Quote:

---

Hi there,

I have a genuine HemiWedge, which was built by Maurice Petty and raced in NASCAR by both Richard Petty and Hershel McGriff. It is a 1969 HEMI block that was modified to accept Wedge heads. This was done in 1973-1976, when the HEMI had to run a way too small restrictor plate. So switching to Wedge heads allowed to run less restrictor plate and hence make more power. It runs the same crank, rods and in-pan dry sump system as the NASCAR HEMI, but has wedge heads, wedge pistons and a wedge camshaft.

Here is a link to some technical specs:
http://www.olympia-charger.com/2010/04/original-oly-express-426-wedge-v8-returns-home.html

And here is a link about how I got it:
http://www.olympia-charger.com/2012/09/p...at-le-mans.html


I'd be interested to know more about these engines in order to make mine even better and possibly race it once in a while in my Dodge Charger.

Any information is greatly appreciated

---

We bought 6 of those blocks from Petty years ago.The last one we had left went to Ron McCelland in Beaverdale(Buds Auto Sales.He still has it.Threaded plugs were used to fill the valley bolt holes and the pattern was redrilled for the wedge head,plugs were also installed in the oil drain back holes at the lower deck corners and the lifter valley was clearenced for pushrods.

Quote:

---

Hi All, I worked at Diamond Racing Engines, in 1973 through 1976! In January of 1974 we finished porting a set of wedge heads for Richard Petty's car for Daytona in February's race! If i remember correctly it had the same port layout as the W2 small block heads?? If you guy's have any picture's of the head's that would be great!! Thanks Dwayne

---

The 74 Petty Catalog looks to have Max Wedge head in their parts pictures.

Do you know they used your heads and kept using them? Wonder if they sent heads to various people to see what people would come up with.




There are some pictures of a W-2 like B-engine head in the Mopar Performance book by Larry Scheib. pg 92 and 93.

The book says these heads didn't show improvement. But said further development may have showed improvement, but the project was shelved. And that with the trend of smaller motors (1978) there was likely to be more development.

Quote:

---

WOW!!!!! Those are them!!!!! I know we never flowed them, because we didn't get are flowbench untill mid year of 1975! By the way if you look up who won the Daytona 500 in february of 1974, I believe it was Richard Petty!!! Keep the imfo flowing this is great stuff!!!! Thanks Dwayne

---

The pictures look like the head is aluminum? The port work looks so white-ish. But just black and white photos.

Did you continue to supply Petty with heads or just for Daytona?

I wonder if Petty or Chrysler flowed them after you guys were done with them though.

Quote:

---

Interesting stuff. A friend in Olympia, who worked on the McGriff team, told me that they used Dodge 440 motorhome heads to start with. Would you know what is special with those and what casting number they have ?

---

Quote:

---

RE: 213 head. Some, but not all, got extra cooling holes near the spark plug, which was the "extra cooling" that other heads didn't have. They were small, maybe 5/32 diameter. These heads also used the 5/8" peanut plugs.

I have a pair of 213s that I took off a 400 in a passenger car and they use the regular plugs and have no cooling holes at the plug.

It has been my opinion on looking at a few different 213s that they had slightly smaller ports, nothing huge but looked that way to me. Could have been casting differences, I guess.

R.

---