383 recipe

[CBODY67]

Incognito upgrades are neat to do, to me. I hid the MSD 5C box behind the lh headlight, attached to a fender extension stud that was electrically hot. Ran the wire in the loom to the voltage regulator area, then across the cowl and down the rh valve cover to the distributor, along with the extra wire to the elec choke on the carb. Look for it, and it's there. Otherwise, it's hidden and only somebody that knows what to look for will not see the extra wire from the distributor or in the loom as it goes over the lh frt fender trough.

Do the math and determine the basic pipe diameter of the exit of the y-pipe needed to equal or exceed the area of the dual 2.25" pipes TO the end of the y-pipe. Then go from there to find a muffler with such resultant pipe diameter. Then carefully snake it around the rh rr shock absorber and between the rear rail and gas tank. The bend over the rh rr shock and rear axle would also need to be a compound mandrel bend, if possible. Use the OEM '72 Imperial single exhaust system as a guide.

Enjoy!
CBODY67

 

[FURYGT]

I am a big fan of the Eddy Carbs and I would recommend going with the electric choke version.

Once your build is done, the exhaust system is in and the car is can be driven find a good MOPAR hot rod mechanic and have them put a bung in the exhaust and have them tune the engine based on the exhaust mixture readings to help maximize the engine performance. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Luke Pokrajac]

Hey Rusty, I'm going to throw my .02 in also. Last year at this time I did a refresh on my 68 HP 383. It had the original non-road runner 383/440 mopar cam of that era in it from the factory...I think a 256 or 262. I installed a 256 Lunati Voodoo cam and absolutely love it. Car idles great...really smooth actually and has tons more torque/power. It really made it run like a new engine. I put in a new double roller timing chain and new oil & gas pumps. I'm a big believer in going with a newer style cam. Of course, always, ALWAYS, run zinc additive or zinc treated oil with a flat tappet cam. PS...I also like the new Edelbrock carbs...I put an AVS2 650 on mine. They do get hot so I installed a 1/2 open phenolic spacer under mine to curb hot start issues. I also put an inline fuel pressure regulator in to keep fuel pressure around 4 PSI.

 

[Rustyrodknocker]

Thanks for all the feedback everybody. This is really getting the gears grinding. A week ago I was not even contemplating this. I have a ton of projects in the works. But I'm really looking forward to this one, and I don't have any other goals for it, other than tires and brakes as needed.

 

[Walter Joy]

I am following this thread close, and throwing in my subway tokens into the arena as well. I’m working on a 1971 383 2bbl, the last year for them and the only year with cast crankshaft on the 2bbl. Compression is said to be around 8.5 but in reality it’s probably closer to 8. Here’s my formula for a hopefully 400 horsepower build:
- Cylinders bored .30 over, deck honed and aligned, and cut to leave the pistons .020-.030 in the hole for valve clearance
- L2315 pistons .30 over on stock rods
- crank polished and journals 10/10
- .020 Felpro steel head gaskets
- ported 906 heads with hardened seats and new seals (hopefully decked but if not, cut down to about 82cc combustion chamber)
- 2.14/1.81 valves with 11/32 stems
- 1.6 Crane roller rockers (came with the heads)
- Comp Cams XE268H cam (.477/.480) with matching lifters and springs (but May bump up to XE274H)
- Double roller timing gear and chain
- Edelbrock DP4B aluminum intake
- Carter AVS from a 1971 N code 383 (roughly 630-650 cfm but May try to find a 440 U code AVS that is 750 cfm)
- C body HP manifolds
- Dodge 400 electronic distributor built by Joe White and using Rick Ehrenberg’s conversion kit
- Mellings HP oil pump
- Carter mechanical fuel pump
- Aluminum water pump and housing

Good luck with your build!

 

[furious70]

I like that build but I'd suggest rpm performer intake and the 750 carb for sure

 

[max1196]

@Walter Joy or anyone else searching for these, Felpro doesn't make them, But MrGasket has them, part #1135G.

 

[Rustyrodknocker]

Does anybody have any experience running the shim gaskets on the street?

 

[CBODY67]

That's all we had for ages. .020" steel shim head gaskets. Some even stacked them (2/side) if they needed to lower the CR just a bit. BUT not too good with aluminum heads, as the beads will wear into the softer head deck surface, eventually. Cast iron everything, no problem.

Make sure to keep the antifreeze/coolant fresh and they'll last just fine, by observation.

CBODY67

 

[furious70]

I used the .020's for over a decade in the turbo engine, no issues. Only using the .039's now because the new short block has good CH pistons in it

 

[Gerald Morris]

Valve springs with a flat-wound (damper) spring inside of the normal (outer) spring. Higher pressures result. According to Nick, you do the cam break-in with only the outer springs, then add the inner damper afterward. Not sure if that's the way Chrysler did it at the engine plant, though.

CBODY67

Those springs can be found on eBay! Saw some this week. Think I'll grab them for my own use! THANKS!

 

[moper]

The ratings on 383s were just that - ratings. Not reality. If you are not going to blueprint it, and using currently available pistons, the highest ratio you can get is about 9.8:1, and that's with a steel shim gasket and decking the block so it comes to zero deck. My advice is not worry about the static ratio. You'll end up with it around 8.2:1, and run a cam like the XE-256 camshaft kit. That should give you pretty close to the factory 4bbl packages.

 

[Rustyrodknocker]

The time is upon us, I've got to get rollin on this. The block is headed to the machine shop as soon as I get pistons and rings.

Which brings me to the point, cast rings or moly rings? Is there any advantage to going with the moly rings in this application?

 

[furious70]

I would think cast rings are fairly rare for any builder to use these days? The 'old' 'wisdom' was molys were harder to seat. That was 30yrs ago. Now you've got the super thin metric and napier rings and such.