Thread: Early HEMI

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As the Brits would say, GOOD SHOW !!!

moparmaddnes, if your up for a challenge this should be a good exercise for you. Just remember to take it slow and be precise in your measurements and you'll do great.

I would ask a favor from you, let us know your progress, and I personally would be interested in the amount of shop time you end up investing into the project.

Like I said at the start, this "little" project will be labor intensive (although the actual out of pocket parts expenses should be no more than any automatic to stick conversion). I would like to know how the machine shop labor would compare to buying an adaptor. Thanks.

I appreciate your confidence. I'm always up for a challenge, I can't wait to start on my project. I will keep you posted, the big thing is it is going to take sometime. I am finishing 71' challenger and am finishing my house so my family can move into the country. Bought my wife a horse (shes' always wanted one)to keep her busy while I'm with my cars. My coupe is rough and I need to get a frame. On to the machining I don't have access to auto machine shop, but at a regular machine shop. I plan on doing the work for the trans swap, but having an auto machine shop do the machine work to rebuild the motor. I will try to keep track of the hours for both and keep them seperate. I think this will be very frusterating and fun at the same time for this is what I believe hot rodding is all about. Probably be bugging you every so often with a ton of questions. If you want to contact me personally my email is moparmaddnes@charter.net. I thank you and fully appreciate the help you have given to me and to everyone that has and will chime in with.

Good afternoon Mike,

Are you aware of any source(s) for technical drawings of the early hemi engines, in particular the extended bellhousing 331? What I'm looking for would be from the crank centerpoint to the bellhousing bolt centers, and the rear crank flange to the bellhousing flange. I've picked up a 1953 motor for our 37 Dodge pickup and want to run the A833 we had set aside for the 360 Mopar. Having these dimensions would greatly simplify fabrication of the bellhousing adapter.

Second question concerns the heads. I picked up four heads with the motor, but all are early '333 castings. How large of valves can be installed in these heads? Will the round exhaust ports be a severe restriction on building horsepower, or will a little bit of port work make them usable?

Thanks for an excellent thesis on the early hemi motors.

Regards, Mark

Originally posted by techinspector1
As the Brits would say, GOOD SHOW !!!

All I can add is WOW! That ought to be published.

Great Mark.

I have never come across any tech drawings. I suspect that any that were used by Chrysler for the delvelopement and manufacture of these engines are all long gone.

As far as how far how big you can go on the valve size and porting, again I'm not real sure. Boy ain't I a wealth of information this morning

".......This in and of itself is not a show stopper, a simple head swap can cure this and there are a bunch of latter 331/354 heads out there......"

I should expand this a little bit as it's not quite correct or complete. In 1954 Chrysler increased the valve size on the 331s (the water still exited through the intake). In 55 the cooling system was redesigned and the 55 331 requires a special 1 year only head gasket. The bigger valve 54 heads would be a direct bolt on, but I'm not sure about the latter 55 up heads.

I've been offered a set of 52 heads that have been out in the weather. I really don't have any use for them, but I'm curious enough now to go pick them up and see what the differences are.

Even with the small valves and ports the early (51-53) made respectiable power, but as Chrysler found out "bigger is better".

As your going to be doing one of these engines, I really recommend that you pick up Tex Smiths Chrysler Hemi engine manual and also check with http://www.hothemiheads.com/ they are really great sources of info.

By the way thanks for bringhing up the question on the heads. I'm going to correct what I put in the general Hemi infor thread http://www.clubhotrod.com/forums/sho...threadid=15088 too.

Just got my 331 hemi pulled out of 52' Chry. wagon. Have some questions on trans. adapters? This is an extended block, and I would like to run mopar 4-spd. Any one out there have suggestions or ideas on getting them to mate up?

Since I'm going down the same path (331 ex and an A833) I did a bit of checking and found that Wilcap http://www.wilcap.com makes exactly what we're looking for. Their part number is 331-318MT. You will find mention in their motor/trans conversion matrix, but nowhere else on the web site. A call to Wilcap confirmed it is still made, but they don't waste space on the web site since only 3-4 sets are sold each year. The cost is $340.00 and a 4 week lead time.

Regards, Mark

Great, ley me know how it works out when you get it. Does that include the flywheel and the rest of the neat stuff you need to actually get everything together and working?

The gentleman I talked to at Wilcap recommended the McCloud hydraulic throwout instead of the traditional fork & throwout bearing. I didn't ask the price for this upgrade, but had already planned on using one when I started designing my own adapter.

The crank flange end needs to be bored 15/16" diameter for the standard Mopar pilot bushing, and the transmission input shaft should be shortened by 3/8" to prevent bottoming in the pilot/crank flange. A hacksaw and die-grinder job in the driveway.

I'll be using the pressure plate and drive disc (10.5") that I had already bought for the 360ci motor.

Regards, Mark