OK, I pulled heads and the cam from my 330 FireFlite last night. I'm planning to send the cam off to Clay Smith for a regrind. George at Clay Smith Cams recommended that I also switch to SS valves, so out of curiousity I pulled an intake and an exhaust valve from one of the heads. I thought they were the stock valves. Interestingly a magnet will stick to the intake valve, but not the exhaust valve. So the question is: Did the DeSoto's come with SS exhaust valves from the factory? Thanks
I went thru 5 sets of 330 heads to find 1 pair of uncracked heads & never saw a s/s valve in the bunch. I would assume that they were installed AFTER the fact for whatever reason. But it is a Chrysler product so ya just never know. I have seen 1 set of Chrysler 331 heads that had S/S valves in the exhaust, but cant prove if they are stock or not. I WOULD SAY NOT.. BUT I HAVE BEEN WRONG BEFORE I bought my S/S valves from a place called HD MADDOGG RACING, They sell stuff all the time on E~BAY and they were almost 1/2 the cost of HEMI HOT HEADS. I took them to my machine shop, WILLIAMS MACHINE IN VENTURA.. Yes, The same WILLIAMS MACHINE that owned the now famous BARN FIND rolleyes WILLIAMS BROS 1955 BONNIVILLE ROADSTER that has been in rodders journal & this months Hot Rod. John at W/M said they were a quality valve. I run them in my now 346 cu. in. DeSoto with 11.5~1 pistons
I still have the original valves left over from my 330 DeSoto rebuild so I went out to the garage and checked them with a magnet (intake and exhaust). Both sets are regular steel. BTW, when I redid the heads I used Chevy 1.94 SS valves; just made up guides that would accept the smaller diameter valve stem; all the other dimentions were the same!!
Great info people! Thank you very much!! DeSoto, How many grooves do your SS valves have for the retainer locks?
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