Big ups to my fellow announcer pal Alan Reinhart for this eBay find of a cool and really seldom seen Mickey Thompson FE cross ram intake from the 1960s. This piece is freshly liberated from the collection of a hardcore Ford fan that must have had a really, really, great gathering of stuff in his horde because it’s about as rare as it gets in terms of FE induction. The manifold is in near perfect, seemingly never mounted condition and it was polished some years back as well.
Several years ago Drag Week racer and FE expert Jay Brown published a book with performance results from virtually every FE intake manifold ever made. The guy has a dyno at his house and he took a long time and tested dozens and dozens of intakes to see which ones made good power, which ones made better power, and which ones were better left on the wall of your shop as a conversation piece.
While I cannot place my hand on that book at this second, I seem to remember being kind of disappointed in the numbers this one produced. That being said, we’d bolt this thing on the engine of a street car, cruiser, etc in a heartbeat for the bad ass visual effect. Look, it isn’t like you are going to put this on a race car that you are trying to set low ET with, but imaging lifting the hood of your FE powered…anything and seeing this guy under there with a couple of Holley carbs on top of it. Magic, right?
We’re kind of shocked no one has licensed the M/T name and logo for the production of intakes and other engine parts. Yes, we know the tire company is still kicking ass, but it seems like perfect nostalgia to have that brand back out there. Hell, maybe that’s just us.
Thanks to Reinhart for the tip!
eBay: 1960s Mickey Thompson 427FE cross ram intake manifold
Car Craft did a comparison of every intake they could find to bolt onto a basic hot rod SBC. As I recall they said there was a mist of fuel above the carbs on the cross ram at high RPM, lots of reversion. Looks cool, but a well matched single quad on a dual plane intake made the best power.
I have been running a M/T cross ram with 660 Hollies on 427 side oiler,I know several people that use this intake,just like anything else you have to have the rest of the engine to marry up.It works quite well for mid high range,one thing for sure it loves cool night air
my brother has the edelbrock version in 68 fastback, seems mid range is pretty good,i was told they were better at high rpm,when at car show or cruise night definitely gets a second look, gas mileage is horrendous but is ok not an every day car,pretty impressive looking.
M/T built all kinds of cool stuff I have M/t valve covers on my 351c .At a car show years ago I heard some people talking about a T Bolt with a dodge motor in it , of course it was a M/T hemi headed FE
M/T built all kinds of cool stuff I have M/t valve covers on my 351c .At a car show years ago I heard some people talking about a T Bolt with a dodge motor in it , of course it was a M/T hemi headed FE
Thanks for the intake art Brian. I can see a mutiport EFI conversion waking this cross ram up nicely. You know how I roll.