What Makes a Police Fury a Pursuit Car?

PontiacJim

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Well, I did not see any thread that specifically noted those items that were added or different on a standard 440 police car versus what I have always known as an "Interceptor." Now I have seen the threads stating Ford coined the phrase "Interceptor," but coming from Connecticut, those baby blue state police 440 pursuit cars were called "Interceptors" by everyone I knew who were into cars.

A friend bought an Interceptor at a state auction for $500 around 1981 or '82 -I was 23 years old. He brought it to the house and it rumbled like any other muscle car of the day, and I had my GTO's and a few other cars, so I know a hot sounding car. The car was a 1973 440 Interceptor. It had the trans cooler, power steering cooler, and it had a low gear lock out so you could not manually pull it down into low gear. It had the special "Police" identified tires on the side wall of the blackwall tires, police steel rims with the small hubcaps w/cooling holes. It had the 140MPH Certified speedo, front & rear sway bars. He said he got it up to 120 (back in the days when speed limits were 55MPH) and handled as good as it did doing 30 MPH - you could not tell you were doing 120. He said he did not want to go any faster, but pushing down on the gas the car had no problem accelerating and going for more. He sold the car after a couple months. Reason: it only got 10 MPG and as young guys with low paying jobs at that time, he could not afford to drive it. I wished he had told me he was going to sell it as I might have bought it from him myself.

Fast forward to 2016. A security guard I know was at one time a police officer for a short term ( he was a car mechanic by trade) in a small town. He said the cars were all Plymouth Furies. He said there was one car that stood out among all the others. It ran the best, never broke down or needed repairs like the others, and was the fastest. He said one of the young cops claimed the car for his own and he used to race all over with the car burning rubber every chance he got. After burning off a set of rear tires in 500 miles, the Captain banned him from driving the car. He said the car had a real rumble to it. I told him it was probably an "Interceptor."

Now, from what I have read, the 440 Interceptor engine was the same as the 440 Six-Pack engine except with the 4-Bbl carb. I also read that the Interceptor's had a double panel roof in the event of a roll-over.

That said, what makes an "Interceptor" an "Interceptor" as opposed to a 440 Police cruiser?
 
Take the Interceptor and put it back on the ford it belongs on.......Mopar packages have only ever been known as A38, Pursuit and Patrol....or variations of those......

Now back to your questions.....No double roof panel....optional roof reinforcement meant for lightning so it didn't crush the roof skin....

And they did handle as well at high speeds as they did at low speeds, my father in laws Pursuit package Fury's would run 140 MPH no problem and hold the road at those speeds without issue.
 
Well, I did not see any thread that specifically noted those items that were added or different on a standard 440 police car versus what I have always known as an "Interceptor." Now I have seen the threads stating Ford coined the phrase "Interceptor," but coming from Connecticut, those baby blue state police 440 pursuit cars were called "Interceptors" by everyone I knew who were into cars.

A friend bought an Interceptor at a state auction for $500 around 1981 or '82 -I was 23 years old. He brought it to the house and it rumbled like any other muscle car of the day, and I had my GTO's and a few other cars, so I know a hot sounding car. The car was a 1973 440 Interceptor. It had the trans cooler, power steering cooler, and it had a low gear lock out so you could not manually pull it down into low gear. It had the special "Police" identified tires on the side wall of the blackwall tires, police steel rims with the small hubcaps w/cooling holes. It had the 140MPH Certified speedo, front & rear sway bars. He said he got it up to 120 (back in the days when speed limits were 55MPH) and handled as good as it did doing 30 MPH - you could not tell you were doing 120. He said he did not want to go any faster, but pushing down on the gas the car had no problem accelerating and going for more. He sold the car after a couple months. Reason: it only got 10 MPG and as young guys with low paying jobs at that time, he could not afford to drive it. I wished he had told me he was going to sell it as I might have bought it from him myself.

Fast forward to 2016. A security guard I know was at one time a police officer for a short term ( he was a car mechanic by trade) in a small town. He said the cars were all Plymouth Furies. He said there was one car that stood out among all the others. It ran the best, never broke down or needed repairs like the others, and was the fastest. He said one of the young cops claimed the car for his own and he used to race all over with the car burning rubber every chance he got. After burning off a set of rear tires in 500 miles, the Captain banned him from driving the car. He said the car had a real rumble to it. I told him it was probably an "Interceptor."

Now, from what I have read, the 440 Interceptor engine was the same as the 440 Six-Pack engine except with the 4-Bbl carb. I also read that the Interceptor's had a double panel roof in the event of a roll-over.

