“……..Still wish you had done the 3 two's though!.......”


I hear you Mike. After all these years with the other HEMIs this thing just doesn’t look quite right with just one carb, hence the biggest air cleaner I could find to hide that fact.

As far as the 392 the best answer I can give you it “it depends”.

The 392s are about the “Holy Grail” as far as the first Gen HEMIs go, they were only produced in 57 and 58 for passenger cars (and a few for marine applications) but they are out there.

The rust really wouldn’t bother me too much.....you saw what I started with on this engine. It’s probably buildable but it wouldn’t be cheap. 4 bolt main caps are available for about $850 a set, aftermarket rods are available for about $700 a set. Not too bad if you’re planning on building an all out race type motor but it starts to add up if you just want a street cruiser. Then there is all the other things you would need. Flat tappet cams are going for around $500 and look in the $12-1500 range for a roller setup. Gasket sets are about $200, valves are a little over $200 for intakes and exhaust, etc etc. Machine shop work will depend on the shop but will be about the same for similar operations on any other engine. Any neat intake will run in the $500 and way up range. Basically I could see this easily being a build in the $10K range. Not all that bad if you want an all out nostalgia race motor but a bit on the pricy side for just a cruiser.

Another option would be to gather everything up, clean it up as best you can, maybe have the block magnafluxed and throw it on craigslist. From what you describe you probably have $800-1000 worth of parts.

The last thing I can think of is to gather everything up, clean it up and paint it, build a plexiglass box around it and use it as a coffee table. Don’t laugh at one point I was going to do that with a display motor I had……that I eventually traded and the new owner built.

Anyway just my 2 cents.


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