Hi everyone,

My father and I just purchased a 1965 Hemi Coronet. It was beautifully restored by the previous owner.

It was built around 2010 or so, and has a 472 crate Hemi of that vintage. My question is, does anyone have information about what parts are inside? Just curious who makes the crank and rods in the 472 crate engines of that vintage. I searched for this, but didn’t come up with much. I read Barton built the 528’s, but that’s all I found.

Did the 472 come with a standard MP 4.15 crank, or is it an Eagle crank? Any info on the rods.....I beam, or H beam?

Thanks in advance for the info.

If Zippy sees this thread he might have some answers. The crate Hemi engines had a lot of quality problems, some of due to poor quality parts, some due to poor assembly methods. I only worked on one crate Hemi and it was complete junk inside. Almost everything needed to be replaced before it would run. Good luck with your project. Hopefully you got a good engine or maybe someone has already been in there and corrected any issues.

Yeah, luckily the previous owner apparently knew about the issues with the crate Hemis. We were told he had the engine disassembled right away, and everything was checked before reassembly. I’m not sure if he had to correct anything at that time, or if he happened to luck out. He passed away a year ago, so the information I have about the engine is limited.

Just hoping to find some info on the rods. I’ve heard conflicting info. Someone said Eagle H beam rods, someone said I beam, of a different brand. Not sure.....

And the crank, I’m curious if it is a MP piece or something else. Hoping to find what brand pistons are in there as well.

The engine runs very strong and we are very happy with it, but just looking for info on what’s inside, as it’s never been changed (except the cam and lifters).

Thanks again everyone.

I'm not sure you'll find an answer and if someone does give you an answer there is no guarantee that it is correct. Mopar farmed those engines out to different contractors who used different parts so it all depends on when it was built and by who. They typically used cheap parts so it is going to have SCAT or Eagle parts in it not Callies or Oliver or stuff like that. I'm not sure who they used as a piston vendor, most likely the low bidder. Most likely someone like Icon rather than JE or Diamond.

Worse comes to worst, you can always pull the pan and take some pics.
You (or someone here) might be able to ID the crank, rods and pistons.

That would give you a leg up on any changes.

Joe

I say if it runs fine, leave it alone and spend your time on something else,

The 472 I got involved in had wiseco pistons, h-beam rods that look like eagles, crank looked like my other MP cranks, no numbers on it, comp cams cam. This engine had tight bores, uneven decks, tight valve guides that made the cam go flat, tight pin bores in the rods, crank was pretty good. All in all it had good parts, but very poor attention to machine work. This one was a cummins built engine, the later barton built were better.

Thanks for the info.

The engine runs great, we don’t plan to do anything to it right now. I was just curious, more than anything. My father and I have had several cars over the years, but this is our first Hemi. We’ve wanted a Hemi car for 30 years, and are super excited about it. I’m trying to learn as much about it as possible.

Somebody above made a good point- it depends which company put it together. I believe it’s a 2010 engine, but I’ll have to look to be sure. I don’t know if it’s a Cummins build, or someone else.

The car is a street legal A990 clone, with a few additional race car touches. According to a good friend of the previous owner, it was shown often, and occasionally bracket raced. The engine has held up to several seasons of ETs in the very high 11’s, so we don’t have any plans to tear into it at the time. I have a long term plan for the engine, but my wallet is already protesting....


I’ll include a pic of the pad. Not sure if it’ll give any clues as to what company assembled it or not, but I’ll include it anyway.

Thanks again for the replies so far, everyone.

If everything was checked out that engine should be fine. I can honestly say every part in the one I went thru was good quality for its intended use, just not hand fit. I would not worry about what you have, use a rev limiter, do not get it to hot, and enjoy it. FWIW I never trust machine work, always measure, and never install out of the box heads. I at least take them apart and look, and usually have the guides and valve job tuned up, it does not cost that much.

Best thing you could do for that expensive Hemi would be to install EFI, maybe a Holley Sniper kit. With EFI you can control the air fuel ratio which will help the engine last a long time.

I'll copy & send your question to Bill Hancock - if anybody will know what's inside, he should!

And just an FYI FWIW: Cummins contract with Chrysler was just to assemble the parts provided PERIOD!!!! No machining, No measuring, no checking, no nothing, Just assemble what they were provided with and ship. I have first hand knowledge and a few experiences with them. Cummins stood on their heads and lost their backside on the contract which is why they bailed out on it at renewal time.

The only way to know for sure is to take the engine, disassemble and and inspect, remeasure everything. Then you can sleep at night!

I promise you he did not luck out... at the very least the rod pin bushings were tight as that is how eagle ships them.
The block measured 4.250 exactly, but was too tight for the wiseco pistons. The only way to know is tear it down. Maybe it was run, wiped the cam, rebuilt with new cam just like this one, since you say the cam was changed. Many had problems right at startup.

[i][/i]

The engine has already been apart, which took place as the previous owner took delivery of it from Mancini. He knew of the crate hemi issues, and supposedly addressed them at the time. He has passed away, so I can not verify exactly what he did or did not do to it. The car was featured in Mopar Action in 2011 or 2014...I forget, I’ll have to look at our copy... and the article stated he disassembled and checked everything upon initially getting the engine.

The cam was changed just last year, before it was sold, as they were trying to make the car slightly faster. It was changed from the stock hydraulic crate cam to a step up in size (I was told), and mechanical lifters. It has not been to the track with this combo however, as the owner became sick shortly after the cam change.

I’m not concerned about the engine coming apart or anything, really. It runs strong. In a year or so, I plan to pull the engine and upgrade, as my account will allow. But that’s just not happening this year, having purchased the car one month ago.

I’m more interested in what parts came inside these engines, just out of curiosity. I realize now it’s probably difficult to answer, due to different vendors, etc.

472, here is some "insider" info on these crate Hemis - this is the best answer I could get. The sources are all retired from Chrysler now, or have retired/sold off their businesses that did work for Chrysler:

We introduced the Hemi Crate motors in the late 1990's. This included the 472-inch version (rated at about 525hp with a single 4BBL carb - not included). These crate engines were built with all Chrysler (Mopar Performance) parts - blocks, cranks, rods, pistons, cams & valvetrain, heads and intakes. After the big layoffs of 2001, MP stopped selling their own rods and pistons, so by 2010 these parts would have been aftermarket parts. MP stopped making performance parts catalogs in the early 2000's which makes tracking these details very difficult. Slowly MP stopped making the own parts, which were replaced by aftermarket parts. The engine builders changed several times also. It's a lot easier to look at the actual parts (casting numbers on blocks, heads, intakes) than to try to track them down from to engine builder to the car.

Thanks!

My guess is that the statement from the MP guy is a little misleading since he implies that MP components were different than aftermarket. In many cases, MP was just buying parts from the aftermarket and putting them in a MP box. MP didn't have their own factory that was making cranks, rods and pistons. They were buying those parts from places like SCAT.

This engine is good to go since it's made it through multiple bracket races already. From everything I've seen and heard about those crate engines...unless it had been fixed, one of those hemis straight out of the "crate" wouldn't have finished a single race w/o some type of failure, lol.

If you want an easy power increase...ditch that dual plane and go w/ either the Ray Barton single 4500 manifold or an Indy 426-3. That car really needs a crossram though.