Hot Rods Strangest Homes for Early HEMIs ?

I once heard a first-hand story from a guy who helped his teenage buddy put a 331 Firepower into a '49 bathtub NASH! I thought what a WEIRD combination, BUT my acquaintance said it made for an AWESOME sleeper, especially when some unsuspecting cat came into their small town & lined upbeside the Nash at a stoplight!!!

Now, I know HEMIs have been put into a lot of cars, INCLUDING some really SMALL cars .

SO, WHAT ARE SOME OF THE STRANGER CARS YOU YOURSELF HAVE SEEN EARLY HEMIS IN -- PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, AT CAR SHOWS, ANYPLACE!?!

 

How about a new Mini?

http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/...-mini-campaign-bumper-stickers-and-much-more/

dan

 

That is easily the coolest Mini ever.

 

certainly the loudest early hemi installation . . .

 

That siren is awesome. What a neat old piece.

 

Not an early hemi but still a hemi and its in a weird spot.

 

how about a 51 F-3 with a D-soto

 

WOW! THANKS, Foul! Larry Audette's "MAXE" Mini is a jaw-dropper!!! Bet that radiator was a challenge! LOL (ALSO, check out the old leaning-wheel grader in the background!!! Cool.

 

THANKS, ajMopar! I've heard & heard about THE loudest siren being Hemi-powered, but never saw a PIC 'til now.

Didn't they use the 354 Firepower??

 

Mopar4Life, a 426 in an early bird, WOW! Sheesh the 292 or 312-V8 could even touh THIS horsepower, eh?

ONE nice 'chine !!!

 

Looks like an Industrial Hemi, most of which were 331's and 354's I think.

 

Strangest home for a Hemi I myself ever saw was running a small-time saw mill. That was a DeSoto 330 w. 2-barrel Holley.

I have heard that the industrial versions were used in agriculture a good deal, too. This likes running irrigation pumps & grain driers.

ALSO, according to some stats I saw, the 331 and 354 (maybe others, Dodges) were used in some Dodge pickups. ANYBODY KNOW WHAT YEARS & MODELS???

 

Posted this awhile back of a friends 54 Merc.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=383787

 

Yep, my buddy just s****ped a Chrysler industrial hemi hooked up to an irrigation pump. I wanted to atleast grab the valve covers before it went. Bummer.

 

That actually sounds like quite a cool combination!

I'd like to see an early Hemi in the Daimler version of the Jaguar MkII, in place of the little 2.5-litre Daimler Hemi. I don't know if it's been done.

 

not much of a buddy huh? or a car guy.. or a guy..

 

Well, if you saw the place he was cleaning up, you wouldn't wait around for my slow *** to get out there. Plus, it's been sitting outside uncovered for the better part of 50 years.

 

so.. he s****ped A HEMI! if he had a way to move it then he had a way to get it
to your place, thats what a buddy would do, any of mine would have, evean the one's two states away.

 

Two, or possibly three Muntz Jets were special ordered with early hemi mills from the factory. One was recently donated to the Peterson Museum with the hemi intact.

 

A friend of mine owned a recycling yard and a 331 industrial came in I
believe it was on an aircompressor or a sandblaster he saved it and sent it to a local high school auto mechanics cl*** where the students rebuilt it and now its in his shop waiting for the right home.

 

When I was a kid, there was a guy across the street from Grandfather in rural West Virginia, had a sawmill using 2 big hemi's to turn the 5' tall blade. I loved watching and listening to that. He had a hand control setup with separate throttles. To a 16 year old car nut that thing was music. I wanted to steal one and bring it home with me even though I had nothing to put in.

 

We had a 2 barrel hemi in autoshop cl*** in High School.
The teacher said it was used on a big irrigation sprinkler in western Kansas.
Who knew.

 

Shyynx, THAT's a COOL story! What BETTER engine for YOUNG mechanics to cut their teeth on, eh???

 

TotallyCustom, you are sure RIGHT about the Muntz Jet. Earl Muntz bouth the equipment of Frank Kurtis (Kurtis Kraft cars, '48-'50) & started his WON car, the Muntz Jet, from '51-'54.

A**** the early ones in the run, a small handful ran Chrysler 331 Hemis. Problem was, the Jets were crafted on a Henry J ch***is which, even beefed up, couldn't handle the Hemi, so Munz swithched engines.

Racer Briggs Cunningham orn the 331 on the open-wheel circuit, once winning a second, in France, despite the WEIGHT of the motor.

ALSO, the popular (but costly) Franco-American hybrid FACEL-VEGAs ran BOTH DeSoto and Chrysler Hemis in their earlier models in the mid- to late-'50s.

 

'course, I meant, Cunningham RAN the 331 . . .

Also, hemispherical combustion chambers appeared in a NUMBER of military airplanes. Notably, the British aernautical engineers used them on the water-cooled Spitfire V-12 that helped win the Battle of Britain (and the Brits SHARED the engine dies -- made by Rolls-Royce) with, I believe, Allison Aircraft in the U.S. And I thin these Allisons found their way into the P-38 dual-fuselage Lightning.

ALSO, Chrysler engineers did a TON of work on a 4,000-hp Hemi, which was tried out in a modified P-47 Thunderbolt. The war ended before the big engine could be produced in numbers for the big plane, BUT CHRYSLER ENGINEERS & THEIR BOSS, K. T. KELLER WERE CONVINCED A PRACTICAL HEMI COULD BE BUILT FOR AUTOMOBILES!!!

WHAT AN INTERESTING HISTORY -- THIS HEMI ENGINE, EH?

 

I can't be the only one who remembers the ebay auction a few years ago where the guy wanted like $10,000 for an early Chrysler Hemi and you never really saw what car it was in but they claimed it was in a '66 Chevelle.

Only an idiot s****s a Hemi these days, that's like throwing money away, but I've seen it happen a few times by people who should have known better.

 

I have had two odd ones, a 354 in a '55 IH Church bus I helped swap in as a kid, and I just a few years ago drove a forklift with an early Hemi in it to move some paper rolling machines, an air drier and some lathes from a defunct company.

That thing ran so smooth, and the hydraulics were great. I couldn't believe my eyes when I lifted the top to check the fluids.

 

I never saw it but I heard of and believe that a guy was doing portable welding with a Blown DeSoto powered welder around Sactramento

 

Bill, TWO interesting Hemi apps here, and first-hand, too!!! The forklift would be special by itself, BUT I'll bet NOT MANY an IH ever received a hemi transplant!!!

 

Would the 354 hemi heads flow enough to justify using a street blower? I found a 354 hemi being used on a irriagtion well. It's now going in my 28 ford.