cross-ram setup like the AM GS kits have, but scaled to look right in a 1/25 engine bay.

Still, you'd have to build your own intake manifold.

The sidedraft arrangement wouldn't accomplish what I'm looking for with the hood slots. But thanks anyway. 

[Exotics_Builder]

I seem to recollect either an AMT or MPC late 70's or early 80's Camaros had a Weber manifold option on small block Chevy.  Can't attest to accuracy.  My stuff is still boxed up, so I can't check to see if I have anything further.  I'm drawing a blank on further detail.  Anyone else recollect this?  

[Snake45]

Just now, Exotics_Builder said:

I seem to recollect either an AMT or MPC late 70's or early 80's Camaros had a Weber manifold option on small block Chevy.  Can't attest to accuracy.  My stuff is still boxed up, so I can't check to see if I have anything further.  I'm drawing a blank on further detail.  Anyone else recollect this?  

Hmmmm. I don't have any of those kits so it wouldn't help me anyway, but thanks. 

I'm now looking at the VERY short injection stacks from the old AMT '69 Chevelle SS. They're probably not accurate, but would fit, should more or less "bolt on" to the BBC in the Revell kit I'm using, and give me the look I'm looking for. 

[MPi-KM]

MPC/AMT C4 Corvettes have a sbc setup like that.