Poor Man's Turkey Pan

[Lynn Miner]

Here is a "How To" for a poor man's turkey pan. I call it a poor man's version because it was cheap, easy and can be done in a couple hours. I ran into problems this last summer with the two rear Weber 48 IDA's percolating fuel after hard driving on a hot day. I researched the idea of a turkey pan on this website and found some good advice. However, I was concerned that it would require time and effort that I was not willing to give during the short driving season in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest. I began to think of a way that might deflect the heat yet be simple to implement. The following photos show how I did it. Keep in mind the dimensions shown are for a 302 SBF engine using the Gurney Weslake valve covers from Chris Melia. Different engines with different covers, carbs, plumbing, linkage, etc will require different cutouts.

In photo number 7 below there is a spacer that I made on the lathe. This was required to make up for the offset in the AFR heads.

After installation of this setup, my perc problem went away and I've never had another problem even on days where the ambient temp was much hotter and the engine temps much higher than those when carb heat became an issue. It worked so well in fact that I elected to NOT do a real "full up" turkey pan over the winter. If it ain't broke don't fix it!