what made chrysler 300 so hot??

I suppose that can be said to be true, as the 1954 Mercedes 300SL made MORE than 1hp/1CI, so it was not truly 1 for 1....too bad Mercedes didn't think to cut 35 or so HP and become famous for that...
Cosmo
BTW, production was over 3200 cars, so not too limited.

 

The fact is what a Mopar.....sorry, couldn't help it.

 

Here's a pic of a 1955 Chrysler 300/331 Hemi in my Merc.Any idea what the Hemi is worth since I think there were only 1700 Chrysler 300 Hemi's in 1955.

 

Excuse for a Supercharger then, forget adapting a ballencer

 

If you add K to the 300

...you get a 413 wedge.

 

Tom McCahill was pretty drunk when he wrote a lot of that stuff.

 

And sending a manuscript to the printer is alot like firing a gun. Making changes to the print is as easy as getting the bullet back.......now if we could just clean up some of the information on the web...


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John Lazenby explains what made a Chrysler 300 so hot:

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John bought our '57 Chrysler 300C Coupe in 1995 ... and is an avid collector / restorer of Chrysler's:

* 1955 Chrysler New Yorker Deluxe Town & Country
* 1955 Imperial Newport
* 1955 Chrysler C300 (Tango Red)
* 1956 Chrysler 300B (Cloud White)
* 1957 Chrysler 300C Coupe (Jet Black)
* 1960 Chrysler 300F Coupe (Alaskan White)

Some nice pics of his 300 "letter cars" can be viewed by clicking HERE.

 

I have an old VHS cassette titled "Mopar Legends" that has that guy in it. The '55 C300 is complete and the '56 is a beautifully detailed rolling chassis. He has all the Letter cars I want, in the colors I want!!

 

For weighing over two tons, it was still faster than a Corvette. Only the best went into those cars. 4-Speeds were also available in 1960 (300F). I always wanted a '63 300J (390 HP).

 

Danny (@Gotgas) ... I have that "CHRYSLER LEGENDS" VHS tape too ... in fact, there's a kinda cool story involving that video ...

I was at the check-out counter of my local KRAGEN Auto Parts store when a small picture on a VHS tape box caught my eye (the headlights, brake air duct & bumper of a black '57-'59 Chrysler 300) ... the "CHRYSLER LEGENDS" video was on the clearance table ... and only $6! ... so I bought it.

Later that day, I popped the tape into my VHS player and began to watch it. About 21 minutes into the video (after the segments on Lazenby's Tango Red C300 & 300B chassis) there is a segment on Wayne Graefen's '57 300C Convertible. I knew Wayne from the 300 club ... and he had purchased a complete 1956 300B (354ci) HEMI engine from me back in 1991. Just as I called some of my family members into the TV room to watch the segment on Wayne's '57, the phone rang!

You guessed it ... it was Wayne ... He and a "buddy" just happened to be up in Northern California and had seen one of my "FOR SALE" flyers on the wall of men's room @ the Turlock swap meet (I know ... way too much information).

Wayne asked if he & his buddy (John Lazenby) could come out to the house and look at our '57 300C:



... the rest, as they say, is history!


NOTE: More pics and info on the car can be found in my '57 300 C Album ... just click HERE.

 

Ever weigh one? Tank is an understatement.

 

Great story, stunning car.

 

I've still got one in the warehouse, unrestored.



Expensive to restore correctly.

 

That's why I was looking for a New Yorker or a Fireflite/'Dome coupe, you get a Hemi and can do what you want with it.

HEMI32 - that is a neat story. I have talked to Wayne in the past, he seems like a really nice guy with great taste in cars. PM coming.

 

How on EARTH did I miss this? Great conversation we're having here. Nothing to add except that I think they are beutiful cars and had DAMN nice engines!

 

I have a very good friend who owns a 1955 300 in white with 12,000 original miles. He has owned this car for nearly 30 years and has won many best of shows. He also has a standing invite to the Chrysler display at the Woodward dream cruise. I wish I had a picture to post. It's an amazing car.

 

The '55 head runner angle/profile is unique to all of the Chrysler seven different head configurations ('51-'53, '54, '55, '56, '57-'58). The valve angle, in the head, is the same for all heads, otherwise the rocker assemblies wouldn't be interchangeable.

 

The biggest problem, other than the transmission choice mentioned above, is the small-port heads. They're worthless, especially if you want to run something other than the 2-bbl coolant-heated carburetor that came on the engine. ALL aftermarket intake manifolds use the larger ('54 and later) intake port configuration resulting in a severe port mismatch (which does wonders for storing raw fuel in a puddle in each runner).

The exhaust ports are, similarly, tiny. They're round as opposed to oval like the '54 and later heads.

The only head that's a direct bolt-on is the'54 head. 1954 was Chrysler's LOWEST production year so.....the '54 heads are the rarest.

