Just curious to know

[Lowhound]

I know Mopar engines came in different colors from the factory. Were there any determining factors as to why some came orange,some blue,& turquoise? Ive always wondered about this.

 

[motorparts92]

All big blocks until around 67 (guestimate) were turquoise, except for the max wedges and hemis. Then only stock non high performance, and industrial big block motors (c bodies, station wagons, etc) were turquoise until around 70 (very few in the later years), and the rest of the HP big blocks in this time frame were orange. all of the small blocks from 67 -68 were red, then from 69-80 all blue except a select few of 340 engines. I dont beleive any 360 was ever factory orange, but im sure someone can prove me wrong. and 72-79 big blocks were all blue except a select few HP engines.

So basically to answer your question, when mopar started becoming flashy with pretty cars such as e bodies, super bees, etc.. they painted the engines hemi orange to make the potential buyer understand that this is not just a plain and simple 383.. Almost every engine i have rebuilt, i have painted blue. everyone likes to paint their 1977 400 2bbl engines hemi orange, which would have never come that way in a million years. sorry for the lengthy response, but this is one of those mopar subjects that i like to talk about amongst other fellow enthusiasts.

 

[bigredbird]

This guy seems to have put a lot of work into researching block colors:
http://www.turbinecar.com/misc/enginecolor.htm

I must've had one of those "oddball" 360s he mentions, because it was definitely orange. :eusa_think:

 

[red 69 runner]

383 engines were blue in the 68 road runners,my car is an early 69 and my engine is blue.engine cast date is august 1968.

 

[67 coronet]

i had a 68 charger rt with 440 magnum and it was turquoise so the color coding is not perfect,kind of a guesstimate.