Hot Rods Why Did Drag Racers Keep Using 392 After '64 426 Hemi Came Out?

Looking at Hot Rod magazine Altered history article and noticed this.

Racers were running 392's in mid and late 60's even though the new 426 had come out in

'64.

Why is that?

 

They knew how to make it work, and they were a lot less expensive.

 

The 426 wasn't widely available in '64; built for NASCAR primarily, it wasn't allowed until Chrysler built/sold at least 500 examples to the general public which didn't happen until '66. Even then it was rare and expensive, you could still find 392s in the wrecking yards for cheap. The big $$$ teams started using them (the ones with 'connections'), but it wasn't until the supply of the early motors started to dry up that they became the 'standard'.

 

Also, it took a while for the racers to figure out what the 426 liked on nitro. It was very different from the 392. Garlits had a tough time with the 426. The Ramchargers had it figured out.

 

The 392 was a regular production engine in the 1957 and 1958 Chrysler New Yorker and Imperial passenger cars, along with industrial applications, so many tens of thousands were produced and available on the “secondary “ market.

The 426 was produced in limited numbers in 1964, and fewer than 11000 cars were built with it before the end of production seven years later, in 1971.

Aftermarket parts didn’t show up immediately, either.

If I remember correctly, the 1956 354 Hemi was popular in drag racing too. That engine was available in cars, heavy trucks, and industrial applications.

 

Watched a video were Garlits said they couldn't get the 426 to run for crap...then they cranked a bunch of ignition lead into it figuring it would either run or explode, he said that was the trick

 

yep....took them awhile to figure out that 426.....heard it was because the distributor was in the front ........

 

For the same reason so many of our hot rodding fathers stuck with Henry's flat motor instead of trying the new small block bowtie...… It's what they knew.

 

And if you want to go back even further the 4-cylinder guys weren't in a hurry to switch to the V8... for the same reasons. It's what they had oh, it's what they knew, and there was and established aftermarket support for them as opposed to the newfangled flathead V8.

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The 392 could be picked up at junkyard for peanuts. Try and find a 426 in a junkyard back then. Even out of a totaled street car they were very expensive.
I lucked up and found a Hemi powered Charger 500 on a used car lot in the middle of the 70's energy crisis for $ 1800.00 with 23,000 miles on it.
Then I found one later in a guys garage that he had pulled because of the energy crisis and never put back .

 

Here's the real reason for the increased timing requirement. The 92 has 100 cc. combustion chambers. The 26 has 172cc. It was very common to deck a 26 .050" to lower them to 166cc. On a 92 fuel motor, the pistons were all labeled as down in the hole because of what it took for lower comp. ratios. The 26 had a slight dome in comparison. The taller chamber was the reason for increased advance. As has been mentioned, the major reason was the cost of changeover. Anybody that has run a 92 knows how weak the block was. The 26 was far stronger on the bottom and with more head bolts was a superior part. The 2 best parts of the 92 were the exhaust port design and the smaller chambers. The chamber size also made increased valve sizing more difficult.

 

Recall as a kid in the mid 60"s Chrysler had a contest for a give away 426 Hemi engine.Some kind of fill out the coupon,and mail it in drawing.A hemi without a car was rare.

 

I read some place the 331 heads were used on the 392 by most because of better fuel flow. Is that in fact true?

 

Roses are red - my mains are blue - Oh what I would do for a 392

 

I've heard the 392 had windowed main webs like a 403 Olds does so alot of guys used 354 blocks instead.

 

If I am not mistaken, a lot of racers used 354 heads as the ports were straight, but the 392 heads had a dog leg.

 

Weren't most of the professional racers in the sixties using aftermarket 392 "clone" blocks (Donovans, etc.)? These specialized blocks made "big inch" hemi's possible and had a lot of other advantages over a stock block. With all of the development that had gone into the aftermarket stuff, nobody initially wanted to do it all over for the 426.

Also, while they made quite a few 392's in '57 and '58 for the cars, there were NO truck or industrial 392's; a few 354's but most were 331's. And the best flowing early hemi heads are supposed to be the "triple nickel" (part number ending in "555") heads from 1955 331's.

