- 1
Ten Great Engines
The History of Hot Rodding Has Seen Thousands of Great Engines. Here Are 10 of the Most Memorable.
writer: Bill McGuire
photographer: The Hot Rod Archives
When the hot rod was invented, one of the first steps in the process was to tear off the hood and throw it behind the barn. Easy and open access to the powerplant was required at all times. And of course there was also the need to show off the engine to everyone else on the street. It doesn't take a doctorate in psychology to figure this one out: Since day one, hot rodders have been all about engines and going fast.
With our roots firmly planted in horsepower, HOT ROD thought it was important to recognize some of the great engines in the history of hot rodding. What defines a great hot rod engine? Here are the criteria we used: First, it needs to contain American parts. Next, it must display the ingenuity and can-do attitude that we as Americans naturally take to be the American spirit. And except in the rarest circumstances, it really ought to be a V-8. So here are 10 of history's greatest hot rod engines. No doubt some readers will scream that we left their favorites off the list. We expect that, so if you're one of them, feel free to let us know who should have been included. Send e-mails to hotrod@primedia.com, and put "10 Great Engines" in the subject line.
Grumpy's Pro Stock Small-Block
In the '70s, Bill "Grumpy" Jenkins was the reigning guru of the small-block Chevy V-8 in drag racing. Racers hung on his every word; when his hood came off in the paddock a crowd formed. But there was no heads-up pro category for the small-block in NHRA until 1972, when the Pro Stock rules were rewritten to permit small-displacement engines in short-wheelbase cars, handing them a weight break against the Chrysler Hemis then stinking up the show. Spotting his opening, Jenkins waded in with Grumpy's Toy IX, a Vega hatchback sporting a 331ci small-block.
It may seem laughably primitive when you look it over today, but in 1972 Grumpy's engine combination was the absolute state of the art: Small-journal '62-'67 327 block, ported angle-plug heads made of cast iron, an Edelbrock TR1X tunnel ram with the top half of the plenum lopped off, and a pair of 660-cfm 4224 Holleys mounted crosswise on top. The pistons were TRW items with gas ports and hand-massaged domes. The camshaft was a General Kinetics 321/336 roller, while holding the valvetrain halfway together was a cruel device called a Jomar rocker stud girdle. Like a home-rolled cigarette, the engine may have looked loose at the ends, but it delivered the payload. Grumpy's deal made an honest 600 hp, a magical number for a small-block Chevy at the time.
At the season-opening Winternationals in Pomona, Grumpy's Toy IX qualified in the bottom half of the field with a 9.90. But by race day Jenkins had the new chassis dialed in and uncorked a string of 9.60s, mowing down five Mopar Hemis to win the eliminator. He took Pro Stock honors at six of the eight NHRA national events in 1972, and also won $35,000 at the Professional Racers Association meet in Tulsa. With his small-block Vega, Jenkins changed the face of Pro Stock. Chevy partisans still revere him for it, and the Hemi fans still haven't gotten over it.
Richard Petty's '64 Plymouth Race Hemi
Just so you know, maybe this is not the complete story of the debut of the Chrysler 426 Race Hemi at the '64 Daytona 500. Perhaps the focus has been held tight, avoiding certain aspects in order to protect the guilty, some of whom are still around. You know how it is: Nobody can prove anything. Suffice it to say that NASCAR got bushwhacked and blindsided and the Fords were blown into the weeds, as Paul Goldsmith qualified his Ray Nichels Plymouth on the pole at 174.91 mph. That was, oh, 14 mph faster than the previous year's pole speed. And on race day the Dodges and Plymouths swept the first three places, with Richard Petty leading 184 of 200 laps to win his first Daytona 500.
Development on the 426 Hemi-the engine that turned Bill France purple-had begun in earnest less than one year earlier. Based on the 426 RB Max Wedge design, the new block included an extra row of head bolts along the top of each bank to accept redesigned cylinder heads with mammoth ports and hemispherical combustion chambers. These heads were similar to the first-generation '51-'58 Mopar Hemiswith wide valve angles and double rocker shafts, but with some updated technology as well. The first complete engine was hand-assembled in the final week of November 1963. The new Hemi showed huge potential but also some problems, including cracked cylinder walls in the right bank of the block.
With February and the Daytona 500 rushing toward them, Chrysler engineers scrambled to correct the problems. A revised block casting was ready in late January, but the new pieces would not be finished in time for practice or qualifying, only for the race. The Dodges and Plymouths lapped at an easy 165 mph through much of the week, right on pace with the Fords. Not until qualifying did the Chrysler teams show their hands, as Dodges and Plymouths finished 1-2-3 in both 100-mile qualifying races for the 500. Each of these races was completed at an average of 170 mph, nearly 10 mph faster than the previous year's pole run. If they weren't quite sure about it before, now it was blatantly obvious: The Ford teams had been totally sandbagged.
