Thread: Spitfire / Hemi build

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The heads aren’t back yet but I got the front cover and pan on this week and I got the balancer taken care of.

There are a few options for bolt-on balancers available for the early HEMI. The “stock replacement” balancer that Hot Heads sells is not currently available. These were off the shelf 318/340 balancers for the internally balanced small blocks. They had a new keyway cut for the larger key the HEMI crankshaft uses and are indexed so the timing marks lined up with the timing pointer on the Hot Heads timing cover. Even if they had been available it was still cheaper to have the machine shop cut the new keyway in the balancer I bought.

MB by M Patterson, on Flickr


I decided to build my own accessory brackets for this engine. Nothing against the aluminum brackets that Hot Heads sells but they are a little gaudy for how I want this engine to look. Saving a few bucks is always a plus too so this is pretty much a win win.


For the Power Steering Pump I just duplicated the brackets I had previously made for the 57 Plymouth. It’s basically a slightly modified SB Chevy Saginaw bracket and a couple of braces to hold the pump solid.


HP1 by M Patterson, on Flickr



HP3 by M Patterson, on Flickr


PSI by M Patterson, on Flickr



The alternator bracket is pretty easy to do. On my pervious 2 HEMIs I modified a 69-82 SB Chevy Truck/Corvette bracket.


SBPS by M Patterson, on Flickr


I actually have a spare bracket I’d previously modified laying around. I’d also picked up a different bracket for a 69-71 Chevy truck with AC a while back and decided to modified that one too (which entailed nothing more than elongating the mounting holes and grinding a small clearance notch). I’m not sure which one I’ll be using yet, the 69-71 bracket moves the alternator out and up a bit which may be helpful with the 6 pack air cleaner.


AB by M Patterson, on Flickr



I got some of the pieces for the AC compressor bracket rough cut but can’t really do much with that until I get the heads and water crossover on the engine.

So back to staring at the short block and waiting on parts. LOL



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