Good Evening All,
Charette reporting in from Carlisle. It was a beautiful day here and I
just got back to the motel. Man, am I pooped.
Just to add a little grist to the 413 discussion mill, I wanted to suggest we
not overlook the benefits of the "squish and quench" provided by the closed
chamber of the older designs. Even with the same compression, the squish
adds much to the activity of the combustion chamber.
(It's after 11pm, and I can't for the life of me remember what the quench
did... I used to know that. [It's 11pm, do you know where your mind went?])
Also, is it possible that the casting mass and cylinder wall thickness
contribute to quieter operation?
Anyway, I always wondered if there was some reason (other than the
convenience of measuring in 1/16ths of an inch) that the Chrysler Engineers
chose 413 cubic inches. It's sure not like "413" rolls nicely off the
tongue, or that it has any other special significance I can think of. And I
can't imagine the marketing people jumping up and shouting "Make it a 413!!".
Is it possible that it just turned out to be a "sweet" combination of bore
to stroke ratio, rod length, intake port length, etc??? Certainly the later
426's and 440's worked well for high performance use, but wasn't the 413
originally intended to be a smooth, quiet, powerful piece for Imperials and
the like?
And if I'm all wet, why did they continue to use 413's well into the 70's for
medium duty truck use? Why not just use the common 440 at that point?
Thanks,
Steve Charette
Imperial Services
www.imperialservices.net
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