Thread: 1968 Plymouth Valiant 1st Gen HEMI

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We’re still moving forward. With the engine placed I got the motor mount perches tacked on to the K member. Naturally the welder started screwing up but fortunately the K member will be coming out which will make it a lot easier to do the grinding and final welding. We also got the engine ready to pull off the run stand so we could get the pan changed out.

We pulled the intake off and I took it over to the machine shop to have about 3/8” milled off the center divider. While the intake was at the machine shop I got the chain hoist off the mockup engine and when I brought the intake back I decided to set it on the engine and see where I was height wise.

zz HR by M Patterson, on Flickr

NOT GOOD It’s hard to get a good perspective from this angle but the top of the carb is above the hood line. I would definitely need to talk to Robert about borrowing his teardrop scoop stretcher to run this intake.

Much as I hated to, it was time to start looking at different intakes. First up (mostly because I had access to one) was a factory single 4 BBL intake.

zz Factotry by M Patterson, on Flickr

It was better, it put the carb over an inch lower, but I’d still need to cut a hole in the hood for an air cleaner. After some thinking I came to the conclusion that the only intake I was aware of that was lower than the factory 4 BBL intake would be would be the 57-58 factory dual quad intake (and possibly the Weiand 7263 which I believe is basically just a copy of the factory unit). I think the dual quad intake might actually allow me to run an unmodified flat hood. This would be the same setup I ran on the 57. I’m kind of burned out on dual quads (I actually wanted to run the single 4 BBL so I could play with EFI later on). That being said, I do have a spare pair of carbs set up for dual quads and the linkage on hand so t wouldn’t be too bad to set up the engine. So far I haven’t come across an intake but I just started putting the word out that I’m hunting.

Yesterday we went ahead and pulled the engine off the stand so we could trade out the rear sump pan for the center sump one.

zz Pans by M Patterson, on Flickr

zz PU 2 by M Patterson, on Flickr

I didn’t have too much trouble locating a center sump pan when I started this project (I actually ended up with 2 of them). The problem was nobody listed a new pickup for them. I knew the SB Mopar from 64 thru the early 80s was the same basic profile as the center sump 392 pan. The oil pump I was using is one of Hot Heads modified HV 340 oil pumps. I could find the SB oil pick-ups new and figured it should work so I took a chance and ordered one.

pickup by M Patterson, on Flickr

and fortunately it fit just fine.

zz PU 3 by M Patterson, on Flickr

We finished up yesterday putting the engine (sans intake ) back on the run stand.


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