392ci Early Hemi

392ci Early Hemi engine build
392ci Early Hemi engine build

The engine has been bored and honed and awaiting assembly.

October 2006…
Just got back from a day of driving around the country hauling back a Dana60 rearaxle and the 392 Hemi-engine. I like the stance of the wagon in this pic…

First disassembly…
I knew the engine had spun a rodbearing, but I wasn’t really prepared for the junk I found inside of this engine.
This engine had never been opened before and it was therefore also still at is virgin bore.

All the parts inside had a rubberlike coating on them because of the years of neglect during proper oilchanges, or should I say ‘refills’?

Someone had even WELDED the outside damper-ring to the inner hub, rendering its dampening properties useless. What a moron!

In a fruitless attempt to clean the engine-block myself I only found out that nothing I threw at it actually did something. I tried numerous of things on the block (inside) to get it clean, but nothing worked;
Petroleum, engine degreaser, thinner, brakecleaner, ovencleaner… all was to no avail.

Only after I had the engineblock ‘lyed’ it became usable again;

After I measured the wear inside the cylinders I purchased a set of .020″ over pistons from PAW.
This won’t be a race-engine so I choose for cast-aluminum slugs…

Boring the block…

I just had the crank-journal welded, the entire crank turned to .010″ under, and completely nitrided again. Cost me an arm and a leg overhere. Now I’m ready to start buying other parts for the engine. I’ve also decided a dual 4 bbl-intake will be on the engine.

392 Hemi rebuild – Engine block




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