Hemi crossrams

[Geri]

in the early 70's a friend had a '64 dodge lightweight SS426 hemi car he bought used. the former owner was never satisfied with the performance and sold the car. my friend ran the car and like the original owner found the performance not what he thought it should be.. he sold the engine to another who put it in a dragster- beings they used fuel injection they shelved the cross ram where it sat till I got it in 1998 to put on my '62 Dart station wagon . it had the original near new Holleys still with the manifold- life is good. I put it on the wagon, and ugh- it was a slug, I started looking everything over and found the secondaries were opening only about 1/3 open, that can't be good -but why? carbs in hand- full opening was good with back barrels opening fully.
a bit puzzled I started looking at the manifold and AHA- found it.there is a machined radius on the manifold /carb spacer that allowed the linkage arm to rotate in that radius cavity. with the carbs in place the machined radius was not deep enough and stopped the carb barrels from opening, about 10 minutes worth of die grind machining in that well and the carbs opened fully for the first time since 1964. a difference of over 1800 hp ,that may be an exaggeration- but for a street car it hauled the mail. it may have been as easy as needing more carb base gaskets to cure.

 

[Geri]

this is the engine in my '62 Dart wagon

 

[65-440]

Cool story !

 

[Cncguy1]

Can't believe you were the first to check it. When I install a carb I always check for full throttle.

 

[Fran Blacker]

in the early 70's a friend had a '64 dodge lightweight SS426 hemi car he bought used. the former owner was never satisfied with the performance and sold the car. my friend ran the car and like the original owner found the performance not what he thought it should be.. he sold the engine to another who put it in a dragster- beings they used fuel injection they shelved the cross ram where it sat till I got it in 1998 to put on my '62 Dart station wagon . it had the original near new Holleys still with the manifold- life is good. I put it on the wagon, and ugh- it was a slug, I started looking everything over and found the secondaries were opening only about 1/3 open, that can't be good -but why? carbs in hand- full opening was good with back barrels opening fully.
a bit puzzled I started looking at the manifold and AHA- found it.there is a machined radius on the manifold /carb spacer that allowed the linkage arm to rotate in that radius cavity. with the carbs in place the machined radius was not deep enough and stopped the carb barrels from opening, about 10 minutes worth of die grind machining in that well and the carbs opened fully for the first time since 1964. a difference of over 1800 hp ,that may be an exaggeration- but for a street car it hauled the mail. it may have been as easy as needing more carb base gaskets to cure.

Were the carb gaskets the thin ones you get in rebuild kits? Throttle blades will hit adapter plates if gaskets are to thin. The correct ones are about 3/32" thick. Fel pro sells a complete manifold set, number escapes me , can find if anyone needs it.

 

[Budnicks]

Hard to believe nobody else looked for that before,
seems to be a given...

good catch
always check the simple stuff 1st, K.I.S.S.
good luck & have fun with
all 8 bbls fully opening now, time to go roast some tires

 

[6PKRTSE]

Were the carb gaskets the thin ones you get in rebuild kits? Throttle blades will hit adapter plates if gaskets are to thin. The correct ones are about 3/32" thick. Fel pro sells a complete manifold set, number escapes me , can find if anyone needs it.

Makes me want to finally use my cross ram on one of my Hemi's. Mine is an old original factory Magnesium intake that has been highly modified inside & out (I know too bad, huh). It has this greenish yellow epoxy throughout the whole inside & the entire top side was machined off by Ray Barton for his top plates.

 

[Fran Blacker]

From NAPA website.

 

[Geri]

Were the carb gaskets the thin ones you get in rebuild kits? Throttle blades will hit adapter plates if gaskets are to thin. The correct ones are about 3/32" thick. Fel pro sells a complete manifold set, number escapes me , can find if anyone needs it.

if I don't have the thicker gaskets I stack thin ones for clearance.

 

[Fran Blacker]

if I don't have the thicker gaskets I stack thin ones for clearance.

Trust me that sucks, I did it. $25 for a set of intake isn't that expensive, see post #8, tough to find on napa website .
I've posted this advice in other threads, re-torque intake bolts 3 or 4 times A day for 2 or 3 days. The gaskets compress and bolt lose there torque. Friend and me put a crossram on his car and torque bolts once. Well he noticed one tail pipe was blowing blue smoke. The next time he started the car a minutes later clank clank. Shut it down. pulled carbs and intake plugs one bolt was gone. Lucky it only dinged tne piston and valve seat.

 

[Fran Blacker]

Pete Haldemen former NHOA published the process in a NHOA newsletter 3 months after my friends problem.

