Hemi

[pavulon]

Whoever thought ^that ^ was a good idea for a street-driven car needs to seen by a psychiatrist.

[johnco]

a friend of mine had 3 hemi engines stored in an old shed behind his mother's house. after he died, his mother paid someone to tear down the shed and the engines were sold for scrap before we could rescue them

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by johnco

a friend of mine had 3 hemi engines stored in an old shed behind his mother's house. after he died, his mother paid someone to tear down the shed and the engines were sold for scrap before we could rescue them

That is a story you should take to the grave and never tell again, all it does is hurt people deep down


Around 1983 a friend of a friend had a cheeze-grater 4 spd. hemi cuda that was a low-mile cream puff, I doubt he ever did a burn-out in it. Maybe 35k miles on it? Golden brown metallic with a black vinyl roof.

He'd take it out of the garage and make a 5 miles lap on weekends when the weather was nice and then put it away.
He wanted to sell it because it was too darned expensive with insurance and gas etc. but at that time they were looked at kinda like humvee's are now. I probably could have bought that car for $2 grand.

[yellowperil]

It's said to be a 331, boat motor as you can tell by the wet exhaust and velvet drive trans. It rolls over easily and fires. We intend to run it a bit before we tear it down.

Came with the two/fours manifold. We'll keep in touch as we go along. Nothing like what's been shown on this thread, but it will keep us entertained I'm sure.

Once it's been "de-boated" we'll know better. I think it's going in a 30 chev 3 window coupe. Show more later, thanks for your interest.

[Rednine11]

These folks can provide you with about anything you need for the early Hemi

Hot Heads Research & Racing Early Chrysler Hemi Home

[sammyg2]

LOL, like a hernia belt the first time you try to hoist one of those heads.

[Tobra]

My office manager's grandfather was an old time bay area hotrodder. He was the motor guy for Al Senior when he won Indy in 1970.

He built a '46 Ford on a shortened Merc chassis with an early hemi, 354 I think. 8 one barrel carbs on a hand cast aluminum intake, braised spoons onto the valve covers so the rocker arms would not hit, plenty of cam. He won best coupe at the Oakland Show in '56 with that car. Apparently that thing was fairly terrifying to drive.

I always liked the elephant motors.

[Rednine11]

8 one barrel carbs would be a PITA to work with

Yellow,
If you fire that thing up at least make an audio clip from behind the headers. I'd like to hear it. Being a marine engine it should have a little more aggressive cam than a street motor. Wish I was there to help you get it running

[Tobra]

Indeed, but it is a show car, best 60 year old paint I ever saw.

[Mo_Gearhead]

The current HOT ROD issue is out with some good stories about the 426 Hemi engine.

50 years ago this month Petty won Daytona with the first 426 in NASCAR. Several stories about the engine's development and designers.

Spoiler: Garlits talks about getting his first one. Didn't like it - wanted to stay with the 392. No one using the (426) can make them run. So he decides to blow his up. Cranks the ignition timing to 40 degrees advance. Car runs best time ever! He cranks another 10 degrees (50 advance). Faster still! - He had stumbled onto "the secret."

Good reading for Hemi fans.

[Rednine11]

I think mine is set at 38 total right now

[yellowperil]

Here's some progress pics of the ugly red marine engine from a few posts ago. Cleaned up pretty nice. Guy has some talent.

The valve pans had Chrysler marine stamped into them, but the guy doing the work pressed and dollied the pans so it now doesn't say marine. Did a good job. Had it running, now gathering some parts for the rebuild.

[Arizona_928]

Hemiactyl?!

[sammyg2]

Loks like a good block, some of the ones I messed with were all eaten away from corrosion around the water jacket ports.

[Rednine11]

Guy did a good job on your valve covers.
Engine looks good.
Hemi's need a fair amount of cam but you have Hyd so the rockers arent adjustable. PAW used to sell early Hemi stuff too.
I bet it sounded good
If you're in the US PM me your postal addy and I'll send u a DVD of my solid roller cam 426 on break in day with open headers. its pretty nasty

[cashflyer]

Originally Posted by javadog

Wasn't from Chrysler... Porsche had used them decades before. The design dates to the turn of the century and lots of people used them.

Decades?
Porsche's first 356 rolled off the line in 1948. Did that little engine have hemispherical heads?

The first hemi from Chrysler, the 331, was available in 1951.

[javadog]

Originally Posted by cashflyer

Decades?
Porsche's first 356 rolled off the line in 1948.

The 356 wasn't the first car designed by Porsche... Think of Ferdinand Sr. who was designing cars around the turn of the century and did some pretty interesting stuff in the 1930's. Some of his designs used hemi heads.

JR

[asphaltgambler]

My knowledge of Hemis: Chrysler had 1 year ('66?) I believe where Joe Public could walk into the local dealer and buy basically a race hemi car but street legal and it was just that - a street legal race car with very high compression, big solid lifter cam, big CFM carbs and lightweight body. Those are very rare and were homologated to be legal NHRA stock class where they dominated stock class drag racing.

The problem, as you can imagine, were ridiculous warranty costs and customer complaints with selling a car like that to the average 'Joe'. That program lasted just 1 year.

The later street Hemi's durability were much improved but as said earlier waaaay detuned for the street specifically; low compression, hyd cam with very low lift (.489") and short duration. Lastly they were much heavier with steel heads by far than GM of Ford big blocks.

The street Hemi's of the later era were mostly show with-out the 'go' you'd expect paying all the extra $$$ and added weight - putting up with constant fouling of the plugs, carb sync / tuning issues and losing street races to the other guys.

Obviously engine had the potential to be great but in real street trim was not competitive unless you pulled the motor and rebuilt to race specs.

If I were looking to build a street Hemi today and were not concerned with originality is replace the stock heads with aluminum. Then put some static compression and hyd roller camshaft in it where the cranking compression is at least 180psi. The strengths of this engine is the ability to make serious power in the upper RPM ranges through port size and cylinder head design.

If you're looking for a mild street engine in a mild state of tune you'll be really disappointed with the lack of torque and performance especially with the smaller displacement early engines.

[yellowperil]

For me this is hot rod eye candy., I'm not planning on being disappointed. It's just a street cruiser, "look good and sound good" is all I need for now.

It was this engine or the 409 I always wanted as a kid, (or a 348).

[Tobra]

Had a buddy with one of those 348s in an Impala. Stupid two piece driveshaft.