Preview of coming non-FE dyno attractions...

[XR7]

I recognize that single carb intake. He did a lot of work on that one with band saw and a "hot glue" gun. I think it started life as a Nascar Chevy SB2 intake, then gut cut into 8 pieces and spacers between runners and all kinds of welding and porting to get it where it is now. Wonder how many hours were into that? Pretty cool.

Sorry about all the trouble with leaks, hopefully you guys will get it sealed up and make some steam (the other kind of steam...HP).

[Nightmist66]

Sounds like it's turning into the Not So Great Hemi Intake Comparo. Good luck getting it sealed and running. The 8v setup should look pretty cool on there.....

[rcodecj]

Normally a stud is used in the (I think) front and rear exhaust bolt holes.
It's been years since I've worked on a mopar.
I think but could be wrong both small blocks and big blocks are that way.

[Royce]

It could be just bad MoJo from a Mopar invading a Ford shrine

[WConley]

Best of luck getting that beast on song.  Yeah I agree that studs would be the way to go for those exhaust mounts.

- Bill

[JERICOGTX]

Heads are going back on. Just waiting for Joel to torque hem down.

[TomP]

Silly General Motors and Mopar both have header bolts going into the water jackets along with head bolts too.

I think if it runs it'll make 699.9 HP and Joel will just call it 700 and be good with it. Jay will get a lot of mileage from denying the 700 for eternity.

[TravisRice]

Very cool read. It will be very neat to see and early style hemi break into the 700hp range. Kudos to all involved.

[machoneman]

I don't remember that OEM iron 354-392 Hemi heads had the exhaust bolts go into the water jacket. I really don't think they did as engines we worked on never had this issue. Keep in mind these are Hot Head's replica aluminum heads, not the OEM heads.

[jayb]

I've been told that all the early Hemis had studs in the exhaust bolt holes, just for this reason.  Manifolds or headers were installed with nuts on the studs.

We finally got the engine up and running last night and made one pull to 6200 RPM.  The engine made 590 ft-lbs and 640 HP, which was disappointing.  We need to do carb tuning and adjust timing, but Joel says that the 2X4 intake that is on the engine now has runners that are smaller in size than the ports, so maybe that is the issue.  We also think that the cam is just too small for an engine this size to make power at 7000 RPM.  We will be running again this afternoon, and I'll see if I can provide an update this evening.

[rcodecj]

I don't have it up any more but my engine analyzer said the engine peaked at 6500 with that cam.

[My427stang]

What are all the specs on that cam?

I know it's already wide at 112 LSA, but in my old days of playing with a couple 426s, they didn't like overlap like a wedge would.

Regardless, I'd zonk the lash down and see if it gets better or worse at some point

[jayb]

More dyno drama today with Joel's 392 Hemi.  Joel got here at about 1:00, did an oil change on the engine, checked it all over, and was ready to go.  We filled the engine with water and it fired right up.  After warming up we ran another pull to 6200, and saw about the same results as before.  Next we tried a pull to 6600, and the engine was missing badly at the top end.  Joel has one of those MSD ready to run distributors on the engine, along with an old time Malloy coil (to complete the vintage look).  The Mallory coil has a ballast resistor that it came with, and Joel had hooked it up according to the instructions, but questioned whether or not it was necessary, despite the instruction's insistence that the ballast resistor absolutely had to be used.  After missing at the higher engine speeds, Joel decided to bypass the ballast resistor.  This made a big improvement; the next pull was much cleaner, with only a couple of minor stumbles.  But since we still had some missing, we decided to put my MSD Digital 6 and HVCII coil on, and just use the MSD distributor to trigger the MSD Digital 6.  This totally cleaned up the pulls, and the engine pulled strong to 7000 RPM with this ignition setup.

We also spent some time experimenting with timing, and found that 30 degrees total is what the engine liked the best.  It was still not making the power we were hoping for, though.  Next we decided to cut the valve lash in half, to .010", but after Joel got done lashing the valves, we tried to turn the engine over and it went 1/4 turn and stopped.  Joel and Jeff investigated this and found that we had water in the #8 cylinder!  The engine was probably hydra-locked at this point.  Joel and Jeff pulled the plugs and spun the engine over to spit out the water, but in the end decided that the heads had to come off again, because the re-seal on the head gaskets that they did on Saturday night was obviously not sufficient.  So, we have not yet had a chance to run the engine with the tightened up valve lash. 

Here's the best pull so far:



Tonight Joel talked to his 392 Hemi expert, and learned that the 2X4 manifold that is currently on the engine is not a particularly good one.  The single 4 intake Joel has was recommended over this.  The plan from this point forward is to replace the head gaskets, making sure that they seal correctly this time, and then test with the single 4 intake to try to make more horsepower.  I will update this thread when we have more dyno data...

[cjshaker]

For it to fill the cylinder that fast, I'd say he was pretty lucky it didn't hydra-lock during a dyno pull. I've seen the aftermath when that happens to an engine at speed and it ain't pretty. Those seem like respectable numbers though considering a cam that's pretty much done by 6500, and being hampered by a less than ideal intake. The other intakes should prove interesting.

[machoneman]

Any hints Jay on what's going on with the water? Are they steel shim or modern MLS gaskets? 392's aren't noted for this issue so I wonder if the aftermarket Hot Heads have the passages lining up correctly. Odd for sure.