 

[Geri]

when I sold the '62 Dart/hemi wagon in 2004 it wound up in the hands of a guy who decided to go through (rebuild) the engine using his"mechanic".
he asked for advice thankfully and everything is straight forward except the torque of the intake bolts, I stressed several times the importance of proper torque in proper sequence,I sent diagrams and kept telling him to give the specs to his (chevrolet) mechanic, in the end he wrote back telling me his mechanic said the manifold was a piece of s*t as tightening the manifold the bolt either broke or broke the manifold. when done he had ruined the factory crossram that survived from 1964 til 2005. RIP... I think the idiot was trying to torque to foot pounds instead of inch pounds. Seen that stupidity in action when a A&P aircraft mechanic did the same bolting case halves together on a lycoming engine tried to torque the 1/4" crank case bolts to 45 ft lbs. instead of inch lbs.ruined the cases ,oh well.

 

[Fran Blacker]

when I sold the '62 Dart/hemi wagon in 2004 it wound up in the hands of a guy who decided to go through (rebuild) the engine using his"mechanic".
he asked for advice thankfully and everything is straight forward except the torque of the intake bolts, I stressed several times the importance of proper torque in proper sequence,I sent diagrams and kept telling him to give the specs to his (chevrolet) mechanic, in the end he wrote back telling me his mechanic said the manifold was a piece of s*t as tightening the manifold the bolt either broke or broke the manifold. when done he had ruined the factory crossram that survived from 1964 til 2005. RIP... I think the idiot was trying to torque to foot pounds instead of inch pounds. Seen that stupidity in action when a A&P aircraft mechanic did the same bolting case halves together on a lycoming engine tried to torque the 1/4" crank case bolts to 45 ft lbs. instead of inch lbs.ruined the cases ,oh well.

O'man that really sucks. Bet he broke the outside corners, I just snug them up. My manifold had front coil mount cut off when I bought it in 1971. Took it to a welder and had build it with weld. I shaped to what it should look like then kissed with a little sand blast.

 

[Geri]

O'man that really sucks. Bet he broke the outside corners, I just snug them up. My manifold had front coil mount cut off when I bought it in 1971. Took it to a welder and had build it with weld. I shaped to what it should look like then kissed with a little sand blast.

as many times as I stressed the importance of spec and sequence they got it wrong, his "mechanic" saying the bolts won't tighten- they break off. a mopar enthusiast bought him a new mopar cross ram and traded for the original, at least it got saved. really wishing I still had a 426 Hemi, like everything else from that era we thought they'd always be here and would be $500.00 engines. Superstock racer Ron Kassis had a BS/A 70 cuda 426 hemi car, it performed on national standards, he became ill and sold me everything from his garage for $500.00 another truck load of hemi's and parts, I squandered them ,feeling hemi -rich I gave away a lot of parts. what I didn't know at that time he had terminal cancer and died a few months after the deal, nice guy sorry to see him go.

 

[Fran Blacker]

I've bought my big dollar stuff all before 1990. The crossram with 3116 carbs $175. I put a hemi in a 62 Dodge hemi t-flite with a dana 60. Sold it in 74 for $975. Reversed the mistake in 85 and bought the drive line back, wish I got the car too.

 

[Geri]

Were the carb gaskets the thin ones you get in rebuild kits? Throttle blades will hit adapter plates if gaskets are to thin. The correct ones are about 3/32" thick. Fel pro sells a complete manifold set, number escapes me , can find if anyone needs it.

thinking back on this- it had thin gaskets as received ,t some point they were installed and the performance was gone. worked for me though, I got the manifold, linkage and linkage free.

 

[Geri]

Makes me want to finally use my cross ram on one of my Hemi's. Mine is an old original factory Magnesium intake that has been highly modified inside & out (I know too bad, huh). It has this greenish yellow epoxy throughout the whole inside & the entire top side was machined off by Ray Barton for his top plates.
this manifold is probably the top of the performance line, it was discovered early on the bigger the window between the left and right plenum chambers was- the better the car performed. Harry Holton even modified the screw in plugs to have tubes that connected left to right side for more air- looked like a high performance boiler but it worked for him.
View attachment 564225 View attachment 564226

 

[Geri]

I had tried the
Vanke modified stock manifold ,the new mopar sigle 4 bbl and was not happy with the performance till I put the crossram on it, like adding 400 HP to the mix, it would actually fry the tires at 40 MPH by kicking down at full throttle ,the first time I did that it started to accelerate then slowed a bit and I heard a screeching sound.I thought the trans had given up but it was tire smoke.. smoke em if you got em. point being- you'll love it and they are very streetable. I drove mine from Sacramento to Van Nuys for mopar car show spring fling. trip of around 400 miles? took about an hour, I may be lying.

 

[Fran Blacker]

First time I tried the 62 with 5.13's all I saw were the holes in the cardboard headliner.

 

[Geri]

First time I tried the 62 with 5.13's all I saw were the holes in the cardboard headliner.

it can happen