greatscott

what engine is in that one? About 5 years ago one with a 426 hemi dual 4 barrel sold for about 1.2 million at the Auburn indiana Auction, but the prices have dropped and a similar one sold for about 600,000 last year. What's happening in the classic car market is that the Gen X people have no interest in classic cars, so values are going to continue to drop and drop dramatically unless Gen X for some reason gets highly interested in those classic cars which is doubtful, they also have no interest in antiques and those too are falling in price. I aways thought those Daytona's were ugly, the only Charger I ever liked was the 1965-1967, the body style on that was fantastic as was the interior.

indyfabz

IIRC, a 440.

greatscott

While the 426 hemi was the faster engine, the 440 was bulletproof something that the hemi was not; the old Hemi suffered from valvetrain issues, the stock valvetrain just didn't hold up, on the race circuit though they were able to beef up the valvetrain just not for the general public which aftermarket stuff came out later for that purpose, but the bottom end was bullet proof like the 440; there are still a lot of resleeved 426 hemi's on the dragstrip and better high performance stuff is available and still being improved upon to this day. I just went on line to look at the prices and it's amazing how much value they lost in the last 5 to 6 years. What's really crazy is that the newer Hellcats put out almost twice the horsepower of those older 440's and 426's yet those older ones still did 200 mph without being as aerodynamic as newer cars, this sort of proves that the older cars were putting out more horsepower than they published. Of course if you look at the quarter mile statists of each car there is about 2 second difference with the oldest being the slowest so people point to that has proof that the newer cars have more horses, not really because the older cars had 4 speed manuals while the Hellcats have either a 6 speed manual or an 8 speed auto, those extra gears allows the hellcat to stay in the power range better, sort of like cyclists and their cadence with more gears vs less, so it would be interesting to see what the older engines could do with say an 8 speed auto.

Chrysler overall had the best engines throughout the 60's and the early 70's, all their engines were bullet proof and their 727 torqueflite transmission was also bullet proof, it was their body work and interiors that were not as good as Chevy or Ford, with Ford having the best in that department which continues to this day, but now Ford also has the most reliable engines. Not sure how reliable the Hellcats are but I have seen quite a few them burning blue smoke out the tailpipe which is a cause for concern in my opinion. Personally I think the Chrysler Scat Pack is the best buy, it still breaks the 12 second quarter and will do 175 mph, so its really neck to neck in the quarter mile against the Cat while only being 25mph slower but over $30,000 cheaper and gets better MPG's

teejaywhy

"I say, you're built too low son! The high, fast ones go right over your head."

stardognine

stardognine

greatscott

The 440 magnum had a 4 barrel (Carter Thermoquad was the best one) carb instead of a 2 barrel, the Plymouth using the same 440 called their magnum version a Super Commando, same thing just the name was different, the standard 440 was called a 440 regardless if Dodge or Plymouth, Chrysler called their same version of the Magnum TNT.

Now that all the name calling is out of the way I'll just use the Magnum word to mean all the others. The Magnum had higher compression, a bit more cam with more duration and lift, a windage tray to prevent oil starvation in extreme handling events, baffled oil pan to keep the oil from sloshing back and forth, larger carb which I mentioned earlier, free flowing exhaust manifold, a bit more advance put into the ignition curve (which could be altered further by a mechanic if needed), later years came out with larger exhaust valves and an oil pan that held another quart of oil, plus the fuel line went from 1/4th to 3/8ths. There were also some one year only changes that are too numerous to go into, and I maybe forgetting some.

Some magnums had a six pack which meant it had 3 2 barrel carbs, for some reason I was the only person in the town where I lived, who was not a professional mechanic, that knew how to adjust and sync those multi carb systems, so I always had the guys coming over for me to do that before they went out racing or whatever, even when I showed the guys what they needed to buy and showed them how to do it they still had me do it. Also the 6 pack came with dual point distributers instead of single point.

With all those mods for the Mag engine you would thing there were some huge increase in HP, nope, just 25 more horses, and the 6 pack raised it another 15 hp. Don't let those hp figures fool you, those engines put out more than that, probably at least another 50, they published low hp ratings so insurance companies wouldn't have a cow and charge people to much money to insure them and thus sales of those cars would drop, most manufactures did that with high performance engines, they didn't need to do it with standard performance car so those figures were close to correct.

stardognine

thumpism 

Pontiac offered the Tri Power (3 x 2bbl) on some engines and I think the 435 HP L88 Corvette also had 3 deuces.

greatscott

Those tri power etc, did sound cool especially if it was combined with solid lifters. There was also dual 4 barrel set ups too which also sounded cool.

thumpism 

And if you want to go back further, three Strombergs on a flathead V8 (or even a straight six) were a thing.


Back on topic, here's Ford's new Coyote 5.0 performance engine.

stardognine

greatscott

Now look closely at those two engines, I prefer the looks of the flathead, but obviously the performance of the Coyote engine is far superior, but looks wise that flathead looks fantastic. Soundwise they both have their own unique sound that I like, so I like the sound of both equally