Hemi project, Junk Parts & Leftovers

[Flatdad]

At a swap meet a couple years back, I snagged a '66 Hemi block because it was cheap & cool. Its pretty dog-gone beat up, so I think it would be fun to try & put it together as cheaply as I can with the parts I've got.

In the past, I built an iron Hemi from a bare block up, and I'm currently piecing together an all aluminum Hemi. Between those two engines, I've ended up with quite a collection of duplicate, leftover, and junk parts.

To start with, the block:

Factory '66 iron block, its already .060, & has one sleeve. It doesn't look like it was run very long before a piston let go, because a couple of bores have some nice shrapnel scratches in the otherwise fresh hone. But that's not the worst. At some earlier point in this block's life, a #1 or #2 rod let go, smacking the bottoms of the cylinder bores and took out both skirts, including the oil pickup & and motor mount bosses. An enterprising individual "repaired" these with the finest JB weld & metal chunks, lol.

Its a side project, so updates will be intermittent. Hope you folks enjoy the thread of my Hack-Job Hemi build!

[Flatdad]

The Heads:

At yet another swap meet, I spied a pair of iron street hemi heads on the ground, cheap of course. One looked rough, the other seemed ok. I paid the man and took 'em home. I sent the ok-looking one out to get magged and it came back with a clean bill of health! The bad one had like 6 visible cracks in it. I managed to get $50 from a guy who wanted it for a display piece.

On ebay, I watched for heads for a while until a good candidate popped up at a good price & snagged it. One chamber is welded, but the rest are clean as a pin. It'll do fine for what I need it for, I'm not even going to send it out to get checked.

A couple years ago when I did my iron build I had a leftover set of mismatched, yet new, intake valves. They'll do fine for this engine. I've got a used set of Ferrea exhaust valves in great shape too along with used valve springs, locks, & retainers. I've got various mismatched sets of valve stem seals, but in a pinch 5.2/5.9 magnum seals are cheap & work great. Ask me how I know.

[Flatdad]

Rocker assemblies came from the same swap meet as the heads. I'd planned on using them for the aluminum build, but that's so far down the road that it won't hurt to use 'em for this thing.

Valve covers will be a butchered set of reproduction '66-'69 units. I'm using the oil shields and wire clip brackets to repair a real set of '70-'71 valve covers, so these will work great for my junk engine.

I sniped a full set of factory spark plug wires off ebay, way cheaper than anything available new. If they'll work, I'm happy. In the spare parts pile is a chinese coil, and a '63 413 single point distributor. No reason why they won't work on this engine.

[Flatdad]

A big find this year was the pistons. I held off on getting serious about the build until finding pistons or a useable crank, whichever came first.

At Indy I picked up an unused forged set of Arias .060 pistons for $250 with wrist pins and spiralocks included! Their dimensions dictate that I use standard length rods and 4.15" crank.

A set of street hemi rods were yet-another swap meet find, already equipped with ARP rod bolts for $250. I'll need to have the pin ends re-bushed for 1.094 though.

I don't have a crank.

The likely solution is to pony up for a new chinese one (ugg) but some costs are just unavoidable.

[Cuda Cody]

    

[Flatdad]

Other parts, to get the thread fully up to speed:

Full set of used head bolts, Ebay
Used BHJ damper, Swap Meet
Leftover steel shim headgaskets
LOTS of leftover gaskets
Iron water pump housing off of my old 440
used water pump off a 400
a very nice double roller timing set for a 3 bolt cam, with low miles on it
a full set of oil pan bolts from my awesome brother

What's going to be a real killer is all the nick knack items, like water pump bolts, oil pump bolts, main seal retainer, etc. Plan on me raiding the 'dollar' tables at your local swap meet, lol.

[bcbassfishing]

I love where this build is going...

[ScottSmith_Harms]

I have a spare 4.15 Hemi crank new in the box if interested. Ill give you a good deal if interested.

[Flatdad]

PM sent!

If folks have teardown/take off parts they aren't going to use, I'm all ears, especially fasteners/bolts. Anybody got an old solid flat tappet cam they're using for a door stop? (Able and willing to pay of course.)

[Flatdad]

On the first Hemi build I did, I ran exhaust manifolds for a year before switching to TTI's. My oldest brother worked hard to TIG up a set of 2.5" downpipes that wouldn't hit the column shift linkage. The downpipes neck up into 3". He did a great job on them.

I figure on running these manifolds until its known whether or not the engine is going to run ok. They'll work well for initial break-in too.

[HP_Cuda]

This looks to be a very tough build there. Sounds like you may just sleeve every one eh?

Hats off to ya if you can pull it off! 

[aussiemark]

How about using a forged 440 crank?

[Flatdad]

This looks to be a very tough build there. Sounds like you may just sleeve every one eh?

Hats off to ya if you can pull it off! 

Na, debated this for a long time, but the block isn't worth the sleeves. Just gonna dingle ball hone it, throw in a new set of $30 cast rings, and pretend I didn't see any deep scratches in the cylinders.

How about using a forged 440 crank?

If I could have found a set of used .060 pistons in near-standard compression height, maybe I could've tried it. Not sure the machine shop would have been able to add enough slugs to balance it though.

Got an intake in the mail this weekend, $200 bucks + shipping! 

[cuda hunter]

   I'll hang out and watch!

[Flatdad]

Not much new to report, went to my dad's house to rifle through all my old parts and came up with some odds and ends I was needing.

A rear main seal retainer with bolts, out of a 400

Some standard main bearings, the ones in the block now are decent shape, but only a partial set

Lower alternator bracket I found in my old road runner

Full set of exhaust manifold bolts

After work, I went to the hardware store and bought a 2.5" long bolt and hardened washers to use for my damper. At $9.92 I may have saved a whole dollar over going to the dealership, lol. It should be long enough to cut down to the size needed.

My brother came over later in the evening and we manhandled the block onto the engine stand, & spent about an hour discussing how to fix some of the challenges ahead on this thing. We also spent some time just mocking up parts on the engine because its neat to look at!