426 Hemi - a documetary history and explanation

[SvenTviking]

I read somewhere that with the first 426 Hemi street cars (Galaxy?) Chrysler quoted horsepower figures in their liturature that was 100 hp DOWN on the true figures, so not to scare the politicians!

[DeAdiSSu3]

@SvenTviking Well, I do believe they quoted the correct numbers, but at only around 4,500 rpm (about 425 hp). When spun past 5,500 rpm, it is said that the 426 hemi was putting out around 500 horsepower. :)

[Tbolt1000TForLife]

1 person is a green fag, it's time for him to die!!!

[TheMsautobodyman]

hey mopar bros do you aussies have any thing cool like hotrods there?

[68bobba]

@TheMsautobodyman check out Street Machine magazine Summernats on you tube....you,ll see plenty of Rods Street machines and Muscle cars......especially the burnout comp

[JGMagoo]

Yes, the Chrysler Hemi is a great engien, but it's domination in Top Fuel drag racing is NOT because it's design is superior to all others! In 1996 NHRA made a rule mandating that all Top Fuel cars run a pushrod V-8 with not more than 2-vlaves per cylinder. They also mandated a reduction in the percentage of nitro that could be used, and a 'spec' rear tire all in the intrests of slowing the cars down. The Chrysler Hemi just happened to fit well into this rule.

Google McGee Racing engine

[68bobba]

@JGMagoo The Chrysler Hemi is THE best engine design for developing bulk HP....I don,t think you know what your on about mate...You sound like just another jealous Hemi hater....BTW,I checked out the Mcgee racing engine....that looks a lot like a 4 valve per cylinder Hemi head with a DOHC....If the Hemi design isn,t the best,why has Mcgee copied it?

[wrfoox]

the boss 429 from ford had hemi heads and then to fix the pinging problems they bought out heads with the sides of the chambers filled in so to have quenched area

[7Lscjracer]

Too bad the 426 dohc hemi isn't being repro'd today like the 427 sohc!

[firebat42]

ELEPHANT POWER!

[sdry]

...so they admitted they cant create engine what is powerfull and fuel efficent? How about double over head cams, more valves and so on? Funny how basic design from early 40's stayed as standard in american engines. Still a great engine. Really simple, cheap and quite reliable.

[DONDIVA1969]

2011 Mustang 5.0 engine outs out more power than the Street Hemi

[tommyau2006]

@DONDIVA1969 so?

[summitdrinker]

LOL, I went thru and read all of the comments.

Folks a street hemi had 470 to 500 HP gross

The earlier race hemi's had about 575 HP

This is for stock motors in a good state of tune.

It's not for motors that were gone thru by a pro that balanced and blue printed them, port and polished them etc.

[4thstooge]

Tunerboii2045: The hemi was the most wild engine to ever make it into actual cars that you could buy. The "cammer" was more of an engineering exercise by Ford. The cammer had huge problems with the mile long timing chain & never would have lasted on the street had it actually been offered.

[390merc65]

@4thstooge NOT SO TRUE..I BELIEVE FORD DID OFFER THE 427 SOHC AS AN OPTION FOR 65/66 FORDS...YES FORD DID LOSE TO THE HEMI..AND THATS WHY THE CAMMER WAS DEVELOPED ..IN SPITE OF SOME TROUBLE...IT WAS A GOOD MOTOR,,AND CHRYSLER DID DEVELOP A DOHC MOTOR BECUASE THE FORD CAMMER WAS BEATING HEMI'S SO CHRYSLER HAD TO DO SOMETHING..IT WOULD OF BEEN NICE TO SEE WHAT WOULD HAPPEN BACK THEN IF THINGS WERE DIFFERENT

[4thstooge]

@390merc65 I have never actually seen a "cammer" (i'am not doubting they actually exist) The point was made mute by Nascar, they banned the hemi's shortly after they started dominating the "Cup" series. The hemi's & the "cammer" were legislated out of competition. Chrysler then concentrated on Drag racing after that.

[390merc65]

@4thstooge ..you are correct about that ..and mopar and ford both used the hemi and cammer in drag racing ...the name[cammer motor] is just another name for the ford [s.o.h.c. 427 ]..the cammer most certainly does exist ...i have seen a few in my day and heard them run as well , but never owned one..and probably never will ..i also know ford was playing around with a 483 c.i. F,E,,motor back in the day , but dont know much about it ..youtube ford.[s,o,h,c] and you will see a few

[390merc65]

@4thstooge i cant remember the magazine from the 60's ..it might of been car life that is no longer around, but on the cover of what ever car magazine it was from either 64 or 65..there is a front cover picture of a cammer 427 with bright red glowing headers of a cammer motor running on a stand...i had the magazine years ago , but i cant find it today ...and in that mag is a story on the motor ..cool stuff

[Tunerboii2045]

What about the 427 ford cammer didnt that fuckin own the hemi in what ever year it was even tho it only in production for a lil while

[71GOLDDUST7]

@Tunerboii2045 No!

