Vintage Thunderbird Club International

thought i would start another thread on this instead of asking questions on the previous one. When installing the sniper should the plastic adapter plate for the autolite stay on or is it removed?

I have the Holley Super Sniper Stealth which I'm planning on installing on my build, so I've thought about that also, I believe the wedge shaped plastic adapter was mainly used to level the carburetor so the fuel in the bowls would be level. A unit with injectors does not need this same requirement, I'm just not sure if it's removed if the air cleaner will look tilted or anything. I'm probably removing mine at first just for the little bit of hood clearance.

never thought about the air cleaner being tilted.

I would have thought the spacer would be good to help atomize the fuel.

i as well.

I'd agree most spacers will help to atomize the mixture, and help with insulating the carburetor from the engine heat. This one is fairly thin though and seems designed to change the angle of the carburetor, it does probably help the other issues as well.

Sorry I thought we were talking thicker spacer. That one you can probably forget about.

yeah i was thinking the factory spacer

On my 66 428 car this was the only spacer under the carb, this wedge spacer is what I thought the OP was talking about.
Is there supposed to be an additional factory spacer on the 64-66 cars?
Edit - also I believe this wedge to be factory spacer, is this incorrect?

Normal spacer looks like this one below. Not sure about the one you have posted for your 428.

Spacer for '66 differs from '62-'65 due to different routing of heater hoses and not being used the pre-heat the carburetor. The '66 spacer as I understand it not only provides the angle needed to level the carb off of the intake manifold's tilted setup for use in cars which have the engine tilted (T-bird sits level), but also has a small tube for a vacuum hose connection - what it goes to I cannot say without studying the shop manual and related schematics/diagrams. Parts books circa 1968 show the '62-'64 spacer and '65 spacer being available as a service package with a cap/plug over the vacuum port used with the PCV system when used on cars without PCV.

1962-64 Spacer - C2SZ 9A589-C (390-4v)
1965 Spacer - C2SZ 9A589-D (390-4v)
1966 Spacer - C6SZ 9A589-A (used both 390 & 428)
For comparison, '67 T-birds with the 390 and 428 used the '66 full-size spacer C6AZ 9A589-B
and 68-69 went through a few iterations and changes for the 429s, including a change from plastic to asbestos for '69
To complete the chain, '58-60 T-Birds used different spacers depending if it was a 352 or the 430 - the carbs were not pre-heated through the spacer
and likewise '61 T-birds stand on their own - these did not have a PCV vacuum connection
If time permits I may add to this with the Obsolete-Supersede-Interchange chronology, but for now this should suffice to give you an idea of what's been used during the period.

Privateer wrote: ↑Sun Nov 28, 2021 8:44 pm On my 66 428 car this was the only spacer under the carb, this wedge spacer is what I thought the OP was talking about.
Is there supposed to be an additional factory spacer on the 64-66 cars?
Edit - also I believe this wedge to be factory spacer, is this incorrect?

yes that's what is on my 66 428 the wedge with the vacuum port on front, I think the vac port is for the vac advance ill clarify just for the record.

Alan, thank you for posting the differences in the carb spacers for the years, as always you are a wealth of knowledge on these cars. Always interesting how Ford makes changes to something for just one year.

Interesting that Ford finally went to manifold vac. adv. (like GM) instead of ported. Should work just fine and result in lower idle temps (albeit with slightly higher emissions).

Scott

On my 66 car the angle plate had a rubber cap on it and the distributor vacuum advance was still going to the high speed vacuum port on the carburetor. Shown in the pic as the steel line coming off the carb.
Scott