Alright, so I was talking with a friends dad. He claims to know where a set of 32 valve hemi heads are located.

I tried looking them up and couldn't find anything really online about them.

One of my books references them in a paragraph, it says they are/were made by Newman Racing and designed by a Marty Covalt.

They have 4 valves per cylinder and one push-rod actuates two valves at once. It says it has 2 intake valves up to 1.9 inch. So that gives an over all intake valve area of 2.69.

They require a special trick off set distributor and can use stock headers.

What's the deal with these things. Are they still around? how much are they worth? Were/are they worth the money to have put them on an engine for power, or were they mostly just eye candy.

I dont know much about them but I saw a complete engine with them on it several years ago.. I thought it was an Indy Cylinder head booth but I am not sure about that. My understanding is they were to be for NASCAR and Richard Petty but they outlawed the Hemi and it all got dropped. All sets were prototypes but there are some around.. they had a crazy timing chain set up I dont think you can just bolt them on your Hemi at home.

they where tested in a magazine.
i have the scans at home (i think).
i will put them in as far as i am home.
as far as i know they made only one set.
never understood that. i think they should have
an extreme potency.

I think it might have been Azzuza (sp?). Here is a short article on the A-925 DOHC Hemi:

http://www.allpar.com/mopar/hemi/hemi.html

http://www.thehemi.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=6211&sid=0c382e2c05e1600c7b45fab850bcb599

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvZt4nTaYzk

Here's an interesting conversion on an early Hemi:

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=225304

As I recall, Ford got beat so badly by the Hemi in NASCAR Ford came out with the SOHC motor shortly thereafter & said if Nascar was going to allow the Hemi,a non-production engine, Ford was going to use the SOHC. Mopar came back & said "Fine! we'll use THIS!" and brought out the DOHC Hemi. Bill France went nuts & said NEITHER was going to be used. That brought about Chrysler's protest of Nascar in '65 resulting in a lot of their racers (including Petty) going drag racing. In '66 when the street Hemi came out (and the only there WAS a street Hemi) Mopar could now return with a "production" engine in the Hemi. Ford had considered putting the SOHC in Fairlanes and/or Galaxies but that never happened, although rumors persisted some Gemini astronaut got one. Ford did sell the SOHC as an over-the-counter part & used them fairly successfully in drag racing (Gas Ronda, Connie Kalitta, even Don Prudhomme) for A/FX, F/C, T/F and a few ProsStocks in the late 60s/early 70s. But too few engines & parts were made & they were costly & the Boss 429 came on in the early 70s, so there was no real need for them. Actually, looking at old videos, the SOHC was really the only engine that could run with the Hemi in non-factored/indexed competition.

Yeah, that kind of sucked that NASCAR let Ford run the SOHC anyway after the Street Hemi came out. The 429 didn't come out until 1969. I remember the car mags showed the SOHC in the Woods Brothers cars back then.

Yea, i Know about the DOHC hemi. It was made to beat the cammer. I think they made 2 or 3 of them. I have book on that.
It had some beastly like 6 foot timing chain or something too. And made massive power.

I'm referring to something else though. It's a bolt on 32 valve setup made by newman racing out of oklahoma. I'll scan a picture of what i have later tonight or in the A.M. It's a pushrod head that has 1 push-rod actuate 2 rockers. i want a picture of those, i just can't find that.

I have pictures of the bare head and an off set distributor that supposed to go with it.

I just don't have any tech info on the, and was wondering if anyone has seen them. All i know is valve size, and combustion chamber size.

I remember a funny car racer up here in the Northwest who machined hemi heads with 3 valves per cylinder. Here is a link http://www.dbindustries.com/album1_006.htm

here they are


http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/5357/19985971.jpg

Thats awesome!

Thanks so much.

Those heads were indeed made by Marty Covalt. I spoke with Marty a couple years ago or so about them because I had a customer inquire about them. Marty was working with Predator Cylinder Head at the time. He said that they didn't make too many sets of them. Back in the early 90s people saw the $10,000 kit price as a bad case of sticker shock despite what they were getting. You spend over 6,000 putting a top end together for a standard 16 valve hemi these days, so 10,000 for a complete 32 valve conversion kit realy isn't too bad IMHO. As for the 32 valve Nascar Hemi, it was called the A-925. It never ran under its own power. Chrysler played with two different top ends for it, one a SOHC and the other a DOHC. The DOHC ended up being what they went with. Just around the time the project was nearly done, the project was ended because Nascar outlawed overhead camshaft engines. Thank you, Bill France for your signature...you single-handedly killed off what was destined to be the greatest Chrysler engine of all time. It was projected to make over 900HP and be capable of long term speeds of 8000 RPM+! Here's something to think about, guys. At the time, to run an engine in Nascar the factory had to use the engine in at least 500 cars for sale to everyday people driving on the street. Imagine being able to buy a brand new '64 Plymouth with an optional aluminum block 32 valve DOHC Hemi.....WOW!!!