That said, what makes an "Interceptor" an "Interceptor" as opposed to a 440 Police cruiser?

Welcome Jim.....I like your enthusiasm!

The Fury Pursuit was a great police car. They are somewhat legendary in actual L.E. circles, more L.E. agencys had Fury Pursuits than any other Pursuit package car. Then of course there is the "holiest of holy", the 1969 Dodge Polara Pursuit CHP.

MrMopar's 1969 California Highway Patrol restoration

I'll let others chime in but,....... the Fury or Dodge Pursuit could be had in either 383HP form, 440HP-360 horsepower form, known as the Pursuit Commando, or the 440HP-375 horsepower form known as the Pursuit Super Commando. The "6-pack" motor would have been a 1970 option of a 70 440HP 4bbl. with "six pack" internals.
 
I have heard the following from someone who built the motors for the police cars back in the day at the factory. In addition to the attendant heavy duty suspension cooling and brake components that cop cars were equipped with, police motors were built on a separate assembly line.

The motors were not specifically any different from street motors and no special cam shafts or high compression heads or extra special valves etc were used as is often rumoured. The only difference from a street motor was the fact that all the parts were hand picked and balanced and then assembled to what is termed "design tolerances" - essentially a factory balanced and blueprinted motor. This hand built attention to detail went to all the components of the engine, from head - as opposed to the quick style "grab 8 pistons and rods from the bin and slap it together" assembly line. Other procedures like super rinsing the blocks out to remove casting sand etc were performed as well.

This is not to say that a well put together factory street motor couldn't perform as well as a cop motor... and given the way things were, one would think that the odd street motor did make it out with the right selection of parts and a well fed and watered worker in a good mood just after lunch on a Wednesday putting it together and all went well... and of course we've all heard the stories out there to back that up! lol... "yeah - my friend's uncle's second cousin had a Newport that the cops could never catch"... that sort of thing.

As for the difference between a street motor and a cop motor? Well, my 66 Monaco 440 4-speed has a factory police motor in it, and the difference is STARTLING to say the least. I have yet to find the top end in it - I run out of stones well before the car does... and as for off the line performance, this video will say a lot - after gently walking the car out I simply put my foot down, in gear, at 20 mph, and the near 5,000 pound car just anhilates the tires. At the time the car was running its' original points distributor too...



The guy who took the video had at the time a 68 300 with the 440 Super Commando 375 horse motor and a Torqueflite in it. He was following me to go to MoparFest, and when we got on the on ramps to the highway, I would just put my foot down in 3rd, and he said I just pulled away from him as if he was going backwards. He was HARD in it, floored, winding it out passing gear, and just knew it was hopeless to try and keep up. We got up to our shenanigans in the video on the way home... tee hee hee!!
 
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I can only speak for the special CHP build for 69
The only modification from a standard 69 Polara with a HP 440 automatic and AC.

140 MPH Certified speedometer
HD Leece Neville alternator and voltage regulator
Special Amp gauge and high current wiring
HD Wheels
HD Rear shocks
HD Lower Radiator Hose
HD front seat
Relocated spare
White steering wheel
Siren mounting plate and sound hole
Pedal trim delete
Radio delete (with radio dash bezel)

All I can think of at this time.


Alan
 
Take the Interceptor and put it back on the ford it belongs on.......Mopar packages have only ever been known as A38, Pursuit and Patrol....or variations of those......

Now back to your questions.....No double roof panel....optional roof reinforcement meant for lightning so it didn't crush the roof skin....

And they did handle as well at high speeds as they did at low speeds, my father in laws Pursuit package Fury's would run 140 MPH no problem and hold the road at those speeds without issue.



:thankyou:.... crisis averted
 
I can only speak for the special CHP build for 69
The only modification from a standard 69 Polara with a HP 440 automatic and AC.

140 MPH Certified speedometer
HD Leece Neville alternator and voltage regulator
Special Amp gauge and high current wiring
HD Wheels
HD Rear shocks
HD Lower Radiator Hose
HD front seat
Relocated spare
White steering wheel
Siren mounting plate and sound hole
Pedal trim delete
Radio delete (with radio dash bezel)

All I can think of at this time.


Alan

I'm about to blow my reputation as someone who knows a lot and ask some questions that reveal exactly how dumb I am.

