Have a chance to pick up an old 61 Dodge short box that is pretty good, ie: no rust, very minor dings, could stand atuneup for cheap. Thought it would make a pretty good shop truck but it has a slant six. I know next to nothing about then except that they look pretty cool. Are they reliable? What about economy and power? Any aftermarket stuff available? This doesn't have to be a tire smoker but would like to keep up on the freeway. I'm sure some of you can tell me what I need to know about these motors.
reliable? i ran mine with out oil trying to blow it up still runs to this day there are some good lookin dress up and hop up parts for the 225
I have one in my 41. I like it cause its different and has let me pass by buds at the gas station. My sedan gets about 22 milesper gallon on the highway. I had one motor idrove for 4 years with 5psi oil and never did quit me. Just change it out with a newer one. The trucks had a super six, 2bbl carband intake. cars had a single bbl. they make lots of styles of split manfolds amd intakes from4bbl and two twos. the location of the starter high or low on the tranny is just one of the main differances for your choice of split manifolds. I would not hesitate in a Oklahoma minute.
we call them the "leaning tower of power" "buzzin half dozen" ....Another one of the chrysler over engineered products normal maintence , live forever ..
Slantsix.org (.org NOT .com ..oh god, not that) is the first and last word on these engines. They are great guys like here but talk nothing otherthan slants morning, noon, and night. Decideably, I would calassify the site as 'more than you would/could ever WANT to know'....watch out for SlantSixDan... he'll set you straight, that is if you can warmup to his grumpiness first-he knows and sees all. word!
Had a buddy that actually blew one up years ago. The #5 rod comes through the block and hammers the starter. He replaced the starter, shoved the rod up inside the hole in the block and drove the damned thing another year with a hole in the block! Ran pretty good on 5 cylinders. They are tough old mills. Gene
What car show/track meet is complete without the traditional ceremony 'see how long the slant will run without oil' event at the end of the weekend? they used to hold it every year.
Beware of the plastic distributor gears.....if you drop the screw while changing the points and don't get it out....it will jam and break the gear......just make it a habit to pull the distributor when changing points (if so equipped).
Do a search for Doug Dutra (headers) Try Mopar Muscle.com, There are a couple of web sites that offer lots of info Slant Six.com etc. I have one in a 63 dart thats pretty used up and still runs 15.40 et's.
I just picked one up too and here is what i know. The mains are the same size as the 426 hemi. Steel crank. It's the only slant six that was actually desiged that way and not a straight six placed at an angle. Mechanical tappets. The head is chrome alloy cast iron. Aluminum alloy tin coated pistons. Valves are carbon manganese steel for intake and Nitrogen treated manganese chromium nickel steel. Wedge type combustion chamber with 8.2:1 compression. Oil psi should be 45-60 at 1000rpm. You can find a butt load of performance parts for them cheap, I mean cheap on the ebay. There was an aluminum engine offered in the 63 Valiants and has a AT-22 code stamped on it. From what I've learn in the few weeks I've had mine I've found that you'll need a service manual to work on or rebuild these engine. They have some finiky stuff that has to be done correctly, not like the old 235 Chevy that anybody can throw together and get it running. And like the guy said above, only weak spot I've found is the distributor gear. Other than that, I originally thought I would pull it and replace with a V8 but, the more I find out about these motors, the more I want to make the slanty work. Good luck and if you do a build up, please let me in on it. Thanks.
Check out this supercharged EFI /6 '60 Dodge. I'm am going to do something similar to this on my 47. http://www.projectplato.com/cars/bigredhome.html
My Dad had one in a 76 Dodge Van. He used to install carpet for a living when I was growing up in the 70's. It was dependable and he got his money's worth out of it. The van stayed loaded with tools and carpet all the time except for family excursions. We drove that thing everywhere including vacations. I think it finally blew a head gasket then he sold it. I've seen them with headers/duals which sound pretty cool. I think Hooker headers used to make a set that would fit. See if this link works. http://www.holley.com/5602HKR.asp
Somebody mentioned the distributor drive gear (plastic) breaking. Also, the headgaskets on two of mine were made of steel and as they corrode, they blow. It happens slowly, it leaks combustion pressure into the water system and as a result, blows water out of the rad. The Felpro gasket set works great and while the head is off, clean up some of the sharp edges in the combustion chamber, it will cure the pinging.
