[tubman]

A Rochester small-base 2G from a 283 or similar Chevrolet is almost a natural for your car. If you mount it on your intake backwards, everything falls into place. If you get a carburetor with a choke type that matches your intake (divorced vs. integral), all it takes is a slight bend of the actuating rod (divorced choke) or a shortening of the heat tube (conventional) to make it work. The 2G has throttle bores of 1 7/16", which is larger than the Mercury manifold, so the manifold should be bored out for maximum performance and efficiency.

I have this setup on the '51 Merc in in '51 Ford coupe, and it performs flawlessly. These carburetor flow in the neighborhood of 275-285 CFM, so they are equivalent of two 94's or 97's. They are easier to set up, they keep their tune, and it's a lot cheaper because you don't need a new manifold. The only way they fall down is in the "looks" department. For an air cleaner, I use a conventional unit from Speedway Motors. One change I did make was to make a longer mounting stud so I can stack two elements for adequate airflow. The only drawback is that there are cast-in voids on the underside of the carburetor base that can cause vacuum leaks on some manifolds. I had a bunch of base plates made up from 1/4" akuminum to solve this problem.