In 1956, Sid Street's Z-Z-ZIP, an F-class inboard racing hydroplane using a sleeved 276 cubic inch deSoto hemi (265 cu. in.), was modified to run on methanol with a Hilborn "crossram" mechanical fuel injection and a dry sump oiling system, set the world record for the flying-mile; he reset the mark in 1958. In 1969, new owner Gordie Reed, using the same engine, reset the record at 148.638 mph-a speed which has never been exceeded in the class.

Do not recall where this info was found, but an electrical engineer dove into the electronic control box finding capacitors as the weak spot that failed so so early. By replacing the capacitors on an original equipment control unit, he was able to achieve a working electronic fuel injection system on his car. Great video, thank you.

Wonderful video! Fascinating history. I wish that engineering continued.

This series is AMAZING!

I love watching this history lesson...keep um coming!!!

The overhead valve hemispherical combustion chamber engine has a long and interesting history. It was invented by American engineer, Augustus M. Herring in 1897, while he was working at solving the problem of powered, manned, heavier-than-air flight.

My uncle has a 69 Roadrunner with a '68 426 Hemi. His car isn't numbers matching but it's super nice. The current motor makes at least 500+ hp at the wheels. It's a basic stock bottom end other than .030 forged pistons, the stock heads had alot of hours put in them (milled, gasket matched/bowl work, new ss valves etc)...it also has a custom ground Isky cam flat tappet cam/lifters . Just a basic Holley 850 xp on a stock ported intake...727 trans with a stall converter, stock Chrysler 8.75 with 3.55s with "Suregrip". It's a handful on the street for what it is. It makes great power and will destroy a set of M.T ET Street 275s with ease. I'm a Chevy guy but those old Hemis are awesome.

Great video as always, but I do have to add a little to this. GM is the one of the big three that was diverse in design (Pontiac, Buick, Oldsmobile, & Cadillac) all the divisions under GM had totally different teams of engineers building completely different and competing designs (Billy Durant the founder of GM set GM up this way in the beginning to avoid the Monopoly Laws & offer multi-tier marketing). But you are spot on in Walter Chrysler being involved in that, because he was actually the person in GM that was pushing that aspect of it after Durrant was fired from his own company and Charles Nash took over. Walter was working for GM at the time as their Chief of engineering and production. When he left GM to start Chrysler motors (around the time that Durrant bought his way back into GM with his Chevrolet sales money), he took all that to a new level. As for the HEMI being the all-out power monster of its time....... that was more of a "happy accident". It wasn't meant to light the world on fire, it was designed to be the most efficient on VERY poor & non-standardized octane fuel quality that we had back then. These things would run on any octane, at any gas station in the country and still deliver consistent power and economy without constantly playing with the timing and tuning like the others out there. The other companies relied on compression - Chrysler relied on flow. Totally dig what you are doing Myvnitageiron, and so glad to see you back in the swing of things.

Love this series you have been doing on the different engines. Keep it up

Excellent upload!

Excellent series. Cheers😊

thanks for posting

Great job thank you for sharing

Great stuff on one of the GOAT engines... and that does not mean Pontiac! 40 years ago I had a 1957 Imperial... a nice clean 50K mile survivor car with the 392 Hemi. Amaziing engine ran great. Published specs at the time were a 9.25:1 CR, with 325 HP SAE gross, and it ran fine on regular gas. (For 1958, CR was 10.0:1 and HP 345.) Although the Gen I Hemi looked huge and was heavy, the size of the heads were the major reason. With a bore spacing of 4.5625 inches the Chrysler engines were mid-pack, not big blocks like the later B/RB, BB Chev, BB Buicks, 2nd Gen Cad, or Ford 385. The Dodge and DeSoto Hemis had their own smaller blocks, an expensive decision Chrysler did not repeat! An interesting bit of trivia: Chrysler's first gen 1951 Hemi and Cadillac 1949 V8 had not only the same displacement, but EXACTLY the same bore spacing, bore size, and stroke dimensions. I have to wonder how many engineers Chrysler hired out of Cadillac in the late 1940s! Chrysler may not have publicized its torque output a lot, they DID publish a detailed and beautifully illustrated color brochure for the Firepower V8. Check it out: www.oldcarbrochures.com/static/NA/Chrysler_and_Imperial/1951_Chrysler/1951_FirePower_Engine_Folder/dirindex.html

Great job /information

excellent history and engineering lessons,gr from the netherlands

Thanks for doing this video.😊

Thanks for posting.

Just a great show.

Lots of good info in your video. Long time Mopar fan here. Minor nit pick - GM small and big block V8s were also design by difference groups - Chev, Pont, Olds, Buick, Cad.- none were interchangeable either. GM never went hemi….they were always wedge at best. Ford did their best to copy the Hemi with their SOHC 427. Never really offered it as a street engine…later they tried the Boss 429…again not a mainstream except for the minimum needed to get NASCAR approval. Neither succeed at unseating the Chrysler 426. Thanks for all the work on this video.

