That's good news. Truck heads are pretty much as close as you can get to factory high performance heads. Even better than passenger car heads. They have the big valves and ports of 392s and use water in the intake manifold crossover passage so you don't have that siameze passage between the inner two ports for exhaust crossover heating. They also have hardened exhaust seats and no bothersome thermostat crossover tube, its in the intake manifold where it belongs. Deawbacks are the have heavy, large stemmed sodium filled valves and those big lugs on the ends of the heads that interfere sometimes with bolt on accessories. For street use these drawbacks likely don't matter so you have a great start to a boss engine. I installed those truck heads on my 331 in my '36 Willys coupe. I modified them with new valve guides and valves to replace the big sodium stem valves, cut off the big lugs on the ends, and welded in plates so I could use a passenger car intake manifold which don't match up with the heads in the crossover ports. If you have a 4bbl factory maifold, it is a very good design. Only problem is you can't use a modern 4bbl carb on the small port passages. I adapted a 354 passenger car manifold to my 331 hemi by drilling out the ports. Also opened the secondary side to accomodate my Holley 3bbl carb. Here is the modified tube dimension I described above. One other note, early 331 engines have slightly larger head locating pins. Hot Heads sells stepped pins to fit later heads but I just drilled the holes in the head a little larger with a letter drill. You won't face that problem.
If I buy this type of plug wire is that what I need to correctly plug on to the spark plug? This hemi stuff is all new to me but I am learning.
I ordered the book just waiting for it to arrive. My first order of business is to just make sure it runs. I am not looking for alot of horsepower I just like the look. It has a factory 2 barrel manifold. It appears to weigh about 700 pounds and would need a hoist to take off.
4-barrel intakes can be had for not too much (look for ones with free shipping) on eBay, for not too much. They have the small 4-barrel pattern common to that era. They can be modified using the above procedure to get a modern pattern 4-barrel on it.
Any straight boot spark plug wire will work. You should use spark plug wire removal pliers to remove and install. It can be tricky to get them clicked in without them. The straight line variety works best:
So I ordered some parts and started looking where to put oil in. It appears there are no provisions. There appears to be the normal place blocked off by the distributor. Any recommendations?
That is where the original ‘road draft tube was located. Typically these engines had a breather tube/cap in the front of the lifter valley cover which is where oil was poured into the engine. Ray
I am able to click the long silicone boots on and off the plugs byhand by keeping them lubed with silicone grease made for the purpose. True you can get a 354 4bbl intake that will bolt on the engine. Problem is the 354 engine uses a separate water crossover/thermostat manifold and the truck engine had the thermostat housing in the manifold. Intake won't work without adding water outlet pipes and make some sort of thermostat housing. The stock front cover on your type of engine had the oil filler on it. Bottom photo shows where it was on my 331 which is set up similar to your truck engine. I cut the water pump off my front cover and had it cad plated is why it looks like that. I put breaters on the front of my valve covers and this one has a removable top which is where I add oil. Here is the manifold that you (and I) need but it came only on 1954 331 engines and they are impossible to find. This is what you will find on ebaY. It is a 354 4bbl manifold and bolts right up to you engine but has a couple problems. First you notice it has no thermostat housing. Second, the truck heads have tall heat crossover passages that this manifold won't cover. I had the same problem and was able to modify parts to make it work. Does take some effort though. The first thing I did was use a common carb adaptor plate to guide a hole saw to open the ports for a modern carb. the rest of the runners & ports are excellent design as good as any aftermarket manifold. Then I used a hole saw to drill the blocked off water outlet passages at the front of ther manifold and brazed in two pipe nipples. Then using radiator hose bends I found by trial and error at the parts store I adapted a thermostat housing slug I welded up and had chrome plated. Lots of busy work. As I recall there are remote thermostat housings avaliable that were designed for sprint cars that work the same way? Check around Summit, Jegs, etc., for that possibility. View attachment 5268738 Closeup (ignore the filth) of my thermo housing. Used a chrome top nozzle for a Chevy I got from the parts house. Has tubes brazed in for heater hose and for bypass to the pump for cold start water circulation. Finally you need wo weld a dam in the heat crossover ports in the truck heads. They use hot water instead of exhaust gas which is fine but the ports are unmatched. Here is a truck head showing the tall center port. Here is the same head with the port welded up to match the passenger car intake manifold.
You can open up the bore holes in the intake or use the HH adaptor to squeeze it down to meet the OEM holes (or drill both). With longer carb studs, and the opened up holes or adaptor, the Edelbrock carb bolts right on.
The Jalopy Journal
