Thanks everybody. I've been playing with it a little more.


I always liked the way a Tri Power looked with 3 individual air cleaners. When I started messing with Tri-Powers 35 years ago I quickly found out that the little 4” air cleaners were way too restrictive for anything more than a relatively stock engine of around 325 CI or less. There was a reason that the factory Tri Power units mostly used a single large air cleaner rather than individual air cleaners. The exception being Pontiac and Oldsmobile which used at least a 5” air cleaner with low restriction filters.


I also figured out that when you hit the 350CI mark that most engines respond a lot better to a large base center carb rather than the small base carb most intakes are set up for. That being the case most of the Tri-Powers I’ve built over the years have been set up for a large base center Carb with its corresponding larger inlet throat.



The “go to” filter on my Tri Powers has generally been the oval 60s era Ford style. They are still reasonably priced, new filter are readily available, plus it’s easy to build a custom base for. They are also about the lowest profile filter you can fit under the hood (and this Tri-Power is TALL).


T3 by M Patterson, on Flickr


I came across some “dune buggy” air cleaners many years ago with offset inlets. By offsetting the 2 outboard air cleaners and centering the middle air cleaner I can get the three 5 1/2” air cleaners on the tri power. Of course the inlets were only 2” instead of the 2 5/8” and 3” inlets I needed for the Tri Power but modifying is the fun part.


AC 1 by M Patterson, on Flickr


If I actually end up running these air cleaners instead of the big oval one I’ll replace the filters with either paper ones or K&N filters.