Would the police pursuit unibodies not get extra reinforcements, similar to what would have shown up in hemi-powered "B" body cars? Torque boxes, extra brackets welded into corners and so on? Granted by 1969 Chrysler had effectively a decade's worth of experience building unibodies and found and fixed any trouble spots that had shown up as time went along. I'm also wondering if Chrysler increased the gauge of steel used in structural portions of the body. Case in point: The 1960 Valiant was not originally intended to be a 1960 model vehicle. It was mean to be a 1961. 1959 cars were "M" series. 1960 were "P" series but Valiant was "Q" series, meaning it was meant to be a 1961. When Chrysler found out that Ford would bring out the Falcon and Chevrolet the Corvair as 1960 models, there was an edict from on high that Valiant would not be late to the party. A close friend was one of the development engineers on the Valiant project. Because of the time constraints, they chose to deliberately over-engineer certain parts of the unibody (mainly the rocker panels as they served as the longitudinal frame rails). The car launched about early September of 1959 and after about 6 weeks of living in the plant to iron out bugs as they popped up, things had calmed down by mid October and they grabbed a car off the line and took it to Chelsea for testing. The "testing" consisted of putting a metal cutting blade in a skil-saw and making vertical cuts in the rockers and running a combination of the high speed oval and general endurance roads to measure deterioration in handling and body flex. Long story short, once they had about 25 cuts in each rocker panel and there'd been no appreciable deterioration in the car's performance, they knew they could begin what was called "pulling the money out" and lighten the gauge of the steel going into these rockers without the car's performance being compromised. I just keep thinking that something similar might have been in place with the police pursuit unibodies.

I also believe the police pursuit vehicles - especially those for high speed use would have also gotten the biggest front torsion bars made for a "C" body. Reading through the parts catalogue would answer this question. Also, since the front K-frame carries the engine/transmission, front suspension and brake loads transferred into the body, I think they would also have been reinforced. Alan, I will defer to you on all of this.

I spent 4 decades plus working in "V" engine, engine plants, some of which built police car engines (not for Chrysler). In my case, yes, there were some police specific parts in these engines but there was no special assembly line. Engines were batch built according to the model code of the engine (49 state/automatic, 49 state/manual, California/automatic, California/manual, light duty truck/auto, light duty truck/manual and so on. In the early 1970s there were even codes for a/c and non-a/c engines, but the adoption of a/c ruled that out pretty quickly. In the early 1970s, cylinder bores and pistons came in various sizes, each differing by 4/10,000". Pistons were equipped with steel struts located around the pin bores to reinforce this part of the piston and also control expansion caused by heat. Pistons were deliberately machined to an elliptical shape and the running of the engine along with the struts would make the piston round as it ran. Cylinder bore machining in the 1970s was pretty crude - about what your local machine shop can manage now. At its worst, we had 12 different bore & piston sizes. Fast forward to today, and cylinder bore machining has improved exponentially. What was once 12 sizes, is now 3, still with approximately half the step differences between them and generally the equipment can make all bores one size. Going to the second size is considered abnormal and getting to the third size usually causes an invasions of white shirts to find out what the hell is wrong. Tolerances in modern engines are a tiny fraction of what they were in cars from the late '60s/early '70s. Plus they're now measured in millimeters and not inches. Actually, it's not true to say they're measured in millimeters. They're measured in microns. A micron is 1/1000 of a millimeter. A human hair is about 50-75 microns across. In 1970 crankshaft bore concentricity (the alignment of each of the intermediate bores to the end bores) was considered really good if it was .003. Today "good" is considered to be 5-8 microns. Crankshaft bores and cam bores are ground to size, they're aren't done with cutting tools. Cylinder bores have been ground to size since the 1920s. Cylinder blocks for a very long time were made of cast iron. It wears well and it's a good sound absorber. But the focus now is on weight, and aluminum has to a great extent taken over. For quite a while nobody could figure out how to make an aluminum cylinder bore live in the rear world (see 1970 Chevrolet Vega), so steel sleeves were pressed into place and finished. Something that large diesel trucks do to this day. Automotive technology has moved on from pressed in sleeves to spray welding. The aluminum cylinder bores are machined and deliberately left rough (about 300-400 microinches) The bores are then sprayed with a very specialized welding rod and a layer about .050 - .060" thick is deposited. This layer is then machined and finished, with the material left about .010 - .012" thick. And the surface finish is now down in the range of 0 to 1 microinch. Basically mirror smooth.

As for the 440hp engines getting six-pak internals, that would have been a very easy thing to do at the engine plant. The cylinder heads would have been assembled at the end of the cylinder head department and moved to the engine assembly line for installation. Piston and rod assemblies would also have been made up in a dedicated off-line area and brought to the assembly line to be stuffed into the block. After that it would just be a matter of the assembly line workers putting the engine together like every other engine they'd see in a day's work. Whereas pass car assembly lines produce 55-60 vehicles per hour, an engine assembly plant would be supplying several car and/or truck assembly lines and would produce around 120-180 engines per hour.

