Talk about innovation! We all know the great Barney Navarro was a genius when it came to making flathead motors go faster, and this is yet another example of why. Talk about thinking outside the box.
We honestly don’t know a lot (anything!) about this carburetor. But we are told it was built in 1948 using four back-to-back Stromberg 48s siamesed together with a common machined alloy base plate (it’s got no cast iron bases). Check out the extra/relocated arms on the accelerator pump fulcrum levers, sticking right up in the air. By linking them together across the top of the carb, the left hand pump rods can transmit the pump action to the right hand venturis. Looks like he made some super-long throttle shafts to join four barrels together in line, with one controlled by the pedal and the other (maybe a secondary?) with a torsion spring wrapped around the end of the shaft. And what about that fuel system! Looks like all the inlets are linked, and what are those pipes on the centre drain plugs underneath?!
This one-off piece came via Don Ferguson to the collection of Australian ‘friend of Stromberg’, Graeme Raper and is currently with our buddy Max Musgrove for full restoration with new Stromberg service parts. At the moment we only have these pics to go on, but we’ll be reporting back as this baby gets more attention. Anybody got any more input for us? Please?!Update! Click here for an update we got from hot rod journo, Chris Shelton.
Here’s the history bit. Vic Edelbrock Snr introduced the X1 ram six-carburetor manifold in 1958, getting 284 hp out of the hot new 283 ci Chevy engine. Alright, so it doesn’t sound too hot now, but this was 1958, remember. One horse per inch out of any motor was BIG NEWS! Cross ram was always going to be the way to go for high performance – still is – but one of its secrets was the long tapered runners, which allowed the mixture to accelerate at a steady rate towards the intake port. Best of all, it used six Stromberg 97s. Vic even guaranteed it would out-perform any other six-carb intake around at the time. According to the excellent book, “Merchants of Speed: The Men who built America’s Performance Industry”, the X1 was used to test Vic Jnr’s 339 inch Chevy powered ski-boat motor in 1961. WIth six 97s, it made 364 horse on the famous Edelbrock dyno. The following year it pulled 375 horse from a 283ci (!) motor when testing a new Polydyne profile camshaft over at Iskenderian Racing Cams.
