ID these dizzy's please?

[erics]

What do you want to know?

Mark i'd be curious for how many actually got out in the wild, what MAF did alongvthe way, etc...

in my best 60 min voice "...the rest of the story..."

if a vendor put out a defective part today that definitively destroyed vehicles there would be hell to pay...

interesting chapter in cruiser history!

 

[Downey]

Harold and Mary Lou Graves started MAF in the mid 1960's, a couple years before I started Downey Off Road Mfg. in 1970. Harold evidently had some history with Offenhauser (which has a lot of plus, but also they had some very bad intake manifold designs). Harold evidently thought Chevy 6 cylinder stuff worked better on a Landcruiser than stock parts, so he sold a Header, Rochester carb, and Delco dizzy package, which was MAF's claim to fame.
1. Their Header was the old 6 into 1, very easy to improve upon.
2. Their Rochester float bowl was open to the atmosphere, sand dunes just poured in.
3. Their Delco not only had the wrong drive gear on it, but it also would never achieve the 40 degrees advance spark needed during full accelerations.

At some point Kaye (Harold and Mary Lou's daughter) joins the business, and became very Landcruiser savy. Then at another point Marv Specter joined the family business. Kaye & Marv got married, and at some point moved away from the MAF business and went out on their own- - -Specter Off Road was born.

Harold passed many years ago, Marv passed not too long ago, I haven't heard about Mary Lou, and Kaye is still very much in the Landcruiser business, SOR.

 

[erics]

Harold and Mary Lou Graves started MAF in the mid 1960's, a couple years before I started Downey Off Road Mfg. in 1970. Harold evidently had some history with Offenhauser (which has a lot of plus, but also they had some very bad intake manifold designs). Harold evidently thought Chevy 6 cylinder stuff worked better on a Landcruiser than stock parts, so he sold a Header, Rochester carb, and Delco dizzy package, which was MAF's claim to fame.
1. Their Header was the old 6 into 1, very easy to improve upon.
2. Their Rochester float bowl was open to the atmosphere, sand dunes just poured in.
3. Their Delco not only had the wrong drive gear on it, but it also would never achieve the 40 degrees advance spark needed during full accelerations.

At some point Kaye (Harold and Mary Lou's daughter) joins the business, and became very Landcruiser savy. Then at another point Marv Specter joined the family business. Kaye & Marv got married, and at some point moved away from the MAF business and went out on their own- - -Specter Off Road was born.

Harold passed many years ago, Marv passed not too long ago, I haven't heard about Mary Lou, and Kaye is still very much in the Landcruiser business, SOR.

fascinating - had no idea the connection between MAF and SOR... brings interesting aspect to Mark's story above about Marv's advice regarding the "hand grenade"... thanks for sharing!

 

[3_puppies]

@Downey
Jim, I vaguely remember MAF having 2 locations, 1 in CA and the other in Boise ID? going from memory from catalogues I had in the mid 1980's

 

[4Cruisers]

Harold passed many years ago, Marv passed not too long ago, I haven't heard about Mary Lou, and Kaye is still very much in the Landcruiser business, SOR.

I read that Mary Lou passed away in 2011 in California at the age of 84.

 

[Downey]

I heard the Boise store was basically a friend of theirs selling some stuff out of his living room ???

 

[AntFarm]

@Downey thank you for this amazing history. I have some receipts buried from the PO of my 74 from parts purchased in 1975 from the Boise location. And yes, it was the Delco dizzy and the Rochester carb. IIRC, it was called Man-Fre instead of Man-A-Fre. I will try to locate those receipts. They really promoted the GM products and how "superior" they were. I don't fault them for having their heart in the right place, and they were certainly the odd man out in the mid-seventies off road world. But technically they missed the mark. Even the adapter to fit that Rochester to the stock air cleaner was horrible. I'm not sure how my original F engine survived the torment.