And on race day, Richard Petty heeded the call to victory lane. Starting third, he led all but 16 laps and was well over one full lap ahead at the checkered flag. It was the first of seven Daytona 500 victories for Petty and one of nine NASCAR Grand National races he won in the '64 season on his way to his first of seven NASCAR championships. But oddly enough, at the start of the following year Petty was sitting on the sidelines. NASCAR had banned the Hemi from competition.
The Swamp Rat's 200-Mph 392 Hemi
Chris Karamesines was clocked at 204.54 mph at Alton, Illinois, in April 1960. In Hobbs, New Mexico, in 1962, Eddie Hill registered a 202.70-mph run. But nobody really and truly accepted that a dragster had run 200 mph in a quarter-mile until it was done in front of the NHRA clocks. That happened on August 1, 1964, when Don Garlits officially ran 201.34 mph at a points meet at Island Dragway in Great Meadows, New Jersey.
In these days of billet Fuel Hemis, the engine in Swamp Rat VI is jaw-slackening to behold. In 1964 racers couldn't just assemble parts off the rack; ad-hoc engineering and experimenting were required. Big's 200 motor was built around a cast-iron 392 Hemi block and heads, and except for a 0.030-inch overbore (total displacement 396 cubes) and a Champion Speed Shop main girdle, the block was stock. The crank was a Mopar piece as well, with center counterweights welded on. Rods and pistons were aluminum from Mickey Thompson, while the heads were treated to a standard port-and-polish job. It was all fairly standard stuff for the time.
It was in the details that all the thought and effort were revealed. The valvesprings were 409 Chevy, while the valves came from a secret source, carefully recontoured and resized to 2.075 inches on the intakes and 1.950 inches on the exhausts. The tuneup featured 11 percent blower overdrive, an 8.2:1 compression ratio, chilly N54 Champion plugs, and 32 degrees of spark lead to light the 90 percent nitro blend (5 percent benzol, 5 percent methanol). Garlits felt that controlling the heat in the supercharger was the key to getting this aggressive setup down the track, so he insisted on using brand-new 6-71 blowers straight from the GMC dealer, never used or rebuilt, which he then clearanced to his own fussy specs. It worked, and the 201 at Great Meadows was no fluke. He'd already run 200 at Detroit the week before. And like Babe Ruth calling his shot, Big Daddy then flatly announced he would win at Indy as well. That would be the first of his eight U.S. Nationals victories.
Ford's '67 Le Mans-Winning 427 V-8
Here's an odd little fact about the 427 Ford FE engine: With a bore of 4.23 inches and a stroke of 3.78 inches, its actual displacement was 424.9 ci. But Ford decided to call it a 427, maybe because that was the displacement limit then in effect in NASCAR and NHRA, where the big-block V-8 was designed to compete. Or maybe 427 just sounded cooler. But despite the 2.1ci shortfall, the 427 still made a great drag racing and stock car motor. And while it was not originally designed for the role, it made a good road racing engine too, in the Cobra and the Ford GT.
Ford's lead entries in the 24 Hours of Le Mans for 1967 were four new Mk. IV GTs, powered by a not-that-special version of the medium-riser 427. Aluminum heads brought down the weight to 580 pounds, but the side-oiler block, crank, connecting rods, and valvetrain were Dearborn production pieces. With dual-quad induction and a bundle-of-snakes exhaust system-the outer two cylinders on one bank shared their collector with the inner two cylinders on the opposite bank to produce 180-degree scavenging-the 427 produced around 500 hp at 6,400 rpm. This "lazy liters" strategy was thrown against Ferrari's highly strung twin-cam 12.
Observers assumed that codrivers A.J. Foyt and Dan Gurney, at that moment America's two greatest drivers, were Ford's designated rabbits. But that wasn't their plan; they kept a disciplined pace and never put a wheel wrong. As the other Fords stumbled, Gurney and Foyt completed the 24 Hours five laps ahead of the closest Ferrari. The car also won the Index of Efficiency, a special Le Mans award for speed and fuel economy. It was also the first and to this day the only overall victory at Le Mans for an American car, engine, and drivers.
That very car is now on display at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, in exactly the same condition in which it won at Le Mans, with one exception: The engine is not the original. After the race, it is said, the winning engine was removed from the car and placed back on the dyno, where it made seven more horsepower than when it was built. So after covering 3,251 miles in 24 hours at an average speed of 135.4 mph, the 427 was just nicely broken in. Where the engine went after that, no one is certain. However, for years one disturbing story made the rounds, like many folk tales perhaps just for its horror value: The engine that Gurney and Foyt used to make history at Le Mans was then installed in a new Mustang for the teenaged son of a Ford executive.