[hathwit7]

nah man, i thought that too until i did a little more research. the hemi owned it.

[psychotikpaisano]

@Tunerboii2045

a lil while, only a handful were made, but then came the twin cam hemi, which blew the ford ohc away too!

[MrExnihilo]

No. The cammer had serious problems due to its very long timing chain. The 426 DOHC engine was designed for 700 horsepower -that's the street version. The DOHC engine would have smoked Ford's engine.

The cammer was devised because Ford was tired of getting humiliated by the 426 Hemi kicking its ass all over the country.

[Tunerboii2045]

@MrExnihilo ah but then they built a guide into the timing cover to prevent whip it says in a book i have they could stay pegged on flat throttle doing 8500rpm around daytona for 500miles.....so i read lols hemis are great but i consider myself a ford man just imagine if they were stll around the old cammers theyd be well and truly revied now :)

[moparbros]

Damm I wish we had the V8 hemi here in australia, so chrysler australia developed the most powerful strait six , yep the hemi six powered the aussie charger it even pipped the V8 ford GT on the quarter mile . chrylser took the Hemi six to italy at the webber factory and said develop a carby for it so they fitted tripple webbers and man did it fly, out pacing the dino ferrari outside the webber factory in bologna italy. regards from south australia,

[mitchell123]

the car did not have the original 340 and the Hemi 426 is being built its not a crate hemi. But still as an investment should it be worth much more than I would have gotten with the above discription.

[mitchell123]

I have a 340 cuda 1973. If I put in a 426 Hemi, would it increase the value of the car much?

[codycrowston]

it depends on the buyer if its original keep it that way plus a 426's are very expensive youd be better off boreing a smaller one up

[markbotv3]

the hemi would add $10000 to the vallue...so depends on how much you paid for the hemi...a factory 340 cuda in poor but drivable condition is worth about $5000 a fully restored better than new condition one is worth about $60000...half what it would have gone for before the stockmarket crash =(

[bam6474]

The first Hemi engine combustion chamber was designed by the Climax engine company back in 1896 WOW then in 1912 twin city tractor company built a engine with a Hemi cylnder

[biljorj]

The 426 Hemi is a Legend . It re-wrote the record books and the Chrysler Hemi design still rocks the major motorsports world today.

[Eddiemotor]

It's a great engine, but nowadays, it simply wouldn't be able to compete with Hemi-designed heads, cause you can only have two valves per cylinder, it would be to complicated to design more than two valves per cylinder with hemi design and make it work much better, so it can't be much more advanced modified to compete with seriously competition with other engines, but in the 1960s it was a great design that no one actually did better, Ford tried with their Cammer, which was a great engine,

[Eddiemotor]

but not as powerfull compared to the race HEMI, even thought it used single overhead camshafts, and the Hemisphearical design was flatter on the heads on the Cammer than the Hemi, and it also had some problems with the drivetrain, or whatever it was, but overall it was a great engine, but the HEMI prove to be best.

But i can imagine that the HEMI is far ahead in nostalgia dragracing and other similar events, like AA/HA or whatever they call it, compared to other bigblocks from the 60s are.

[mxfreak212]

Actually the Cammer was "rated" at 616 hp at 7000 rpm and 515 lbs/ft of torque at 3800 rpm, the most power any production or race engine had ever made. This 765-pound engine was then put a in a '64 Galaxie NASCAR stocker and ran the fastest laps any stock car had run at Daytona to date. It easily equaled what the vaunted "Hemi" had run.

[mxfreak212]

And this really pissed off, the Highland Park contingent because they couldn't be competitive on the stock car tracks, or drag strips any more. Through temper tantrums and threats of a complete pull out of competition by the Chrysler boys to NASCAR, the 427 Cammer was banned from NASCAR because Chrysler was scared.

[Pikminlover345]

Actually at the same time Ford wanted to run the "Cammer" in NASCAR, Chrysler engineers had developed a 4-valve-per-cylinder "Hemi" for NASCAR (in both dual-overhead-cam and pushrod versions) that would have been a world-beater. It was actually Bill France who stopped this massive escalation because he knew it would get out of control.

[Eddiemotor]

Well, the cammer could certinly compete with the Race Hemi, to bad it was banned as you said, it would have alot of potentional to be modified even more.

I've heard the drivechain(or whatever it's called) was the cammer engines biggest weakness, that it would be instabile at the higher rpms or something like that, and could be cracked.

Again, it's a shame that it was banned.

