You all bring back lots of fond memories. never had a big block Chrysler in a motor home though. That center crossover or chevy curse in the Chryslers were the deveil with heat production.Those that could blocked the heat crossover. Some even used a cement. I don't remember the details now. When after market heads came along without the crossover power levels went way up. It was no trouble to get one started and warmed up in cold weather with a correctly caliberated Holly or Carter. The Carters were harder to tune, for me but you didn't have to rebuild every other weekend. I would love to have one of the after market blocks stoked and bored to 600 cubic inches or in the Merlin block, yes Merlin, or newer out beyond 700 inches.
There is nothing like the hammer, of a big Hemi running 12 or even 14 to one on racing gas. The fumes themselves are heaven to gear heads.
440s too. Had one, highly tuned, that would turn 8,000 at 150 mph somewhere, I forget. The dadgumed heads seeped oil after every one of these escapades though and gaskets needed to be replaced. The Torqueflite held gear until the next gear engaged and popped the tires loose every time. An evening cruise would leave everyone with a sore neck.
Anyone running over 600 inches in their motorhome?
A 413 is scare as hens teeth and in much demand. Never drove one but they sounded neat like a 383 with more stroke.
The Thermoquad was nice if you kept heat away from it. Some tried to improve a good thing by modifying the stop on the rear barrels, figuring they would make it flow 1000 cfm. Didn't work. Hurt power big time. The rear blades at the angle in the bore from the factory produced the most flow and power.
I had a 71 Duster 340 with a Thermoquad 295 hp factored by NHRA to 350 hp. Actual power with headers and crossover blocked off, and purple camshaft was well over 450 hp. The rattle of the oil pan baffle was cool and brought lots of challenges from SS396s. The Duster just run off from them. With 4.10 gears though the motor leaned out and backfired at 110 mph. Had to go to bigger fuel pump and quad power. Not three twos but a four barrel in center and two twos on the ends. 8,000 was right there with the correct pistons and rods etc. Not a whole lot of Chevy 350s could do that. 7,000 and they were done. Wrong stoke to rod length.
Jarlaxle wrote: Externally...you cant. Need to check block casting or serial #, or the VIN. I recall some 413's had "Chrysler Industrial" on the valve covers.
if you know what your looking at you can tell from the water pump
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wallynm wrote: We always carried a couple of spares for a quick change out.
Mike wrote: By the way now you can throw away that spare ignition resister that most Chrysler's were famous for requiring. AND they must be pretty rare these days as a party down under had to spend a few bucks on shipping to source a power plant.
Which is a 5-minute job, about $15 at any part store. (Then again, the 38-year-old ballast resistor in my friend's Coachmen is working fine.)
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Jarlaxle wrote: Externally...you cant. Need to check block casting or serial #, or the VIN. I recall some 413's had "Chrysler Industrial" on the valve covers.
if you know what your looking at you can tell from the water pump
Yes, you can...but if and only if you are absolutely 100% certain that the engine has not been replaced (a 440 will bolt in place of a 413 with no other changes & vice versa) and the water pump has not been replaced! Considering the NEWEST motorhome with either engine is 35 years old, that is anything but a given.
MrWizard wrote: the 440 water pump does not fit the 413
the 413 has a heavy CAST impeller pump with a different bolt pattern
This is correct as the coolant exits from the head in the 413 amd from the block in the 440. The 413 water pump sits higher.
Currently, a friend of mine is putting 413 heads on his 440 block for the better cooling. Has to change some of the bolt on stuff and that is all. I don't know what it will do to his compression ratio.
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wallynm wrote: We always carried a couple of spares for a quick change out.
Mike wrote: By the way now you can throw away that spare ignition resister that most Chrysler's were famous for requiring. AND they must be pretty rare these days as a party down under had to spend a few bucks on shipping to source a power plant.
A non-issue as my ignition system was upgraded years ago.
440's are rare in Austalia as they were never used down there. What was much more expensive was the importation of the entire coach in the first place! As far as I know, he has the only one in Austalia so all of his parts will have to come from stateside. Because of that he just wants to have a spare engine sitting in his garage.
He also had to convert the 120 system to 240. He and others have imported various older motor homes from the USA. They are an attention getter and if older than a certain year, do not have to be converted to right hand drive. He draws a crowd whenever he stops for gas or camping.
* This post was
edited 04/30/12 08:31pm by BigRabbitMan *
You are taking all the fun out of owning a 413. But then at my age I too have moved on.
BigRabbitMan wrote:
wallynm wrote: We always carried a couple of spares for a quick change out.
Mike wrote: By the way now you can throw away that spare ignition resister that most Chrysler's were famous for requiring. AND they must be pretty rare these days as a party down under had to spend a few bucks on shipping to source a power plant.
A non-issue as my ignition system was upgraded years ago.
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Guys I'll start buy saying I personally never had a 440 or 413 RV however I have torn down and rebuilt about 30 big block Mopars for performance cars and truck so I'll let you guys in on a few things. The 440 AND 413 blocks are the same other than the bore. What makes the water pump mount differant is the heads. You see Mopar used industrial heads AND regular truck heads in the Motorhomes you had to pop the engine cover to tell what you had, if it had the extra high water pump then you had the industrial (great for cooling, junk for flow), if not they were (most of the time) standard truck heads. The reason why I know this is because I used to search the want adds looking for RV's with 440's in them to use for muscle car's of mud truck. We used them because most of the time they had low miles, good cranks and good rods. The first few years I used to pass on the tall water pump engines because I thought the same as all of you, (the blocks were differant) then an old boy told me the blocks were the same and the heads were differant. I pulled one down and sure enough when you get down to the block you can bolt any B or RB head on it and use a stock water pump. The last production 440 was built in 1978 but a few were still used in RV's until 1981 (maybe longer but no production 440 were assembled after 78). Some of the later (76 and after) 440's and 413's even had 6 pack rods in them. I have seen these myself but the only way to know is to pull the pan. The 440's and 413 will have a flat boss on the top of the block just in front of the valley pan (beside the dizzy) and it will have the last two numbers of the engine size in it al least like 40 for 440 or 13 for a 413. Many will have the complete number like 440-3.
Now I said I never had a 440 RV but my grandfather is a lifetime RVer he has been to all 50 states, many of them with a 440 powered winny. It was an early 70's winny. Before he bought the MH he used to pull a Holiday Rambler trailer with his 413 and 440 powered Imperials (yes he had more than 1). After the first trip with the RV thru the rockies he said in his own words "it couldn't get out of it's own way". He thought it ran to hot also. So pulled the engine and sent it out to a local builder. They replaced the low compression pistons (stock were like 7.5:1) with 10.5:1 (stock for 1969 HP cars)did a performance valve job, added a HP camshaft, replaced the log manifolds with cast iron long ram exhaust manifolds. They also dropped in a HP torque converter. After installing the new engine he had a radiator shop build him a custom radiator because he didn't want to have to worry about overheating on his trip to Mexico. After all the updates he said he could drive the winny anyplace. I drove it only once and if you floored it from a dead stop it would smoke the duals on the passenger side, and chirp the tires shifting into second.
He sold it in the early 80's and bought a Ford diesel truck and went back to pulling a Holiday Rambler trailer, he said he liked having the truck to drive after getting to camp. Oh the Ford truck ended up getting a twin turbo designed by a pro tractor pulling team in Charlotte Mi. I think the tractor was called Mean Old Allis.
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