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Joe, what a coincidence you should mention Tom
Hoover's hemi powered 57 Plymouth convertible. There's a five-page article
about this car in the September 1962 issue of Cars magazine, which I just picked
up off eBay a few weeks. ago. Wild looking motor, with two in line
four barrels on a sheet metal plenum chamber sitting over the passenger side
valve cover, with individual pipes to the ports. The pipes were reported
to be of different lengths and diameters which would make different cylinders
reach peak power at a different RPM and theoritically would allow tuning over a
broad RPM range rather than for one specific engine speed. He even ran
different compression ratios on opposite sides of the motor, one bank having
10.25, the other 10.6 to one. No wonder he had tuning issues.
Curtis
56 Belvedere club sedan
59 Coronet 2 door hardtop
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, April 29, 2002 12:30
PM
Subject: Re: [FWDLK] 57 Plymouth
hemi??
Regarding 392's in
Plymouths:
While I was working at the Chrysler Central Engineering
Carburetor Lab, one of the Student engineers (Tom Hoover) who was very
interested in performance issues, installed a 392 in his '57 or '58 Plymouth
Convertible, with parts gleaned from Engineering. I don't remember if it
was a Fury or not.
Being a Fury or not was immaterial, because
it would have only been a transitory thing with Tom. The engine was
extremely "built" at least to C300 specs and beyond. He wanted us to
help a little bit with drivability so we took it for a ride, but he already
had the performance part well covered. (He scared the living daylights
out of me, and I was a Test Driver!)
Ah, the good old days!!!!
Joe Savard
Lake Orion, Michigan
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