I bet Steve Dulcich's tail is wagging when he watches this. And thanks again these are great.

I have always been fascinated by the 50s engines, the 331, 354, 392 HEMI. The 60s Hemi had problems with the plug being so far away from the piston. The Boss 351C was a good design.

That is a lot of hemi and obviously I am here to learn from you but man I didn't expect that many hemi being made I knew about a hemi right before the 426 hemi but I didn't think there were that many so thank you for sharing and teaching everyone about this. And this is very cool

Ripper mate plenty of these in Australia we loved them too

They coin the fraz hemi an it was originally a big airplane engine that the hemispherical combustion chamber on but thy never got to fly ..an the design carried over to the v8 side after the war ..... great video 👍👍👍👍

Great video , thanks for putting this together. The 1950's FirePower is my favorite engine series. It is accepted that the early design borrowed heavily from the Ardun ( he is quoted as saying that he was glad to be a part of it or something similar ) . The engineers back then ( 40's , 50's ) shared information regardless of who employed them . In 1953 Chrysler took a 331 up to 450 hp on a project called A311 ( specifics and papers are available on alpar ). The 331 would undergo alot of changes because of the A311 program. The 1954 and1955 heads flow the highest numbers of the entire engine series. It is important to remember that the fuel available to the consumer was about 60 octane when these engines were developed. As better fuel hit the market the benefits of the hemi became less . Or until you add a compressor and nitro methane the hemi comes back around , lol.

Chrysler built piston aircraft engines with Hemi heads for world war 2. Also built turbine engines for tanks and built tanks. Chysler also owned new process gear which built transfer cases for 4x4 trucks and was at one time the biggest supplier of transfer cases for all american full size trucks including Ford and G.M.

Yeah, I'm still at it. While not mentioned an any of the videos that I have seen so far, it should be noted that compression ratios up to the mid '50's were generally in the seven point something to one range. Then higher octane leaded fuel became widely available across the country. I'm a Dodge Hemi bloke so I noticed that the compression ratio in the 1955 engine was still about 7.5 to 1 while in 1956, just one model year later, the compression jumped to 9.25 to 1, almost two full points in one go. 1955 Dodge 270, .... 183hp. With 4bbl carb, 193hp 1956 Dodge 315, .... 285hp. With Power Pack option, 315hp 45 more cubes but 100 more horses, so the added compression added the power improvement of more that two hp per cubic inch for those extra forty five cubic inches of displacement, all due to compression & premium fuel availability. I'm pretty sure that other manufacturers did the same, it was a no brainer, but worth keeping in mind when comparing factory outputs from year to year & model to model of your favorite engine brand. There was no Poly head version of the 1953/'54 Dodge 241 engine.

With the dome top Pistons, the total surface area available for the flame front to apply force to is increased. This can increase the torque and horse power.

Correction, the poly or single rocker shaft is a poly head. The A block plymouth was just that, the A block, not a poly. Yes, it's the same valve set up but isn't officially labeled a poly.

General Motors had General Motors Institute, starting in 1919. Compared to GMI, the Chrysler Institute was small, and only granted Masters Degrees. Many engineers graduated GMI, then went to Chrysler Institute. Chevy's original big block, the 348/409 W-motor, had a 4.84" bore spacing and started production in 1958. That bore spacing was carried over to the Mark IV big block we all know and love today. The RB Hemi only had a bore spacing of 4.80". Ford's MEL V8 had bore spacing of 4.90", and was used in the 383, 410, 430, 462 Lincolns. It was also introduced in 1958, and strangely enough, had the same angled-deck wedge combustion chamber as Chevy's W-motor. (Industrial espionage must have been a thing in the auto industry of the 1950's.) The bore spacing was carried over to the 429/460 that was introduced in the late 60's.

That EFI was bought by a spunky startup German company called Bosch. It was fixed, and re-released as D-Jetronic on VWs in 1967. Bosch then ruled the world in all forms of fuel injection for decades. Bosch had Motronic out in vehicles when Chrysler itself was still dicking around with electronic feedback Carter BBDs. Can you imagine if Chrysler stuck with it, and got rid of the wax paper circuit boards mounted under hood where heat and moisture caused problems?

Great video and very educational!

Thanks

Very good series, but,,,, who came up with that guitar and "boom,boom" stuff between segments??

Do anything on Clevelands 351

The only hemi 4 valve engine I know of would be the rfvc line Honda had for the xr motorcycles. I think from 83 or 84 on the xr500r and still in production on the xl650. It makes for a complicated valvetrain .

