Quadrajet & TBI = Cool Air

[firebane]

So I know we are all looking for those ways of getting our carbs to suck in MORE cool air for that extra little bit of OOMPH. My stock air cleaner looked like this and I knew it was just not going to work.

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So off to the PNP pull yard and found 1 truck that had a TBI air cleaner on it and walked over to another with a qudrajet and plopped it on. It fit without ANY modifications to the air cleaner housing and takes the exact same element as the old air cleaner.

So I brought the TBI air cleaner home and tried to bolt it up but realized because the TBI air cleaner is a drop base that I was unable to screw the lid down. I took a 1/4"x20 coupler and took two qudrajet studs and put them together to make one longer one. I will be replacing this entire setup with a new piece of 1/4"x20 ready rod but for now it locks down.

Afterwards I realized that since this worked I needed to find a way to pipe the air cleaner to the front of the truck and found a old S10 blazer that looked like it could work but the end was too small.

So back to the wrecking yard I went today and found exactly what I needed. I'm not sure what trucks these come off but its another factory piece for TBIs that will pull air from the front of the truck. I brought this home and was able to bolt it all together. I am about 3-4" inch short from connecting it to the stock area so I will pick up some tubing to finish the connection but for now it looks like this.

So if you are looking for a way to do this.. scrounge up the TBI parts and give'er.

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[skysurfer]

The tbi intake has a plastic snorkel mounted vertically on the radiator core support and should give you the 3-4" you need. If you can't find one, 4" abs pipe can be used with a little fab work.

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[MadOgre]

So I know we are all looking for those ways of getting our carbs to suck in MORE cool air for that extra little bit of OOMPH. My stock air cleaner looked like this and I knew it was just not going to work.

You must be registered for see images attach

So off to the PNP pull yard and found 1 truck that had a TBI air cleaner on it and walked over to another with a qudrajet and plopped it on. It fit without ANY modifications to the air cleaner housing and takes the exact same element as the old air cleaner.

So I brought the TBI air cleaner home and tried to bolt it up but realized because the TBI air cleaner is a drop base that I was unable to screw the lid down. I took a 1/4"x20 coupler and took two qudrajet studs and put them together to make one longer one. I will be replacing this entire setup with a new piece of 1/4"x20 ready rod but for now it locks down.

Afterwards I realized that since this worked I needed to find a way to pipe the air cleaner to the front of the truck and found a old S10 blazer that looked like it could work but the end was too small.

So back to the wrecking yard I went today and found exactly what I needed. I'm not sure what trucks these come off but its another factory piece for TBIs that will pull air from the front of the truck. I brought this home and was able to bolt it all together. I am about 3-4" inch short from connecting it to the stock area so I will pick up some tubing to finish the connection but for now it looks like this.

So if you are looking for a way to do this.. scrounge up the TBI parts and give'er.

You must be registered for see images attach

You should get another lid and weld another air tube on the other side and run it to the other side of the rad

 

[skysurfer]

You should get another lid and weld another air tube on the other side and run it to the other side of the rad

The tbi snorkels have a curve to them so it won't turn out quite like this.

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If you wanted a symmetrical look, you would have to attach the second snorkel upside down to create a mirror image of the original. Problem is, doing that turns the flexible hose right into the master cylinder. Your options are to use an entirely different air cleaner with straight snorkels or mount the second tbi snorkel like the original which gives an asymmetric look.

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Not as pretty as the first pic but the funtionality is there. You can see that if the second intake were upside down it would be up against the m/c.

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Edit: One thing I noticed after posting is that the op's brake booster appears thinner than mine which pulls the m/c closer to the firewall, so maybe there is enough room on the earlier trucks for a symmetric installation. I converted to hydroboost after this pic was taken but still didn't have the clearance even without a vacuum booster.

 

[firebane]

LOL. I'm only doing one thing at at time to allow this truck to run longer than a few minutes at a time. Regarding the brake booster.. I have no idea if the the right size or not LOL.

 

[MrMarty51]

For being anti-symmetrical, that shore looks nice.
I like the looks of that TBI cleaner, much more air in a shorter time.
I do have a complete setup, got it from a TBI Suburban a while back, since I will "someday" be converting the 78 K20 to TBI, I might as well start now, with an aircleaner modification. LOL
Thank You for posting this.

 

[firebane]

Well the one thing I wanted to keep was the ability to use the heat pipe from the manifolds. Perhaps down the line I will come up with something better but for now

 

[skysurfer]

Well the one thing I wanted to keep was the ability to use the heat pipe from the manifolds.

You could have two heat pipes if you wanted. On this one I gutted the flapper from the second one and put a flat plate where the stove pipe flange was. It still passes the California emissions visual check because I retained the oem stuff on the other side.

 

[Green79Scottsdale]

You could have just gotten an air cleaner from a newer square. My '79 has a snorkel about the same size as the TBI one does, factory set-up for the heat pipe and everything.

 

[firebane]

You could have just gotten an air cleaner from a newer square. My '79 has a snorkel about the same size as the TBI one does, factory set-up for the heat pipe and everything.

Trying to find ANY square parts where I live is about as easy as finding a needle in a hay stack

 

[DoubleDingo]

That's cool how you did. I like the idea of switching the snorkel to the driver's side for my application. Never thought of that. I have one that goes to the passenger side but there isn't any room to run the hose to the radiator core support. Granted this is on my '65. But I can swap sides and then it will work just fine. Thanks for the ideas...