And here's the patent document: http://www.google.com/patents?id=xY...008&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=0_1#PPA5,M1 Patent number: 2669227
Go for it. The actual pattent is not coppyrighted, and even if I'm wrong and it is, it has long since expired.
Errrrrrr... The patent doesn't claim the hemi design (which was already over 40 years old). The claim is for some anti-knock changes in chamber shape.
Chrysler's first Hemi was a 2220 cube inverted V16 aircraft engine, 1944. Arkus Duntov made hemi heads long before Chrysler. (Ardun)
It's rather like Fords engine patents of the late twenties and early thirties I posted... whole engine involved, but limited claims. Just marking territory, establishing a proprietary stamp on a package. Lotta things everyone was doing...piston and rod redesign to lower engine package, lots of thought about suitability for developing trend to very high compression, and of course the big leap forward in displacment that the new OHV's represented. Chrysler put notable attention into breathing...GM wasn't thinking about that yet. Their early designs had power curves when souped that dropped dead at about the same R's as their flathead competitors...note that it took the Chrysler to reall displace the flathead at high end racing. Engine patent claims are usually very limited because so many of the elements are so basic no matter how developed. Even a radical rocker arm like these is still about the same thing as a Mesopotamian well sweep...
The Jalopy Journal