Over the years, I've heard more theories about secret this and special that locations that I could trade my pension for them if they were sellable. There "are" low volume assembly operations that existed back in the day and with some manufacturers still exist today, but they exist only because the product being produced doesn't lend itself to the equipment in a high volume plant and the volumes of engines in question don't warrant adding the tooling to a high volume facility to accommodate them. With the advent of more and more parts being produced in CNC machines versus traditional transfer lines, the ability to machine specialized parts has improved. Assembly operations on the other hand still rely on variations of a transfer line and unless these specialized parts fit on the existing equipment, they'll get assembled elsewhere.

Enough rambling.
 
Lots of interesting posts. Some questions if I may....

If the police motors were "balanced" at the plant and engines built at the plant were not necessarily designated for a specific car, then either the assembly number would differ on the broadcast sheet from a standard assembly or they had to be tagged in some way so the line knew which assembly to use. Does the BS assembly number differ from a police car vs non police? How were these assemblies kept separate?

Re "six pack motor". What internals are different in a 70 or 71 six pack vs a 4 bbl?

I would be curious to know how many members have owned both a "police motor" in a C body and a standard 440 B or E body to make a comparison.

I've seen a lot of factory info on both fleet and standard cars. I've yet to run across a 360hp rating for a 440-4 "police" assembly. Does anyone have this documentation they can post?
 
I believe all 440 hp and motor home engines have 6 pack internals from 70 -73 but if it is a late 73 build (when they started running out of parts) it would just be a cast crank. "Six pack crank is really no different. The main difference is the size of the beam on the rods and the extra weight of them is why they have a special dampener and Torque converter weight.
I would say if you found a 73 440 hp with six pack rods in it it is probably a fairly rare piece. Cast crank dampener will say 440 cast crank on it.
 
Kevin brings up some interesting knowlege and info - thanks Kevin for your insight!!

I can't speak for engine assembly at other manufacturers, but more than one person who worked for Mopar assembling engines back in the day have told me about the separate police motor assembly procedure I spoke of in my earlier post. The fact that both persons had no knowlege of the other telling me about this lends credence to their assertion to me.

Keep in mind that these sorts of things are subject to changes in an ongoing way, and my information relates primarily to cars built around 1965 - 1967... and things may have changed significantly after that, to which I can't speak.

Kevin asked: "Would the police pursuit unibodies not get extra reinforcements, similar to what would have shown up in hemi-powered "B" body cars? Torque boxes, extra brackets welded into corners and so on?" I believe that police cars did get extra torque box reinforcement, apparently using the stuff installed in convertibles, so you're question Kevin is right on. I am not sure if my car got that treatment. Further to that, MyMoparCHP said in regards to 1969 Police vehicles, "Special Amp gauge and high current wiring". Agreed - while I just got regular guages(I don't know if "police" guages existed for the Polaraor Fury plice cars in 65 and 66), I did get the heavy duty ammeter wiring with a separate power feed that bypassed the bulkhead connector, and instead passed through a special hole in the firewall with no breaks. Power feeds to various accessories (like the power seats and windows are fed from a very heavy duty stud/terminal arrangement on the firewall rather than from the ammeter feed-out stud. The voltage regulator used the police/taxi setup with the bracket on the inner fender rather than the firewall as well.

As to the motor internals, well, as we know the "6 Pac internals" referenced above were not in existence when my car was assembled, so that was a change that came up with the advent of the true Magnum and Super Commando motors. Again, this goes in form with my remark about running changes... I can't speak to the internals of my motor since I've never had it apart, and I never got into a detailed conversation with my two sources about specific assembly procedures. What mattered to me was the fact that essentially, according to their information, the motor is a true Factory balanced and blueprinted motor.

I would suspect a lot of what makes the difference is the true compression ratio. The heads were not ported relieved or polished as far as I know, but compresion ratios were checked and double checked so that a true 10.5 :1 was achieved. This I think makes a huge difference.