The secret with Dodge, is that NAPA seems to have every obscure part you would think no one would have anymore.
Slight clarification; Forged steel crank up to '74. Changed over to cast during '75, so it's a crap shoot which one you get. After '75 all slants were cast crank. The cranks do not interchange, as the rod width got smaller on the cast cranks. Correct, but after '79, they were changed over to hydraulics. Compression ratios were actually a little "loose", so it ranged between 7.8-8.4, give or take a bit. "Advertised" ratio was 8.2. Then I must be one tightwad SOB, cause I don't consider the stuff I see on Ebay as "cheap". Clsoe, but not quite right. The aluminum engine was offered for the '61 model year, and a few made it into '62 cars. By '63, it was apparent that the aluminum engine had sealing problems with the head gasket, and lack of sealing surface. (Open deck design) As cast iron was cheaper and easier to do............. He's right on this. Get a GOOD manual for it, and you'll be money ahead in the long run. Correct again. I will add that as of late, the aftermarket hard parts has been less than desirable with the replacement oil pump drive gears. Not hard enough, and have a tendency to take out the cam gear, along with leaving you with no oil pressure. (Both gears get driven off the same hobbed cam gear.) Good for you, Aman. It's not very often that folks see the "promise" in what was Mopar's baseline "workhorse" engine. It's nice to see that you didn't fall for the cookie-cutter V8 mentality. For anyone else interested, Slantsix.com seems to be down for the count. No one has been able to post since early december, and the fullest folders have been cleaned and deleted. It now looks like the best (and only) slant community is Slantsix.org. Allpar is more an informational site, and covers most Mopar stuff. Roger
Thanks guys, didn't realize, but I'm pretty much sold. Will go buy this thing tomorrow if it's still available. I think the hood on it will look great with a hunnert and a half or so louvers hehehe
got a slant six in my 61 dart. the crank broke in two at about 75,000 miles. it still ran, just vibrated like crazy... rebuilt the whole thing. got about 130,000 on it now.
i was thinking the reason they werent as desirable was because blocks were prone to corrode from passing the same coolant over two dissimilar metals. you know what i mean, galvanic corrosion. my grandfather loved his lancer gt with the pushbutton gears, it was the only stripped down car he ever owned. not once did it ever develop a head leak. in fact most "modern" engines are open deck in design.
********************************************* Hmmm....That's an issue I forgot to mention. You are correct as far as the corrosion issue is concerned, but the biggest problem was that there was a rather small area for the head gasket to seal on. With dissimilar expansion/contraction issues, the head bolts would lose a bit of torque and the gasket would start leaking. I suggest your Grandpa was one of the lucky ones concerning his aluminum slant. I'm not suggesting that the open deck design is inherently problematic, but the technologies have come a long ways since 1960-61. Roger
I don't know if it would help with an aluminum slant 6 but one of the tricks that goes along with getting big hp numbers from modern open-deck motors is to pin the cylinders in place. A lot of Honda engines have this done to them to keep the cylinders from walking due to the lack of support on the top from the open deck design. I know it's O/T so I won't go into details but you can find the procedure easily enough with a Google search. Shawn
Good luck with the bulid. Hope you get it. I just learned a whole lot of great info from this thread. I'm getting ready to plop a 225 Down in my 52' Plymouth. Do some research. I have a friend, an older cat that I work with as a Garbage truck Tech., and he mentioned that years ago he worked on fleet vehichles/Dodge vans and trucks with a slant 6. Now mind you this was a fleet vehicle and maybe a bit of preferece thrown in. He said he abosolutly hated those motors. The truck motors were different than the ones used in the cars and the were always breaking down. If anyone has more info and insight on this, let us know. Mine came out of a 70 Barracuda and I believe Flathead said his was in a truck.
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