Another "issue" is the placement of the thermostat runners. It's between the first and third, second and forth intake runners, thus placing the thermostat in the intake manifold. Same goes for '54. At least '54 had a 4-bbl carb but the carb flange has pitifully small ports. The '51-'54 motors are tough to fit a blower onto because you need to tap into the manifold between the two front intake runners on each side to get the coolant out and into the radiator. Multi-carb setups are a bit easier to modify for coolant flow but blower manifolds are tough.




'54 heads on a '53 (extended bellhousing) block with a Cragar intake

In '55 the thermostat was re-located to a casting bolting to the front of the heads. This left a pair of diamond-shaped ports on the front side of the heads and made it simple to put a blower manifold on top.

 

Great thread, guys: Just why the early 300s were the King of the HP Hill.

I do think "RustyNewYorker" is right about the '57 Daytona Speed Trials. I seriously doubt that DeSoto's fab '57 Adventurer 345 dual-four (w. 345 hp) even appeared, since, in 1956, the '56 Adventurer hi-deck 341 outran the 354 Chrysler 300 lo-deck in the flying mile. The FIRST round was the ONLY round the DeS ran, so obviously, because they had showed up the parent make. They had less cubes BUT longer stroke (3.8", I seem to recall). The story goes that the Chrysler team had a talk with the DeSoto team after that first round, followed by the DeS team retiring -- official reason "engine trouble."

As far as Tom McCahill, I don't know how much he drank, but it's well known he owned several 300s and praised their power, speed and road-hugging qualities. (He wasn't shy about putting down other new models that he thought missed the mark, either.) But, even Tom couldn't mask the declining 300 speeds after the 392 got retired. We could debate details, but for my money, the Hemi-powered 300s -- with their extras cubes over Dodge & DeSoto -- were in a unique class apart in American auto history.

One other thing, guys: Tim Flock won the '55 NASCAR championship in a 300 (331-CID), and in '56 Buck Baker did the same, driving a 300 (354-CID). Both drivers piloted for Karl Keikhaffer during the short two seasons Karl's Mercury Marine engineers specially prepared the Hemis for racing. Though Karl had not broken any rules, he caught so much flak from other teams (for winning TOO much?) that he pulled MM sponsorship after '56.

Now, what puzzles me is that I have not found any info on how the new hi-deck 392 performed in NASCAR in '57 and '58, after Keikhaffer's departure from the circuit. SURELY, someone ELSE wanted to run the BIGGEST (at that time) Chrysler Hemi in Nascar, especially after Flock and Baker's success (!). ANYBODY out there have any hard facts about the '57 and '58 Chrysler 300 in NASCAR?

 

This was the optional engine in the '56 300B. The standard engine was a 340HP 354 hemi. The difference was the extra compression. Not too many 'B' cars got that engine. It's like the '60 300F, which was the first car with 400HP as an option. It was available, but how many were made? How many got the 4-speed (crappy French transmission)? 5?

 

It WAS the '57 Speed Trials at Daytona..Desoto's "Last Hurrah". After the 345 DeSoto Adventurer made it's first of the 2 way required Speed Trial runs...into the wind incidentally, it had blown away the first of the Chrysler 300's runs. The Chrysler Management present IMMEDIATELY collared the Head of the DeSoto Team and told them, in so many words, that the DeSoto was NOT to out run the 300 on it's second run (with the wind)...PERIOD, or heads would roll. The DeSoto ran 10 MPH slower on it's second run, allowing the 300 Team to take the win. That is a documented fact, easily found in print from a number of sources. Another documented fact is the first 1 HP/ 1 CI STANDARD (NOT optional) engine...

 

Officially Karl dropped out of racing because cutomers were boycotting his Mercury Marine business because of winning too much with too many cars in the stable. I suspect GM was behind it.

 

I've wondered the same thing. I've never seen any '57-58 Chryslers or DeSotos in any Nascar images or video of the time. Always Plymouths and Dodges.

However, I have seen a competition-prepped '59 DeSoto that was pretty cool! I've never seen any Chrysler 300s outside of the '55-56 models. Seems strange since the 300s were famous for hauling ass...

 

Looks like I missed this awhile back...There are still plenty of Edmunds intakes floating around with the small ports, so 'all' is not really 'all' unless your shopping in a current catalogue.


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The '56 Chrysler was the first, not the DeSoto.

 

It was the hemi combustion chamber domed with big valves , this is where they got there power.

 

I think the point they are making is about standard equipment engines. The '56 300B was first, but it was an optional dual-quad engine with a big cam and high compression. The '57 Adventurer was the first production car with 1hp per ci without an optional engine upgrade.

Aside from the Mercedes 300SL mentioned above, but it also wasn't a regular production car per se.

They were all pretty fast for their day.

 

Yeah man, you don't have one? I three in the garage out back.....

 

My brother-in-law worked closely with Chrysler in the 70's and 80's as they supplied engines and drive trains for the large motor home his company produced. He told me back in 1975 that Chrysler had three grades of engines 1's, 2's and 3's. The larger the number, the more care that was taken in production and the more 'select parts' were used. Also
tolerances were held closer and care was taken that the tolerances didnt add up in the wrong direction.

SO it is possible that the 300 hemis got special care - and parts.

I think HemiRambler hit the nail on the head.