• When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

Motor home 440

Got lucky with our motorhome, paid 250 for it guy couldn’t find title so he said once your done with it he will tow it back to his yard for free.cut the 454 and trans out sold it for $500 and sent it back lol
 
Don't write off the engine as all smog, cast internals yet. My advice is to look at the balancer on the engine to see if its the old skinny one used on steel cranks, or the wide one used 72 on for cast cranks. I have picked up numerous of these motor home engines after 72 build date on the cheap thru the years and every time they have had steel cranks and multiple times the 6 pack rods, while still being internally balanced. A customer of mine needed a steel crank for a project, so I tore down one I got out of a 78 Winnebago just last week. Had excellent condition steel crank and the big rods in it. Here is the block date and the rods.
20190715_211244.jpg
20190715_211327.jpg
20190715_211412.jpg
 
Don't write off the engine as all smog, cast internals yet. My advice is to look at the balancer on the engine to see if its the old skinny one used on steel cranks, or the wide one used 72 on for cast cranks. I have picked up numerous of these motor home engines after 72 build date on the cheap thru the years and every time they have had steel cranks and multiple times the 6 pack rods, while still being internally balanced. A customer of mine needed a steel crank for a project, so I tore down one I got out of a 78 Winnebago just last week. Had excellent condition steel crank and the big rods in it. Here is the block date and the rods.View attachment 800972 View attachment 800973 View attachment 800974
Very informative!
 
My understanding is that most of the motor home 440's had the steel cranks, with LY type rods. Thought the blocks & heads had different cooling holes. I didn't want the 6 Pak rods, heavier, not enough strength improvement. Shot peened LY's with aftermarket bolts, good enough for 550-600 HP & many hundred 7000 RPM runs. Steel cranks only good for 250 -300 runs before cracks appear. Never broke one though.
 
It’s a cast crank but still under 40k miles. It’s going to be my spare just in case motor. I’ll re gasket everything and add a whiplash cam. And set it in the corner. All preserved and ready for its next life. Just in case. Who knows maybe I’ll end up with another car for it.
 
I am as sure as I and a couple of long time Mopar nation people can be that the Purple Stripe cam in my 71 440, steel crank heavy rods engine is the 292°/.509" cam, without measuring it or otherwise knowing for a fact.
I bring it up because once I replaced the worn out springs with CompCams springs, lifters, locks, retainers, and new push rods, the 6bbl 440 w/headers and stock 452 heads pulls HARD to 6,200 RPMs. I've done it a lot under a number of circumstances, and although I have yet to put it on a chassis dyno to get the TRUTH, I am pretty confident that my HP curve is going to agree.
The point is that the engine exudes confidence, and I certainly hope that I am not ever disappointed by a catastrophic failure. I have my shift light set at 5,800 and the rev limiter set at 6,200.
Talk of steel cranks and 6 pack rods made me think to post this.
Listen to it roar! Once I get my traction problems resolved, I won't have to launch at idle, roll a few feet and floor it.
 
The engine I’m running now is 73 block cast crank. Purple 284/484 cam. 10.3 compression kB pistons. 452 heads worked over a bit. It’s super strong. It’s seen 6500 a few times. I built it probably close to 20 years ago. Maybe more. It’s been a great engine. Every problem I’ve had with it was ignition or carb related. I had it in a 77 truck most of its life. Ran high 13s w 456 gears. I’m just building a spare. It’s low mileage or else I’d build it up close to the same. I’d probably use a purple stock magnum cam. I’ve been building 440s since I was a teenager. Never had one from a motor home though. I do have what I think is a 413 industrial. Irrigation engine. The rv motor I figured gaskets and a cam change would be great low budget spare.
 
We cut the body away with Sawzall's and torched the engine and trans loose and picked it out with a tractor bale spear. Had the forged crank, heavy rods, hi flow water pump. 78 MH.
 
It's nice that those engines are out there for we of the Mopar nation...
Too bad that we don't have more options, but then again, if it was easy and cheap, everyone would do it, right?
Lol.
I'm surprised and impressed that the late 70s motor home 440s have steel cranks.
The video on the Chevy 454 that got the "top end kit" made some strong power, and on 87 octane fuel at that!
 
Ten or so years ago I bought my 77 New Yorker for 200 bucks and drove it home. Only 32k miles. It now has 74k on it. They’re out there if you look enough. It was two miles from my house.
 
I've wondered at times how much leniency they had in the industrial engine assembly department. Not only Chrysler, but Ford or GM. These multiple crank, and rod combos you wouldn't think should still be around in these later motor homes.
In the mid nineties a 460 Ford was brought to my engine shop for a rebuild. It was out of a New Holland hay baler, that the farmer had bought new, but I'm not sure what model year it was. Can't remember the reason on why it needed rebuilt but remember they said it had a bad stumble on throttle up since day one, and had tried different carbs I believe. Had a Holley 4 barrel of some sort on it. On disassembly found that the intake was an old super cobra jet cast iron unit that you could about put your fist in the port. Wonder if sometimes they just used what inventory they had at their disposal to get the jobs done.
 
I work in gas compression. Some of the compressors we have are called gasjacks. It’s a 460 Ford that one bank is the engine and the other bank is modified into a compressor. Sometimes you tear into one and it has eagle rods and kB pistons. All of them have Edelbrock intakes. Not that I’m a fan. They are very cantankerous. Cam eating. Valve burning turds really. 45 horsepower is the rating.
 
The 331 Chrysler HEMI, in its role as one of the most awesome and haunting industrial engine applications of all time:
 
Never thought of it, maybe Mopar designed the "6 Pak" rod as a motor home part & adapted it for the '70 6 Pak. Maybe the LY version motor home that I was thinking of was older.

BTW cast crank 440's seem just fine if you keep RPM's down. The Mopar engineers designed them for under 6000 RPM in my opinion.
 
Auto Transport Service
Back
Top