Muscle Cars ? Why did 1955 (1950s) Chrysler, Dodge, Plymouth put headers on the intake side of the engine?
Written by 50s Cars Guide on April 16th, 2010
Muscle Car? 1955 Chrysler? How can that be when Arnie "The Farmer" Beswick was the NHRA Top Stock winner 1955 – 1956 with a Factory 1954 Oldsmobile Super 88, and in 1957 John Zinc was NHRA Top Stock winner with a Factory 1957 Pontiac Chieftain 347 cid/ 317 H.P., Tri-Power (3X2 Barrel), Delco Dual Point Distributer, McKellar #6 Camshaft, and Dual Exhaust. (2) Shouldn’t the headers be on the exhaust side of a Mopar (Chrysler) engine, it probably would of made it faster? (2b) What was Mopar (Chrysler) thinking?
Check out: "Chrysler300country.com", click on, The heart of the beast…engines from 1955-1965, look at 413 engine, 300F and 300G.
The length of the intake "headers" they must be heavy, the weight probably takes away alot of horse power gained! Chrysler300country.com, check out Full table of contents, Ramchargers, muscle cars,etc… Great Information.
Check out ram injection.
Tags: 3x2, camshaft, chrysler, chrysler engine, delco, distributer, dual exhaust, dual point, exhaust side, heart of the beast, horse power, information check, mopar chrysler, muscle car, muscle cars, oldsmobile, oldsmobile super 88, pontiac chieftain, tri power, zinc
5 Comments at "Muscle Cars ? Why did 1955 (1950s) Chrysler, Dodge, Plymouth put headers on the intake side of the engine?"
Some Big block engines came with long runner intake manifolds to "tune" the engine to have more torque or horsepower, the are actually intake manifolds which reposition the carbs to the side of the engine above the valve covers, they act as sort of velocity stacks and ram the air fuel mixture into the cylinder for more HP, or better torque generation, only used for a few years.
I’m not that familiar with the ’50′s engines built by Chrysler, but the ones I am familiar with did not have "headers on the intake side of the engine". To my limited knowledge about that era the original "Hemi" engine had a standard intake manifold.
Now when you get into the early ’60′s, you find the "cross-ram", the "headers on the intake side of the engine" were the intake manifolds, long tube and short tube. The "header" with the carburetor on top over the left inner fender well actually fed the right bank of cylinders and the "header" with the carburetor on top over the right inner fender well fed the left bank of cylinders. These long tube intake manifolds increased horsepower and torque due to the length which allowed better mixing of the air/fuel mixture thereby increasing power. The shorter tube manifold did not increase power all that much but did show a definite increase. These "headers" were found on the 413 engines if I remember correctly and could be used on the 426 wedge engines as well.
For further info, check out "allpar.com", click on engines, then click 413.
If you are preferring to the 225 slant six Chrysler had, that was designed to help equalize the fuel distribution of fuel/air mixture to the out side cylinders of the engine. That’s also the only reason for the slant designed into the engine to accommodate the massive manifold. In the conventional flat head six, the intake to carburetor configuration allowed the two middle cylinder to get fuel/air first and the outer 4 having to draw a leaner fuel/air mixture.Especially cylinders 1 and 6. The extended runs on the manifold increased the fuel/air mixture to the other cylinders and increased the horse power and fuel more efficiently.
you reduce back pressure with no exaust system it’s free but on the other hand a header works within a system pulling the the exaust with vaccum using the fireing order the same is the same for intake
I would like to see a picture of the engine you are referring to. I have seen the V8 engines of the 1950′s era and none of them had the exhaust on the intake side. The only engine I’ve seen that Chrysler made that would even look like that was in the 1960′s. A 413 sometimes called a Firepower 390. The intake manifolds looked like they were homemade from tubes that reached over both valve covers and had a 4bbl. on each side that formed the early designs of a cross ram induction system. If you could come up with a picture of what you seen I would like to see it. Could it be possible that someone installed a 1960′s engine in this 1950′s car?
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