The History of Hot Rodding Has Seen Thousands of Great Engines. Here Are 10 of the Most Memorable.
writer: Bill McGuire
photographer: The Hot Rod Archives
When the hot rod was invented, one of the first steps in the process was to tear off the hood and throw it behind the barn. Easy and open access to the powerplant was required at all times. And of course there was also the need to show off the engine to everyone else on the street. It doesn't take a doctorate in psychology to figure this one out: Since day one, hot rodders have been all about engines and going fast.
With our roots firmly planted in horsepower, HOT ROD thought it was important to recognize some of the great engines in the history of hot rodding. What defines a great hot rod engine? Here are the criteria we used: First, it needs to contain American parts. Next, it must display the ingenuity and can-do attitude that we as Americans naturally take to be the American spirit. And except in the rarest circumstances, it really ought to be a V-8. So here are 10 of history's greatest hot rod engines. No doubt some readers will scream that we left their favorites off the list. We expect that, so if you're one of them, feel free to let us know who should have been included. Send e-mails to hotrod@primedia.com, and put "10 Great Engines" in the subject line.
Grumpy's Pro Stock Small-Block
In the '70s, Bill "Grumpy" Jenkins was the reigning guru of the small-block Chevy V-8 in drag racing. Racers hung on his every word; when his hood came off in the paddock a crowd formed. But there was no heads-up pro category for the small-block in NHRA until 1972, when the Pro Stock rules were rewritten to permit small-displacement engines in short-wheelbase cars, handing them a weight break against the Chrysler Hemis then stinking up the show. Spotting his opening, Jenkins waded in with Grumpy's Toy IX, a Vega hatchback sporting a 331ci small-block.
It may seem laughably primitive when you look it over today, but in 1972 Grumpy's engine combination was the absolute state of the art: Small-journal '62-'67 327 block, ported angle-plug heads made of cast iron, an Edelbrock TR1X tunnel ram with the top half of the plenum lopped off, and a pair of 660-cfm 4224 Holleys mounted crosswise on top. The pistons were TRW items with gas ports and hand-massaged domes. The camshaft was a General Kinetics 321/336 roller, while holding the valvetrain halfway together was a cruel device called a Jomar rocker stud girdle. Like a home-rolled cigarette, the engine may have looked loose at the ends, but it delivered the payload. Grumpy's deal made an honest 600 hp, a magical number for a small-block Chevy at the time.
At the season-opening Winternationals in Pomona, Grumpy's Toy IX qualified in the bottom half of the field with a 9.90. But by race day Jenkins had the new chassis dialed in and uncorked a string of 9.60s, mowing down five Mopar Hemis to win the eliminator. He took Pro Stock honors at six of the eight NHRA national events in 1972, and also won $35,000 at the Professional Racers Association meet in Tulsa. With his small-block Vega, Jenkins changed the face of Pro Stock. Chevy partisans still revere him for it, and the Hemi fans still haven't gotten over it.
Richard Petty's '64 Plymouth Race Hemi
Just so you know, maybe this is not the complete story of the debut of the Chrysler 426 Race Hemi at the '64 Daytona 500. Perhaps the focus has been held tight, avoiding certain aspects in order to protect the guilty, some of whom are still around. You know how it is: Nobody can prove anything. Suffice it to say that NASCAR got bushwhacked and blindsided and the Fords were blown into the weeds, as Paul Goldsmith qualified his Ray Nichels Plymouth on the pole at 174.91 mph. That was, oh, 14 mph faster than the previous year's pole speed. And on race day the Dodges and Plymouths swept the first three places, with Richard Petty leading 184 of 200 laps to win his first Daytona 500.
Development on the 426 Hemi-the engine that turned Bill France purple-had begun in earnest less than one year earlier. Based on the 426 RB Max Wedge design, the new block included an extra row of head bolts along the top of each bank to accept redesigned cylinder heads with mammoth ports and hemispherical combustion chambers. These heads were similar to the first-generation '51-'58 Mopar Hemiswith wide valve angles and double rocker shafts, but with some updated technology as well. The first complete engine was hand-assembled in the final week of November 1963. The new Hemi showed huge potential but also some problems, including cracked cylinder walls in the right bank of the block.
With February and the Daytona 500 rushing toward them, Chrysler engineers scrambled to correct the problems. A revised block casting was ready in late January, but the new pieces would not be finished in time for practice or qualifying, only for the race. The Dodges and Plymouths lapped at an easy 165 mph through much of the week, right on pace with the Fords. Not until qualifying did the Chrysler teams show their hands, as Dodges and Plymouths finished 1-2-3 in both 100-mile qualifying races for the 500. Each of these races was completed at an average of 170 mph, nearly 10 mph faster than the previous year's pole run. If they weren't quite sure about it before, now it was blatantly obvious: The Ford teams had been totally sandbagged.