As for the Hemi being called the Elephant motor, it was not the 426 Hemi to be first called that, it was the first Gen hemi engines. The first Gen Hemi became so powerful in topfuel that it would roast the tires all the way down the track while much smaller and much less powerful drag cars with the small block chevy were able to get traction sooner and win, this is where they became known as the mouse motors because the hemi already had that nickname the elephant due to its size. As tire technology improved this short term advantage chevy had was erased.

Enjoyed watching your video, very informative. Disappoited though that you did not mention the Imperial with its hemies. I believe it was last mopar to have the first gen hemi. In '58 all others did not have their hemi, except Imperial.

Not really feeling the cross flow. Taken literally this means mixture flow from intake out the exhaust during overlap, and this is an issue. You will also find the highest flow angle is about 18 degrees as it moves away from the wall but is still tight enough to get some flow back in front of the valve head to recover some pressure for higher flow rate. While the larger angles point at the center the piston at TDC, they don't down the bore, and you'd really like the flow to aim at center at BDC. The greatest benefit comes from blowing down at max volume. Canting a near vertical valve is helpful, leaning in two directions provides both minimal shrouding and good pressure recovery.

I miss my seafoam green 68 340 gts. Nobody could touch me.

somewhere i read the original hemi head vehicle was a 1932 french airplane.....

Imagine if Vittorio Jano trademarked the word hemi when he created his racing engines for Alfa Romeo back in the 1920s.. I say that as a guy who owns a ton of old Chryslers.

Earliest Hemis The hemi design actually came into existence with some of the earliest automotive internal combustion engines. Belgian carmaker Pipe produced a four-cylinder hemi in 1905, and the Fiat 130 HP Grand Prix race car brought it to the track by 1907. Not by Chrysler

The hemispherical combustion chamber has benefits in detonation susceptibility but also has some weakness in the lack of any quench or squish area that helps to homogenize the mixture in the chamber. Personally it seems like the hemi might have it's biggest advantage at full power but give up some efficiency at partial throttle where the lack of combustion chamber turbulence would be a disadvantage. Any thoughts?

not to nit-pick...but wasent the mid 60ies 427 L88 corvette a match 4 the hemi powered cars of the era...?...btw...great videos on "all" the moters historys...thank u...

i have a set of hemi heads for a bbc they came off of a funny car and a lot of them had bbc with hemi heads i use to work for the one of the guys that made hemi heads for bbc old man bell

The L88 has entered...

I heard pontiac did a hemi with help from Chrysler...so that fits

Thank you for this excellent history. To my knowledge, Dodge / Chrysler engines were able to withstand temperature than GM & Ford. Is this true?

I thought it was the other way around. The original hemi was the elephant, and the SBC that came out a few years later was the mouse motor, because while the big hemi made power, the smaller sized SBC could match it, that leads to the the BBC being the rat motor due to its larger size.

No mention of Toyota using the Red Ram design for their first V8, it was not sold here

At your Gen2 Hemi intro - the early Hemi's were not "A Hemi's". The A block is a Plymouth design that used poly heads. The early Hemi's were a breed of their own, and like you said about the 3 other brands - nothing was shared between them. The A block was design by Plymouth because they weren't allowed to have their own Hemi. That A-block Poly evolved into the LA blocks(many things will interchange).

I have heard from different sources that the hemispherical head is better when supercharged and the semi hemispherical head is better naturally aspirated.

The 🐘 was the Hemi engine size. Its called the Rat trap.

The main reason the electronic fuel injection didn't work because the engineers didnt shield the primitive electronic components. In the 50's, cities were awash in emi due to neon lights transformers and the like.

First gen Hemi engines are not big blocks. In fact, later A and LA small block engines are direct descendants of the first generation Hemi engines.

Speaking of competitors against the 426 Hemi, ya forgot to mention the Buick 455 with Stage 1 heads. They could run with and often beat the Hemi. I believe the Stage 1 version was nicknamed "the Hemi Killer".

So I gotta ask. Was the Chevrolet three 50 in.³ engine the same as a Pontiac 350 engine? What was the difference between the Chevrolet 454 cubic catch engine and the Pontiac 455 engine cubic inch engine?