[sspat1976]

The Super Stock hemi used in A990's and later in the Bo29's were rated at 650hp That is the most. The Sohc 427 was really not that great with such big a drivechain it cause havic with the timing of the motor so they were not consistant. It was a good try on stuff that never been tried but it never possed a threat to the 426. Another thing in super stock the T -bolt was a super stock class C cars. While a990's and Bo29's were class A and B's.

[JarrodES13]

Didn't Chrysler try to develop a DOHC HEMI to compete with the SOHC 427?

[sspat1976]

Chrysler experimented with a DOHC Hemi, in the 50's on an 392 hemi I've seen pics. of it. It wasn't really needed, they had MASSIVE Heads and costly. The SOHC 427 and the 426 Race Hemi came out and competed at the same time in 64' But the SOHC never was a threat to the 426 Hemi in the racing scene be it circle or 1/4 tracks.

[JarrodES13]

Yeah, I know what you mean. The SOHC didn't stand a chance in NASCAR either because it wasn't in any production cars. It was an interesting concept, but for the times it didn't just work out.

[sspat1976]

Nope. when the Hemi and SOHC came out in 64 they were never ment to be street motors, race only but after the hemi destroyed everything in the world of racing. Nascar said this is stock car racing so if you want to run it. The motors have to be available to the public. So in 66 they put out the detuned 426 but ford couldn't do it cuz the motors unreliability and cost. (even tho the hemi was costly Chrysler made no money on the street hemis and made very few, They did it so they could race it)

[MannePalmqvisst]

i will have to correct you here man. The Double Overhead Camshaft Hemi was developed when Ford Thretened the ordinary with their Sohc 427 "The Cammer", rumored to produce over 650 hp. In Fact the Dohc Chrysler hemi produced over 800, but when Nascar ruled against it it wasnt necessery to produce it, and only 2 was made.

do you know that Chysler is credited to saving about 1 000 000 million american lives and shortened World War 2 with about a year?:=)

[sd455pontiac]

JarrodES13, Chysler DID develop and ran this engine. Google: A925 Hemi

[pianobass]

well from what i understand, the HEMI had a racing and street model. the main difference between them were the compression ratios. the racing version put out well over 800 HP. the street version put out 425 HP, with a higher compression ratio for two reasons, 1st reason being because the average person couldnt afford to buy racing fuel daily. 2nd reason being having over 800 HP on the streets is madness xD. the power band hemis naturally produce is similar to that of a turbocharged engine IMO.

[Eddiemotor]

Yeah Street HEMI is said to give at least over 500 HP, and that the Race version gives at least over 800 HP.I've heard that one of the things that makes it give so much power is because of the cam, a sharp cam not recommended for the street, domepistons which should combined with racefuel give enourmus compression And power, and some diffirences with carburator and manifold compared to the Street HEMI,what i've heard.But,as obvious,it also have some disadvatages as every engine has,but good to.

[Eddiemotor]

It is wellknown that the Streetversion of the 426 Hemi was giving aproximietly over 500 horsepower, some even says that the raceversion gives over 800 horsepower, but, ofcourse, wasen't very good to drive with at the streets with that kind of power :)

ALOT of tourque!

The Hemi yes have some advantages, but also some disadvantages such as its heavy weight.

But still it's a great engine, though not without disadvantages as all engines have.

Alu Hemi block, domepistons and a blower.. ;)

[sschevypwrbb]

I'm a new engine builder via a 392/402 BBC. The engine is at least 400hp

BUT

when I seen the "red nose cuda" under "HEMICUDA" get scratch in 3rd gear like a 69 SS does in 2nd gear I knew their was somthing special about a 70 426 HEMI, absolutly so bad ass their will NEVER be another car like it.

I'm making 2x pments on my house, so I can pay it off, sell it and pay 150,K for my first 70 dual 4 brl 426 4-speed with a dayna rear.

AND I'M GANNA DRIVE IT LIKE I STOLE IT...

thanks guys 850hp wow

[mattkempharo]

i deff agree ford did not first make the hemi . the big block series where surly desighned like the hemi head but was not even close looking. wat about keith black . i dont see anything about him !!

[BlahBlahMoose]

Keith Black worked with chrysler to build alloy 426 hemi blocks . He had built early hemis for drag racers previously .

[junkymustangs]

the hemi head design came from old war planes that needed all the air they could get at high altitudes.

[BlahBlahMoose]

Im a huge hemi fanatic and after reading some of the comments just have to say one thing. Who cares who invented it thats not the point , the point is they made it succesfull . Its like in drag racing how don garlits came out with a succesful rear engine dragster , sure people tried it before him but he made it work .