 

Aftermarket blocks did not come along until the 70's. Not sure who/what was first. Keith Black 426, Donovan 417, Rodeck Chevy. I may be missing some.

 

Exactly, the Donovan showed up in about 1971 and to over simplify was an improved 392.
-Dave

 

One of the issues of Donovan was that it was a fairly small place and could not keep up with the demand for blocks unlike KB or Milodon. Right now in Nostalgia Fuel Dragster it holds both ET and speed Record 5.49 and 265. Now that is a billit block (just like the latest 426), The power has exceeded the strength of the casting

 

I believe it. Drag racing in the '60's and '70's was nothing like today. The touring "pros" typically had a crew of 2. If they needed help they asked the guys hanging around watching. The money wasn't huge so they didn't blow stuff up every run.

 

Many claimed the 354 head as superior, others denied this. With all the crazy variables between blown fuel motors it would be pretty hard to nail down the difference. Regular people had no access to flow testing in those days! The 354 was buildable to about 440 from what I have read, and was truly junkyard available. Demand always exceeded supply with the 392, and there were tales of rodders following accidentally encountered wreckers towing wrecked Imperials and such to be first in line.
426 exhaust was hurt by "compacting" of the design necessary to cram the thing into '64 type cars.


" there were NO truck or industrial 392's" I dunno, but strongly believe that's true! I suspect the supposed Dodge truck 392's, a story that no one really believed when it appeared, were a fabrication of PR people when he was using suppose 392 truck blocks supplied br Chrysler...is that convoluted story real? I seem to remember reading about that when it was supposedly happening. Makes little sense...

 

Racing was more closer to home also and almost weekly, No long travel, no Hotels, backed the open trailer into the shop or garage. Had an issue--- fix it and come back next week. Now you have races every 2 weeks all over the country with adding that you have to carry the shop (with inventory) with you. Smaller teams get a lot of help from the bigger teams so there is somebody to race against. Serviceable blocks & heads, cranks with a couple runs left in them, last years surplus pistons and rods, old blowers, in fact the smaller teams break in tires for the big guys so that they can match up the best pairings

 

As I remember, 92s had a hardened seat in the exhaust valve. These were removed to keep them from falling out while running. But then you had to grind the resulting hole for a 2 inch exhaust valve. Which limited you to a 2 inch intake valve or they would hit. 54 heads let you grind a 1 15/16 or so exhaust seat and a 2 1/6 intake. And the 54 heads did have a straighter intake port.

 

Just to set the record straight, the 354 was only se in passenger cars for 1 year. That was 1956. When it was introduced it also replaced the 331 in industrial, Marine, and heavy duty trucks. That stayed that way through the end of production for all original hemis sometime in 1959. I have a 354 out of a 1958 2 1/2 ton Dodge truck. When I got the engine it had a word 20-30 crankshaft in it and I wasn't about to grind it 30-40 in a hot rod application. I found a standard late 1958 354 truck standard crank and had it ground 10-10. The crank grinder called me and said it was a 392 crank because of the casting number. I told him to stroke check the crank because it came out of one of the last heavy duty trucks from 1958. Sure enough it had a 392 casting number but was indeed a 354 crank. The last of those 354 blocks also used a 392 oil pump instead of the 331/354 pump. It seems that Chrysler was cleaning house on hemi parts and used what they could on the last of the 354 industrial and other classes of heavy-duty 354 uses. Also, as far as I can tell the 1956 16 354 passenger car and the 1955 331 "triple nickel " head are the same head with a cat sing number change for the next year. I spent a lot of time with Joe Reath, having him educate me on hemis when I built mine. Joe had been a racer since they used 3" wide wheels and his encyclopedic knowledge was incredible. His wife was no slouch either. What a great guy Joe was? I also heard the the 426 would not respond to the tried and true tricks that the early hemis did. One was spark lead. They found out that the loved big leads around 50 degrees whereas the 392 the 392 with that much lead was a ticking granade. Even hemi is not the same apparently.