I recently purchased a 56 Mercury Montclair with a 312 and carter 4b.



My first question is since the distributer has vacuum advance do I have to switch to a 57 and up to mount an edlebrock carb? I already know ill need and adapter for the manifold.



Also the right side of the car throws a lot of white nasty smoke when it warms up. I was told valve seals are common problems on y blocks. Has anyone had this problem?

Just as a guess, white exhaust sounds like a blown head gasket. Is the car all stock? And is the Carter carb defective? Some really like the Edelbrocks, and that's fine, but to me they look rather out of place on an original car.

Paul

The car is stock. Most of the parts are original. I got it original family owned in south central LA. They claim the merc-o-matic was rebuilt 10 years ago. I haven't gotten up past 15 mph so cant confirm that. On the carb the throttle linkage is messed up I have to close the throttle by hand. It idles the car high when I dont. When I unscrew the adjusters it doesn't effect idle at all. Id like to keep as original as possible. I just wondered if worst case an edlebrock would work with the same distributer.

Do not use the same distributer ( loadamatic )with a late model carb you lose your vacuum under load and can hurt the engine.

-Gary Burnette-