Sorry in advance about being a pedantic pr1ck, but you can call it a weakness. Chrysler Corp was a holding company. Under them was, for our purposes, four 'divisions' that manufactured Chrysler, DeSoto, Dodge & Plymouth cars, each was, essentially, an independent manufacturer. Of course, all the engineers were looking over the shoulders at the drawing boards of all the others, but they were "independent". Hell, they were all drinking buddies. This corporate structure is the same as General Motors & the Ford Motor Company. When it came to the early V8 engines, the Chrysler 'division', of Chrysler Corp, came up with their first OHV V8, in 1951 drawing from experience gained from the aero engine project of 1944/'45. Being their first effort, just like all the others, the 331 Chrysler was flawed but was none the less a very good engine. The 180 HP rating was actually understating the true output. The 1952 DeSoto Hemi engine drew heavily on the Chrysler design, but eliminated that extended bellhousing design, so improvements were made. The 330 DeSoto was mis-described as another 291 in the video. The DeSoto was not only smaller in all its five displacement versions, but was smaller in size overall as well as lighter. It was NEVER made as a Poly engine. The 1957 DeSoto 325 Poly engine was a very thinly disguised Dodge 325 Poly. Hell, the car that used it was even built in one of the Dodge factories. Meanwhile, the Dodge engineers studied both Chrysler & DeSoto designs as well as actual engines, then designed out as many of the design flaws as they could identify. Unlike the others, they stuck with the proven "Floating Power" engine mount system that was an industry leading engineering advancement in 1932, but was obsolescent by 1952. [The side valve sixes still used 'Floating Power' up until the slant six came out.] So the 241 & 270 Dodge did not get side lug engine mounts till 1956. [bummer] & like the DeSoto engine, was smaller overall & lighter yet again. Chrysler engineers subsequently studied the Dodge Hemi engine design &, in essence, scaled it up for their 1956, 354 engine & probably even the 1955 331 as this was the final overarching design upgrade for Chrysler. All in all, there were twelve early Hemi passenger car engines in three 'brands' & two deck heights [each] Chrysler had three, [331, 354 & 392] [Imperials used Chrysler engines] Desoto had five [276, 291, 330 341 & 345] Dodge had four, [241, 270, 315 & 325] so plenty to choose from. The Industrial, Truck & Marine engines were a whole 'nother thing but can still be built as great Hot Rod engines. The Red Ram name was always used for the base Dodge V8 engine in the 1952 till 1957 time frame. So for 1952/'53 the only Dodge V8, the 241 engine, was the known as the Red Ram. [Hemi] In 1955, the 270 Hemi became the 'Super Red Ram' while the newly introduced Poly head version carried the Red Ram name. The raised deck 1956 & '57 Dodge Hemi engines [the 315 & 325] are correctly known as the D500 while the standard Poly head version retained the Red Ram name. So by "standing on the shoulders of those that went before" the Dodge engineers came up with the best core design of the early Hemi, & Chrysler engineers then made it bigger [& better?] Even the Dodge & Chrysler timing covers interchange from the newer Chrysler design. It's my understanding that the 1955/ '56 Plymouth 259 V8 was in essence a bored out 241 Dodge [or under bored 270] with Poly heads & a Plymouth badge. The 'A' engine came later. While it was not actually expressed as such in the video, the 426 Hemi was "derived" from the RB cylinder block.

Did not the 351C do 500 at 7000?

Confusion between small Dodge hemi block "polys" and A block "polys" ? 1955 and 1956 Plymouth? Not the same bottom end but some with nearly the same displacement? The 4 barrel carburetor version of the 1954 Dodge "Red Ram" that was slower off the line than a 1950 Pontiac Eight (low tech flathead straight eight) but quicker after 40 or so mph came up and much faster top speed? Did Dodge 241 hemi have the lowest fuel burn per horsepower produced of any American car engine produced in 1954 ?

It would have never been able to touch the Ford camer the track.

Hopefully you'll show some love for the Kettering engines. The Kettering (Olds/Caddy) started all of the OHV V-8 horsepower cold war shenanigans, and carried it through the '50's. It's design was heavily copied by Studebaker/Packard, Pontiac, Mopar (B/RB), Ford Y block, with others to a lesser degree. It's a shame how BOP history (especially Olds) is lost in the shadow of Chevy.

De Soto was a premium line just above Dodge and just below Chrysler.

There is one engine that could match with the 2nd Gen 426 hemi, you pointed out the Ls6 454, I'd put the L88-427 chevy right beside the hemi without a shadow of doubt. In any case congrats.

Was area code

The only Hemi V8 is from Chrylser, Dodge, Plymouth, Desoto. Ford had one in the sixties for nascar. G.M. had one in the north star engine. Pentroof is not a hemi. Every top fuel engine is based on Chryslers 426 design that dominated all others in stock form on nitro.

The intro noise is annoying... Other than that, decent job.

Best engine ever made was the 426 Hemi.

Chrysler was the only automotive company never to sale there military vehicles to the German.

Yeah just 354

Plumus never had hemmy's prior to nineteen sixty four that's all

Corvette was the first engine to make one horse power per cubic inch fuel injected 283

sorry the 1st year is wrong! it was 1st developed durring WW2 for use in airplanes.

This guys repeats everything 2-3 times and it make for a duel and boring video.