Technical What to look for in a hemi?

DeSoto and Red Ram engines did not have extended bell housing's like the 1951-1954 1/2 Chrysler Hemi's. If I am not mistaken, even the early Olds rockets had a similar strange casting... It must have been a transmission choice that made them do it.

Did any other manufacturer do this with the back of their blocks?

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That poor poor small block Mopar.. What a shame! At least those are more replaceable than your Hemi.

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Yeah about that.... I bought a hemi once, and I was not only short 1 main cap, the other main 4 caps were from a Ford Engine. Dang it!!!

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Those small blocks look fine to me. We used to get core SBC engines that looked like they sat in mud puddles for years, and then we dismantled, cleaned and rebuilt them, at the shop I once worked at.

 

It's odd all the hemi's for sale are 392's ...... Not sure how I got a 291 & a354 they must have shrunk on the trip home fro previous owners.

Seriously though there is a lot of good info on here for Hemi guys.

 

I can never find a 392 that isn't "built" to someone else's liking for thousands of dollars. And I refuse to pay over a grand on a mystery block that may not be any good... I just wish that Bear would start casting new blocks already....

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No kidding! I got lucky that machine shop lost 7600 lbs of cylinder heads! Im luck my block wasn’t worse or my heads burnt but everything turned out ok, but now im needing a crankshaft and I found one for 500$ on ebay (the cursed site) and its for a 55 desoto s22 (291 cui) but i dont know if it could work with the s21 block that i have. So if anyone has all the dimensions on an s22 could you please send them to me.


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I don't have any Desoto Hemi's here, if I did, I would research it for you. All I have is a bunch of DeSoto flatheads... My only Hemi's are Chrysler Firepower's...

There has to be a Desoto Hemi guy here that knows these engines well and can help you.

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DeSoto 276 and 291 are essentially the same engine except for the bore.

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