Congrats to anyone with a long enough attention span to remember anything about this.

I should title this "I get by with a little help from my friends"

It's coming along, been like a year now if I remember correctly.

Needed the damper hub honed out, Doug hooked me up with Dave,
Dave took care of me on the spot. As luck would have it, I caught him
resizing a set of 4.0 Jeep connecting rods.

Made some Zippycore plug wires the other day (Taylor, not shown).

Working on pulley alignment and alternator, mostly.

I'm told the intake is on backwards, mostly because the two bosses in front look a little silly.
As you can see it's not bolted on, it's just holding the masking tape in place for now.

Decent for cooling, but not enough WP hub stick out left for the fan if I move the WP pulley forward.
And not enough material to cut off the crank pulley.
Probably work fine with a stock damper, but guess what.....
So that shiny March part goes back in the basement.

The little discontinued Moroso with an AR spacer would almost work.

Notice how the edges are all chipped and banged up. I can't find these new anymore,
so I pick up used ones where I find 'em. I've had the same one on the 451 for a long time.

Chopped off .125" and cleaned up the edges.

That's one of the reasons I like the Moroso pulley!
The center is solid and you can just cut it to whatever you need.
Need to cut off 1/4", even 3/8" no problem....there's plenty of material.
But......it's discontinued.

That's my buddy Todd in the picture.

Todd has taught me all kinds of cool $%-+ over the years for which at this point I can never really repay him
except to use the info, pass it along and teach others. For openers, the frame connectors and roll bar
in my GTX are a collaboration between us but car stuff is just the tip of the iceberg.

Believe me when I tell you: Todd is a technical guy's technical guy.

Faced a buggered bolt hole on the Bridgeport.

Perfecto.

(Now, if I only had the right bolts to hold it on)

Looks like I don't have to use a Gucci/Powermaster alternator if I don't want to.

Here's a 120 amp Denso from a 1990 Ram that looks like it will probably work.
The external regulator it requires doesn't really bother me (and also doesn't necessarily
need to be mounted on the firewall/can be hidden).

Lines up reasonably well, or will, with the right spacer combination.

Next steps.

That's about it for now.

Most ridiculous observation ever:
It sure takes a giant pile of 1/4-20s to dink around with Hemis.
If you want to try a few intakes and valve covers out, between the two there are 36 bolts.

Between the 3 intakes and two sets of valve covers i want to try out, all the lengths of everything have to be different.

48 bolts to try 3 intakes.
40 bolts to try two valve covers.
I mean, that seems like alot.

They sure didn't spare the 1/4-20s on this engine design.

If you weren't entertained by this thread, I only ask you to please consider what it cost you....

thanks-
Rich

Looks good Rich! Keep the pics coming!

Very cool thread.

I enjoy seeing the minutia of what it takes to put a Hemi together as I have never owned one and probably never will!

Being this far into it, I totally understand why people don't want to mess with them. The mystique adds to the fun.
I got around a whole lot of potentially frustrating situations by deciding I didn't care when it got done, and focusing on the next step. I was the same way with my 451.

Great progress Rich !!!

Even though there's headaches they look cool when finished.

A 55 gal drum of 1/4" bolts and every part needed some sort of adjustment.........2 Hemi builds (528 & 572) was all I could stand.......never again.

Kepp plugging away Zippy!

Zippy, thanks for the post(s).
I guess a 2nd Gen Hemi is not in my future. With the screen name "440Jim", that is OK, LOL.
I went through a bunch of small fitting issues with my KB aluminum block, Indy 440-1 headed engine in an A-body Dart. But nowhere near what you have experienced.
The lathe and Bridgeport help...

Definitely run the bigger alternator. I wish I had. The way mines set up it would be a major undertaking to do it now.
Doug

Rich,

Thanks for the update, I enjoyed it!

Bill

Thanks everyone.

Dave V. convinced me to triple check my lash cap to lock clearance
and gave me an alternative way to verify it using Dykem which was a great tip.
Dave if you see this, thanks again.
I think I just stuck a caliper pin in there last year and it seemed okay at the time.
But that was last year. But this is something to go over maybe more than once, and to be
beyond confident about. I decided to shorten the lash caps a skosh
then use Dave's verification method one more time. "better safe than sorry", triple checked.
So that's what I'm currently picking away at.

Here is the combination of wire parts I assembled for it.

zippycore

Wires are the ONLY thing that is slightly easier than a Wedge.