[MarquisRex]

I'm an engine designer, I have done work on modern jaguars, Astons,even Porsches and Hyundais. I own a 528 cu in all alumium 1970 Hemi Challenger but I just wanted to put straight that the Jaguar XK twin cam straight-6 came out in the 40s hemi that cranked out the power when yanks were making flatheads and the alfa Romeo Hemi was also from that era. I adore Moaprs and LIVE in america-love it but I just wanted to remind american car afficionados that there IS a world outside of Detroit

[choptop81]

This has got to be one of the best videos on YouTube. Voted 5!

[dadeereater]

im not trying to start shit between mopar people and stuff im just going to state tht on american muscle car on the speed channel they dyno tested all of the heavy hitting big blocks of the 60's and 70's and the 426 hemi came out on top at 820 hp at the flywheel (all of these engines were bone stock)i was impressed so everybody should just shut their mouth and take it for wat its worth

[peter355camaro]

yeah me too i saw that show on speed channel! but it's impossible that a stock 426 hemi made 820hp! let's say the 426 got 820hp on the fywheel that's about 615 rwhp! (flywheel hp -20%=rwhp) that's a little too much considering that a 1970 hemi cuda could do mid 12 sec 1/4 miles with slicks and 4.10 gears! if it really had 615rwhp the hemi powered muscle cars should do 10 sec 1/4 miles wit ha pair of slicks! BONE STOCK!

[dadeereater]

they tested the race hemi is y the street hemi was choked out to try to avoid retards with money killing themselves is y it only had 425 horse

[peter355camaro]

or maybe they tested a troker race hemi...

[mopar43v3r]

well the s/s barracudas and darts did 10s...

[peter355camaro]

the 426 street hemi had really around 425 hp(maybe a little more(1966-1971)) but not 820 hp that's for sure! but dont get me wrong i LOVE hemi's, they got they own sound that no one engine can produce. and that video is really one of the best videos on youtube. in 1963 chrysler made one of the best performance engines in the world: THE 426 HEMI! the godfather of topfuels...

[BandCShow11dy6]

yes thats true

[BandCShow11dy6]

ford did not come out with the hemi you dumb ass

[nickers808]

The first Hemi was developed by Peugeot in the 1920s and 1930s! Low comp technology meant it didnt perform too well! Chrysler made it an amazing piece of engineering work in the 1950s and 1960s! Nothing like a MOPAR!!!

[choptop81]

LMAO. And even if they did, who holds the patent? That's right... Chrysler. Can't wait to put the 426 stroker in my SRT.

[fridogg]

ford came out with the first hemi engine

[hemicuda572]

I have had breakfast with Tom Hoover for 4 days at least during the Mopars at the Strip show in Vegas and talked about all of the hemi engine development program and the Ramchargers. It was awesome. Tom is really a freindly and down to earth person. Being a big time HEMI fan this was just awesome!!! Thanks Tom!

[bigdon2241]

yeah super engine on the race track but on the street the buick stage 1 whit nothing special but whit torque is faster than any steet hemi

[BandCShow11dy6]

im sure chry had the pantent for it when they made the design for the v16

[cmf1965]

I'm no more a Chevy Guy than you. GM was considering the design for a production car engine. Chry. decided to use it when GM "X-ed" it from their plans. Chevrolet DID have alot to do with the design. I DID NOT say they invented it!!! Duntov's design worked & Chrys. decided they would utilize the concept & took it 1 step further thus putting it into production in 1951. Desoto & Dodge had smaller versions. The original design was used in aircraft engines.

[BandCShow11dy6]

sorry the v16 was in the XP47H thunderbolt

[BandCShow11dy6]

the hemi head design was way before chevy they made a v16 hemi for a tank in world war 2 with 2400hp dont try to get GM credit for something they wish they had

[cmf1965]

As great as the Chrysler Hemi's were, & are -the design came from Chevrolet. GM decided it was too costly to tool a dual-rocker-arm shaft motor, & the accompanying cylinder heads in a production automobile. That's why Chrysler changed to a "wedge-head" design again in 1959. Their "Polyspherical" head design looked good on paper, but was no more efficient than the wedge design. Chevy's Zora Arkus Duntov, designed a hemi-head conversion for Ford flatheads. They were called "ARDUN" heads.

[Pikminlover345]

Why do I always hear this from Chevy guys? Chevrolet had NOTHING to do with the design of the original Chrysler Hemi. Just because Zora Arkus-Duntov designed a Hemi head doesn't mean Chrysler took it. You guys just wish your engineers were that good and came up with that story to make yourselves feel better.

[mudbuddy54]

truely the 1 of the best engines ever!

[sunroofgtx]

Great video. Thanks for sharing. What a great team of performance-minded engineers.

[69HemiGTX]

God's gifts to internal combustion engines - Chrysler engineers and the 426 Hemi.