wookie

chuck a fan belt on top of the air cleaner element and close the lid on it, itll leave a nice gap between for the lid.
I bought a XF van on gas and they had done this trick to it pretty cheap.

xynot anyone?

heres my handful of change...
tune a holley with a quality vacuum gauge [either from the base of the carb or on the manifold, i use the brake booster port on the manifold, for the idle tuning turn your air/air fuel mixture screws out on each side 1/4 of a turn at a time and keep going until you get the highest possible reading. once i cant get the reading any higher and it seems to stumble a bit ill back it off to just before i could get the highest reading. keep both screws wound in/out the same.
 
choose a powervalve that is roughly half your vacuum reading, rounded down, say you get 14hg reading from your manifold vacuum port, you should use a 6.5 power valve.

if you have to turn the air/air fuel mix screws out over 2 full turns you may need larger jets, if you have to turn them to one turn or less, you may need smaller jets.

 

we have been running a single rail in a XE racecar for about 6 years and never had one, bought one, couldn't fit it, threw it in the bin and never worried about it again - just sayin'

Cheers for the answer clevo120y, i have been reading your air flow bench thread too, i must say all of your posts are very inspirational.
All i have really done to my crossflow was clean up some of the casting lines in a manifold with my little rotary drill and rough them back up, might have to invest in a bigger set up as reading these makes me want to learn a lot more about the process and its great that youre showing us how you check your work to see that youre on the right track, thank you!
 
yeah safetys a big one, i used to go bare foot around most of my jobs, after months of treading on little wires from teh wire wheels and increasing my pain tolerance and possibly tetanus hah i had a lucky scare with a crossflow rolling off a tyre i placed it on [still chained up] and luckily stopping on the base of a engine crane with my ankle between it and the floor. boots for the big jobs now [if it ever happens again at least it wont scratch the shit out of my leg]. ive paid good money for laser surgery and always use glasses and ear plugs are a definite must with power tools if you want to hear in the future. PPE is pretty cheap and very accessable, i always have a stack to hand out to mates aswell, spesh when a few are giving me a hand, that way we all can look stupid together and enjoy a few beers instead of hospital trips hahha

Duckboy you are probably right and that may come at a later date, I'm a very understated sort of person, I don't want to talk myself up until I prove to myself that the work I do works, this arrangement with Wolfy works for me at this point in time because after spending all my money on the tools I'm broke hahahaha, this work I'm doing is a no financial cost to me deal, just my time as Wolfy pays for anything I want to try and he owns the local wreckers and I am able to get parts as I wish, I needed a couple of holleys to cut up and fuck around with so he gave me some, so really my research is costing him money at this point of time but I think it will work out for him in the end. I'm starting small and earning nothing at the moment but hopefully my work will prove itself and I can start earning some cash doing this for others.
Wookie it is my pleasure to share these things with everybody, I am happy to give some tips that people can try at home for minimal outlay that I can prove on the flow bench, I know what it's like to have zero budget LOL Hopefully karma works for me and I get some work out of this.

Cheers for the answer clevo120y, i have been reading your air flow bench thread too, i must say all of your posts are very inspirational.
All i have really done to my crossflow was clean up some of the casting lines in a manifold with my little rotary drill and rough them back up, might have to invest in a bigger set up as reading these makes me want to learn a lot more about the process and its great that youre showing us how you check your work to see that youre on the right track, thank you!
 
yeah safetys a big one, i used to go bare foot around most of my jobs, after months of treading on little wires from teh wire wheels and increasing my pain tolerance and possibly tetanus hah i had a lucky scare with a crossflow rolling off a tyre i placed it on [still chained up] and luckily stopping on the base of a engine crane with my ankle between it and the floor. boots for the big jobs now [if it ever happens again at least it wont scratch the shit out of my leg]. ive paid good money for laser surgery and always use glasses and ear plugs are a definite must with power tools if you want to hear in the future. PPE is pretty cheap and very accessable, i always have a stack to hand out to mates aswell, spesh when a few are giving me a hand, that way we all can look stupid together and enjoy a few beers instead of hospital trips hahha

What kind of tools do you use to do the head and manifiold work? that is if we are privy to these secrets. 
Thank you for sharing all of your processes, i have found them to be extremely interesting

So i finally got the mongrel started, got hold of a XE dizzy without a vacuum, so uncle showed me how to put one on after he pulled out a box of dizzys, bit of messing around trying to stop these old boys from trailing off and getting distracted. then he gave me a MEC coil to go with it. got the wiring sorted and everything. extractors finish under the seat, with a 2.5" pipe at the end of the merge. lol its loud, too loud hey, ive got to drive it back to my new place before i fly home monday, might take the coast road since its limit is 80kms and the freeway/carpark is up to 100. pisses about a bit when you back off but theres no smoke and i think the timings great, bout 8, thats if i have the dizzy on the right tooth.
 
so after all this my uncle turns around and shows me a rebuilt 351 thats got 4v valves, roller rockers, 4mab crank, balanced that they built for a guy who never took it, 4k and its mine. lol funny how things work out hey. so im just getting  the car home only to take the engine out again and put all the v8 conversion gear in hahhaha i keep saying to my mate once this is done im not touching it anymore but we both know im a filthy liar.