Other side.

I'm going to drill out and use those goofy stock white plastic wire holders, whenever they show up.

I might try this later, just for fun.

Who am I kidding, the whole darn thing is just for fun.
That's why I set myself up with different parts to mess with.

Thanks for reading, any questions just holler.

While I don't know a lot about HEMI engines I wouldn't use that one piece valley tray unless you REALLY need to Biggest mistake I made when I built my 493 I like your progress so far it should make some nice numbers. I hope it stays cool with your pulley selection because I had almost the same setup for pulleys and mine would run hot after a while of cruising.


Gus

Say YES to the TUNNEL RAM !!!!

Thx for the comment so quick. Will see how it goes.

The Barton and Weiand intake I'm going to mess with have integral valley tray,
which would probably be even worse. The slightly increased difficulty of service is not
really a problem, I am totally used to taking the manifold off for access to the lifter valley.

"Oh $#1+ here it comes!!"

(that's what folks say when they see your Charger...maybe this one too someday)

Looking at the big Hemi cylinder heads, it reminds me of the years racing my Dart with the 440 based wedge engine.
The BB wedge heads look so small compared to the guys at the track with BB Chevy engines. Those Hemi heads would change that !
Looks good

Thanks for taking the time to share so I can live vicariously through your project.

How well does the indy valley plate line up against the eddie head? - do you have a pic without the intake? And yes that tunnel ram is just calling out "put me on" if you want to sell the tunnel ram let me know

Looks like it will work as intended, it will need a fairly heavy bead of RTV similar to the AL stock replacement heads
I started mockups with. I want to say it looked like about 3/16" gap but don't hold me to it.
It isn't "captured" by the heads. I can snap a picture later.

Thanks!
Before jumping in, I had to step back and evaluate my past experiences and observations to make sure
I really wanted to do this, and I spent an afternoon mocking up a hemi out of mostly broken parts that
I accumulated back during my time at MP. I rolled the engine stand in front of my car, took pictures and asked myself...."are you sure?" quite a few times. It's as much, or more, for the cool factor and value add as anything.
I'm clearly not a hardcore racer, and I talked myself out of any performance concerns
just adding up 400cfm and 572ci. Hopefully it will make the big torque.

glad you like it. Still trying to drive some content here in spite of a long list of stuff.

Someone smarter than me suggested a youtube "hemi for regular gearheads" series.
I'm sure there are some who would probably find it useful. I'm not 100% sure I can make it entertaining
enough for those who aren't already in the middle of one, though.

Rich.. looks good.. I had 1 hemi years ago.. that thing was a PITA.. glad I sold it

Thanks Mike. Something a little bit different.

I check all my pulley alignment's with a long piece of 3/8 Ø round stock, i put in in the pulley grove like a v-block and check it to the other rotating pulleys,this method will put you spot on, I don't trust a Visual alignment.

That's a good tip, thanks.

I lay a straight edge in the grooves but lacking the proper bolts to hold
the pulley on at the time, I could either hold the pulley and the iphone, or the pulley and the straightedge
but not both at the same time.

Here you go, D.

Being that the intake sits on top of it rather than the heads, it's not going to be as bad to work with
as that other style that sits underneath the heads.

That is a big gap to fill - I wonder if you tack a piece of aluminum under the plate to fill up that gap a little - might work ok as it is on the street without issues - Thanks for the pics

I'm thinking two or three different thin layers of the Right Stuff to seal the big gap and another layer of your favorite gasket maker for the last and final sealer
I use a thin blade screw driver to force the sealer deep into the space and let it set up over night before doing the second and then the third layer to make sure no pin holes any where in the gaps

Thanks for the comments. I will (hopefully) find out pretty soon how it works.

The manifold seems it will mostly close the gap (as in the last shot) and the Indy intake
is really just for my own education/to get it running and check it out.

I acquired it used and still glued together which gave me a good look at how the previous owner sealed it up.
The valley tray got a heavy bead, like 3/8, then the intake was installed on top of that
which squished it down, then they went over the bead with the underside with a fingertip or
similar. Who knows what heads or other parts they used, though.

It's kind of nice to be able to use the china wall bolts without fear of cracking anything.

I would guess if you set the intake in that bead of silicone while its still wet - the intake will support the bead then - making it one big happy gasket

That spacer dilemma,,,,,been there & done that I like that tunnal ram,been there done that before the blower over 20 years ago!