Ram Air Cleaner Hitting HEI Dist

I converted the 350 in the 72 GS I just finished restoring over the HEI. I got a drop-in distributor from TA. But the factory ram air cleaner housing is hitting the distributor and not allowed it to sit down onto the original quadrajet carb. I have temporarily removed the bottom half of the driver side snorkel to make it fit.

On my last GS350, which was already converted to HEI, there were no clearance issue. But thinking back to that car, it had a carb spacer to convert from a spreadbore to the Edelbrock that was on the car. I am thinking that spacer, which I recall being ~1/2inch thick, was probably giving just enough clearance for the air cleaner. Both cars had TA stage1 intakes.

Has anyone else experienced this clearance issue? Did you add a carb spacer to solve?

 

Do you have a ‘72 air cleaner? I thought they would clear an HEi?

 

Yep, its a 72 with the smaller driver side snorkel to clear the air pump (although my car doesn't have the air pump). I have a 70 air cleaner with the larger, matched square snorkels. No way that's fitting for sure.

 

You have to remove the cup from the 70 air cleaner,or get a different HEI distributor like an MSD,Mallory type that uses the smaller cap..

 

Sorry, I think I confused the subject. It is a 72 air cleaner that I am trying to get to fit on the 72 with the HEI. I was just commenting that I also have a 70 air cleaner sitting here in the shop for comparison.

 

Sounds like a carb spacer is gonna be needed like before.

 

Either a carb spacer under or an air cleaner spacer on top of the carb

 

I had the same problem with HEI, put the stock points distributor back in and used the points to trigger a MSD box. Clearance solved and runs great!
I moved the HEI over to the wifes '70 Custom...

 

On my old 350 I used an air cleaner spacer and made an extension for the support in the front out of a length of pvc pipe painted black. Then cut down the foam seals.

 

Not HEI but when I installed the TA ready to run dist my GS air cleaner hit even using a B4B intake. I had to fab a 1" spacer to go between the carb and cleaner.

 

Thanks for all the feedback. I am going to take some measurements to see how thick a spacer will be needed to clear.

 

Based on my measurements a 1/2inch carb spacer will give me 1/8inch clearance. Got the spacer on order. Will confirm the outcome once installed.

 

You should be good to go, I had to do the same on my 350 GS when I had the GM HEI.

 

Don't forget to modify the choke or go electric.

 

Arrggg, yes you are correct. I just finished fabricating a new choke rod to connect the TA choke coil to the Quadrajet choke lever. Now I need to start over again.

 

Installed the 1/2inch spacer. Good to go now.