And on race day, Richard Petty heeded the call to victory lane. Starting third, he led all but 16 laps and was well over one full lap ahead at the checkered flag. It was the first of seven Daytona 500 victories for Petty and one of nine NASCAR Grand National races he won in the '64 season on his way to his first of seven NASCAR championships. But oddly enough, at the start of the following year Petty was sitting on the sidelines. NASCAR had banned the Hemi from competition.
The Swamp Rat's 200-Mph 392 Hemi
Chris Karamesines was clocked at 204.54 mph at Alton, Illinois, in April 1960. In Hobbs, New Mexico, in 1962, Eddie Hill registered a 202.70-mph run. But nobody really and truly accepted that a dragster had run 200 mph in a quarter-mile until it was done in front of the NHRA clocks. That happened on August 1, 1964, when Don Garlits officially ran 201.34 mph at a points meet at Island Dragway in Great Meadows, New Jersey.
In these days of billet Fuel Hemis, the engine in Swamp Rat VI is jaw-slackening to behold. In 1964 racers couldn't just assemble parts off the rack; ad-hoc engineering and experimenting were required. Big's 200 motor was built around a cast-iron 392 Hemi block and heads, and except for a 0.030-inch overbore (total displacement 396 cubes) and a Champion Speed Shop main girdle, the block was stock. The crank was a Mopar piece as well, with center counterweights welded on. Rods and pistons were aluminum from Mickey Thompson, while the heads were treated to a standard port-and-polish job. It was all fairly standard stuff for the time.
It was in the details that all the thought and effort were revealed. The valvesprings were 409 Chevy, while the valves came from a secret source, carefully recontoured and resized to 2.075 inches on the intakes and 1.950 inches on the exhausts. The tuneup featured 11 percent blower overdrive, an 8.2:1 compression ratio, chilly N54 Champion plugs, and 32 degrees of spark lead to light the 90 percent nitro blend (5 percent benzol, 5 percent methanol). Garlits felt that controlling the heat in the supercharger was the key to getting this aggressive setup down the track, so he insisted on using brand-new 6-71 blowers straight from the GMC dealer, never used or rebuilt, which he then clearanced to his own fussy specs. It worked, and the 201 at Great Meadows was no fluke. He'd already run 200 at Detroit the week before. And like Babe Ruth calling his shot, Big Daddy then flatly announced he would win at Indy as well. That would be the first of his eight U.S. Nationals victories.
Ford's '67 Le Mans-Winning 427 V-8
Here's an odd little fact about the 427 Ford FE engine: With a bore of 4.23 inches and a stroke of 3.78 inches, its actual displacement was 424.9 ci. But Ford decided to call it a 427, maybe because that was the displacement limit then in effect in NASCAR and NHRA, where the big-block V-8 was designed to compete. Or maybe 427 just sounded cooler. But despite the 2.1ci shortfall, the 427 still made a great drag racing and stock car motor. And while it was not originally designed for the role, it made a good road racing engine too, in the Cobra and the Ford GT.
Ford's lead entries in the 24 Hours of Le Mans for 1967 were four new Mk. IV GTs, powered by a not-that-special version of the medium-riser 427. Aluminum heads brought down the weight to 580 pounds, but the side-oiler block, crank, connecting rods, and valvetrain were Dearborn production pieces. With dual-quad induction and a bundle-of-snakes exhaust system-the outer two cylinders on one bank shared their collector with the inner two cylinders on the opposite bank to produce 180-degree scavenging-the 427 produced around 500 hp at 6,400 rpm. This "lazy liters" strategy was thrown against Ferrari's highly strung twin-cam 12.
Observers assumed that codrivers A.J. Foyt and Dan Gurney, at that moment America's two greatest drivers, were Ford's designated rabbits. But that wasn't their plan; they kept a disciplined pace and never put a wheel wrong. As the other Fords stumbled, Gurney and Foyt completed the 24 Hours five laps ahead of the closest Ferrari. The car also won the Index of Efficiency, a special Le Mans award for speed and fuel economy. It was also the first and to this day the only overall victory at Le Mans for an American car, engine, and drivers.
That very car is now on display at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, in exactly the same condition in which it won at Le Mans, with one exception: The engine is not the original. After the race, it is said, the winning engine was removed from the car and placed back on the dyno, where it made seven more horsepower than when it was built. So after covering 3,251 miles in 24 hours at an average speed of 135.4 mph, the 427 was just nicely broken in. Where the engine went after that, no one is certain. However, for years one disturbing story made the rounds, like many folk tales perhaps just for its horror value: The engine that Gurney and Foyt used to make history at Le Mans was then installed in a new Mustang for the teenaged son of a Ford executive.