69CoronetRT asks about record keeping and build acurracy: "If the police motors were "balanced" at the plant and engines built at the plant were not necessarily designated for a specific car, then either the assembly number would differ on the broadcast sheet from a standard assembly or they had to be tagged in some way so the line knew which assembly to use. Does the BS assembly number differ from a police car vs non police? How were these assemblies kept separate?" I would think you're on to something there. I have no build sheet from my car to verify, but apparently my engine code on my fender tag comes up as "special order motor", which can mean various things from a slant 6 to whatever you could get from the factory by pulling strings... and here's where it gets interesting... read on:

I have letters from the original owner of my car, who worked at the dealership in Calgary Alberta in 1965. When he heard about the upcoming street hemi and the fact that Mopar was considering releasing a special order 1966 300 M Hemi and if it went well that the street hemi might make it into other C body cars for 1966, he sat down with his boss and special ordered what he called his dream car - a 1966 Dodge Monaco with 426 Hemi and 4 speed, power windows, tilt tele, dual power seats, tint glass, and more etc etc... the dealership (which was used to "pulling the strings" to get special cars) processed the order, he paid his deposit and went back to work and waited. Apparently shortly thereafter the 300M Hemi project was killed (and reality says it likely wasn't ever more than rumour at Chrysler anyhow from what I understand - just to help C body performance sales), but he was not informed of the change, otherwise he said he probably would have cancelled the order. But finally one day there it was on the transporter. He took it off the truck himself, and opened the hood to find a 440. Lunch bag let down... He was NOT pleased, and took it up with his boss, who said to him "listen - we couldn't get you the hemi, and believe me we tried. But what I did get you is better. This is the RCMP Pursuit motor - this is the motor we put in the cop cars to catch a@@holes like you who order hemis. Take this car for a test drive, and if you still don't like it I got a line up of guys who will buy it right now". He took it for a drive, and in his words said: "I came back, changed my underwear and took delivery of the car".

The rest as they say is history - to which I am now the custodian.
 
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Great responses from all. I myself heard that the 440 "Pursuit" engines were blueprinted/balanced. I know Chevy used to do this with some of their HP engines where they were assembled by hand and everything fitted, thus the "blueprinting" of the engines to get all tolerances right on the money, so it would make sense to me that the Pursuit 440 engines also go this kind of treatment.

Another interesting story for all. Knew a guy back in Connecticut who purchased new, a 1967 Coronet R/T 440/4-speed car. He was a bit of a hell raiser and a big guy. One night he tried to out run the Rhode Island state police with his car. Had several chasing him and none could catch him, they used Fords. One was waiting for him as he went by the cop. The cop took two shots at him as he went by. One went into the side of his car, the other ricocheted off the pavement and went through his trunk floor. The hole in the side of the car he had patched. The hole in the trunk he kept. He showed me the car and holes as he still had the car in 1988 with about 12,000 miles on it and it looked like new. He fired it up for me and the engine sounded like it wanted to suck the AFB into it when he revved it up. He planned on passing it down to his son. He told me after that incident, he laughed and said the Rhode Island state police went to Plymouths. I am leaving out some personal info about this story, but the state police did catch up with him and it did not go well as they took justice into their own hands.
 
We ALL need to thank the police departments that used and still use our beloved Chrysler products. Even today things that end up on our street cars, were tested by police use. Hell the only difference between a Road Runner / Super Bee, R/T and a B body police car is two doors. Also Chrysler was no different in using the phrase "Money talks" they were damn sure to build what police departments wanted at 500 units at a time.
 
Here's a BS from a 69 DK car. The engine assembly is 919 indicating the C body L code 440-HP, auto transmission and A/C.

I do not have a broadcast sheet from a non "police" 440 HP C body to compare it to.

Does anyone have a broadcast sheet from a 69 non 'police' C body with 440 HP, automatic and A/C so we can compare the engine assembly numbers?
69_C_Body_919_Engine.jpg
 
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Here's a BS from a 69 DK car. The engine assembly is 919 indicating the L code 440-HP, auto transmission and A/C.

I do not have a broadcast sheet from a non "police" 440 HP C body to compare it to.

Does anyone have a broadcast sheet from a 69 non 'police' C body with 440 HP, automatic and A/C so we can compare the engine assembly numbers?
View attachment 114743
My 1969 "CHP" broadcast sheet has 919, that would tell me the CHP engine is no different than any other Police 440


Alan
 
My 1969 "CHP" broadcast sheet has 919, that would tell me the CHP engine is no different than any other Police 440


Alan

My gut feel is it won't be different than any other auto A/C C body HP but we need to confirm that.

Do you know if you car codes N97 for noise reduction package?
 
My gut feel is it won't be different than any other auto A/C C body HP but we need to confirm that.

Do you know if you car codes N97 for noise reduction package?
There is a 7 in an unmarked box in the N section.


Alan
 
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