Thread: Early 276 Hemi

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These make pretty good little engines. I installed a 330 Inch Desoto in my 49 F-1 and I really like the motor. Speed equipment is really tuff to find. you mention "higher Compression heads" well there arn't any of those. You are stuck with the stock heads and doing work to them, but that shouldn't be a problem getting some decent compression out of. Pistons will do the compression thing, and Egge as well as Hot Heads is a real help there. The valve train is NON adjustable on all Desoto's, now with that said there is a conversion set-up to convert to adjustable rockers, not cheap but it can be done. Nobody has made a Cam Blank for years for these motors, once again Hot Heads has the answer as they can have your Cam reground anywhere from mild to wild.

The simple things can and are a problem for these Hemi's from Desoto. Stuff like water pumps, oild pumps u know the simple stuff. Is no longer being made and even a rebuilt water pump, finding one is a nightmare. There is however a conversion to run a Small Block Chevy water pump on the Desoto motor's. You will need to replace the timing cover to do this and that means your "Stock" cam will have to be modified to fit under the cover. That also can be done at the same time you have the cam reground. The oil pump issue has also been addressed and there is a pretty simple deal to convert the stock and no longer available oil pump over to a Small Block Mopar oil pump.

It all can be done tranny adapters are out there as well to run just about any modern tranny you would want. It's just expensive to do. Parts are the problem there out there but you are going to pay. It is going to cost somewhere around 4 or maybe 5 times as much to build a early Desoto Hemi as it would to build a nice SBC. Is it worth it? Yea to me it was, nothing like a Hemi!!

RS