The Veg wrote:I meant to ask a while back, is it common for these to be removed, and what are the pros and cons of doing so?
Yes, it was common practice to remove the cross-over tubes, blank off the two ports on the top of the secondary throttle housing and remove the secondary throttles from that housing. Nothing is really lost by this. However a much better solution is to find a set of inlet manifolds used on engines with Stromberg carburetors in markets outside of the US. These manifolds have a balance tube connecting the siamesed inlets to cylinders 1/2 and 3/4. The balance tube promotes more uniform cylinder filling. Without the balance tube cylinders 2 and 3 fill slightly less than 1 and 4 due to the phasing of the inlet strokes. These versions of the inlet bodies with balance tube are clearly illustrated in the Service Parts List. I am not sure where you might find a set of these now. You might try Spyder in the UK, they tend to keep items removed when doing their Zetec engine conversions.