Crossram manifold

[Jon Mello]

CARS magazine road test of the Fathom Blue crossram-equipped "Mini-Mauler" from Motion. (Jon Mello Collection)

[68crossram]

Does anyone know when this article came out in Cars Magazine? I see the dual 4 intake has the splash shield on the back that was not present on the production units.

[Jon Mello]

It was in the October 1968 issue which may have come out around August of that year and would have been written before that.

[OG69Z]

Also some inter departmental memo from August 1967 regarding the crossram set up.

68crossram, Thank you for sharing the very informative letter. I'm working on a little project right now and this letter appears to have some data noted that I have been researching. I would greatly appreciate if you could post and share the remainder of the letter.
Thanks again!

The Cars Mag story on the Mini Mauler  sure gets the blood pumping!

[68crossram]

The picture of the letter came from either documentation that Wayne Guinn had or Mr. Thompson. It was displayed on the table along with the crossram manifolds. That is all I have of it. Somewhere I have contact info for Wayne but think he might also have contact info on his website.

[Jon Mello]

These are some pictures sent to me by the late Scott Madsen a few years ago. His father was Doug Madsen, one of the top
Corvette/Rochester FI mechanics in the country back in the '60s. Doug was the mechanic for Steve Elfenbein's Marina Blue
Z-28 out of New Jersey and this crossram is supposed to be the one that was on Elfenbein's car back in the late '60s. Scott
told me that he was told by Steve that the little squirters in the carbs were done by one of Vince Piggins' guys (probably
Bill Howell).

[Jon Mello]

Here are some photos of an interesting fiberglass crossram aircleaner base from the Frank Profeta, Jr Collection.
This base supposedly came right from the Penske garage when they were doing some annual clean up, according
to the person who sold it to Frank. Frank bought it sometime in the early eighties. It did have a seal on it when it
was received but it was disintegrating and making a mess so it was removed. It's not known who had installed the
the seal in the first place.
 
The Penske Racing on the base was probably made from a Dymo label tape gun. The label on the base appears to
be part of the base. Looking at the base from the top you would not immediate catch that it is fiberglass except
that the lip found on the edge of a steel original is not there on the fiberglass part.
 
Warren asks "Did Penske use the vent tube that went into the base on his other crossrams? It's possible this fiberglass
base was made and never used." I have not had time yet to look at the '69 Penske engine photos to answer Warren's
question but that bears looking into.
 
This fiberglass base weighs 1.8 lbs. compared to 3.6 lbs. for an NOS original example. It's not known for sure if this actually
came from Penske or if someone was making the bases as a repop and stuck a Penske Racing label on one. Hopefully someone
here on our forum can verify its origin.

Mitch Moore from Kentucky also has one of these bases and I will post pics of Mitch's base next. If you look at Mitch's and
Frank's base where the vent tube hole has been taped off you can clearly see they were made from the same mold, however
Mitch's does not say Penske on it anywhere.



Warren Malkin, Jr photo


Warren Malkin, Jr photo


Warren Malkin, Jr photo


Warren Malkin, Jr photo


Warren Malkin, Jr photo


Warren Malkin, Jr photo


Warren Malkin, Jr photo


Warren Malkin, Jr photo


An original NOS steel base on the left vs. the fiberglass reproduction (no lip present).

Warren Malkin, Jr photo

[Jon Mello]

Here are photos of Mitch's base. He claims to have bought this at Carlisle back in the early '80s. Anybody have information on these fiberglass bases?



Mitch Moore photo


Mitch Moore photo


Mitch Moore photo


Mitch Moore photo


Mitch Moore photo


No "Penske Racing" imprint on this base.

Mitch Moore photo

[Jon Mello]

Here we have another fiberglass air cleaner base for a crossram. This is one that Frank Dihartce bought from Dick Lewis around 1980.
Dick told Frank that it came out of Chevrolet Engineering for Penske Racing. Frank's base looks like it came from the same mold that
made the two bases above, however the hole has been punched out for the crankcase breather elbow and no "Penske Racing" is embossed.


Frank Dihartce photo


Frank Dihartce photo


Frank Dihartce photo


Frank Dihartce photo


Frank Dihartce photo


Frank Dihartce photo


Frank Dihartce photo


Frank Dihartce photo

[JoeC]

great pics

I have seen those nozzles before. They were used by some to make a single acc pump Holley work like the double pumper.

The double pumper Holley 850 came out about 1968 and was used on the L88 Corvette then some clever aftermarket co. sold a kit called a
"gear injector kit". The kit had a acc nozzle conversion with the tubes going into the secondaries and a set of gears that replaced the vac sec parts.
It converted a Holley single pump vac sec carb into a double pump mech sec carb.

I have an old Holley 3310 that has the conversion installed.

That tube idea may have come from a Holley engineer working with the cross ram project?
interesting stuff

[1109RWHP]

Can you post a picture of the carb with the kit on it?

[JoeC]

here is the old vac sec Holley with the "gear injector kit"

I have an add for the kit from an old magizine

[1109RWHP]

That is pretty neat. I have never seen anything like it. Did it come with a 50cc pump too?

[Jon Mello]

Here's a Motion Performance ad showing the kit.

[Jon Mello]

CARS magazine feature on the Edelbrock version of the crossram manifold used on their "Z-30" project Camaro.