440 Motorhome vs 440 Car

[64SF]

Any pluses or minuses to motorhome engines vs car? Thanks.

 

[1967_Joe]

Helped a buddy drop in a 440 from a '73 Winnebago...runs great with no problems. Believe it had 902 heads?

 

[theman440]

You'll have to change the oil pan and pickup, exhaust manifolds, and posssibly the water pump housing but it'll work. Have fun.

 

[goose69]

By chance is there a certain year you are looking at? I thought I read on here somewhere when many of the different year blocks were checked the 1978 blocks were the best post 1971. Had something to do with nickel content and wall thickness of cylinders. Correct me if I'm wrong, just stuck in my memory banks for some reason......unlike the honey do list my wife made. ha ha ha!

 

[1badgtx]

The nickel content and cylinder wall thickness is a myth...A 440 block is a 440 block...The nickel thing is chebby crap..
Petty Blue 67 gTx

 

[iraqivet01]

x2
It what I read also.

 

[Sweet5ltr]

If you check into the Mopar Engine manual, Chrysler states the blocks from 1974-1978 are weaker in comparison to the earlier "RB" blocks (They state that the maximum overbore of a post 1973 block is .030, in comparison to the pre 1974 blocks being capable of .060 overbore). We have a 1973 Block, with 231 "motorhome" heads. It came with "six pack" rods and a steel crank (wrecked police car). In 1974 Chrysler started installing cast cranks in all their "RB" engines. Prior to 1974, starting in 1971 Chrysler installed cast cranks in the 383-2BBL and 400-2BBL. This is information straight from the Mopar Performance Engine Manual, and dates back to the early direct connection days. I would try and stick with a pre-1974 motor home engine for the quality assurance and also a steel crank. In relation to your post, the motorhome heads have improved water passages so the engine will run much cooler in traffic, if you plan on building a street cruiser. Better cooling is always an advantage.

 

[arizona satellite]

I have a motorhome 440 dated 6/7/1974 it is a steel crank sixpack rod factory double roller timing set with the 902 heads, so does that mean that I have a thin wall block or is the mopar engine book misleading?

 

[IQ52]

I have personally sonic tested enough 440 blocks to know the Mopar engine book is wrong! Others have come to the same conclusion.


http://www.arengineering.com/articles.sonicbig.html


Well, if I search it, it works.

 

[1967_Joe]

I have personally sonic tested enough 440 blocks to know the Mopar engine book is wrong! Others have come to the same conclusion.


http://www.arengineering.com/articles.sonicbig.html


Well, if I search it, it works.

Try this link...

http://www.arengineering.com/articles/articleframe.html

 

[arizona satellite]

so it seems that it is really a crap shoot, as stated before a 440 block is a 440 block. the only difference is how good each individual casting is. what about the "hourglass" block's? is that part of the enhanced cooling passages, I have heard this block referred to as a six pack block, this makes sense as all the ones that I have seen have the six pack rods as well as the steel crank. Perhaps that was mopars way of using up the inventory, since the six pack ceased to be produced in 1972 they had x amount of blocks, cranks rods ect. just a thought:toothy10:

 

[Cranky]

The nickel content and cylinder wall thickness is a myth...A 440 block is a 440 block...The nickel thing is chebby crap..
Petty Blue 67 gTx

Chevy engines have nickel in them??

If you check into the Mopar Engine manual, Chrysler states the blocks from 1974-1978 are weaker in comparison to the earlier "RB" blocks (They state that the maximum overbore of a post 1973 block is .030, in comparison to the pre 1974 blocks being capable of .060 overbore). We have a 1973 Block, with 231 "motorhome" heads. It came with "six pack" rods and a steel crank (wrecked police car). In 1974 Chrysler started installing cast cranks in all their "RB" engines. Prior to 1974, starting in 1971 Chrysler installed cast cranks in the 383-2BBL and 400-2BBL. This is information straight from the Mopar Performance Engine Manual, and dates back to the early direct connection days. I would try and stick with a pre-1974 motor home engine for the quality assurance and also a steel crank. In relation to your post, the motorhome heads have improved water passages so the engine will run much cooler in traffic, if you plan on building a street cruiser. Better cooling is always an advantage.

That's the way it was 'supposed' to be but it never happened.

I have personally sonic tested enough 440 blocks to know the Mopar engine book is wrong! Others have come to the same conclusion.


http://www.arengineering.com/articles.sonicbig.html


Well, if I search it, it works.

so it seems that it is really a crap shoot, as stated before a 440 block is a 440 block. the only difference is how good each individual casting is. what about the "hourglass" block's? is that part of the enhanced cooling passages, I have heard this block referred to as a six pack block, this makes sense as all the ones that I have seen have the six pack rods as well as the steel crank. Perhaps that was mopars way of using up the inventory, since the six pack ceased to be produced in 1972 they had x amount of blocks, cranks rods ect. just a thought:toothy10:

If you plan on boring to .060 over, sonic testing is always a good idea and that's with any engine. Core shift is the main problem and not thin wall blocks. On the hour glass blocks or sometimes called the figure 8 water passages, these are a good thing but the gaskets still have a small slot. Some enlarge the slots in the gaskets and some don't. I think the jury is still out on doing that? And I've found regular LY rods in cop car 440's and motor home 440's....that part is a crap shoot.

 

[Sweet5ltr]

I have a motorhome 440 dated 6/7/1974 it is a steel crank sixpack rod factory double roller timing set with the 902 heads, so does that mean that I have a thin wall block or is the mopar engine book misleading?

The issue is like others have posted previously before. Regardless of Chrysler's direction on producing the production short block assemblies, the actual results varied. The Industrial engines (Motor home and Law Enforcement) are obviously a mystery to most, on production standards but Chrysler would not state the information in the Engine Manual if it did not hold partial truth.

I would choose an earlier build date (pre-1974) to have better odds of receiving more sought after internals.

 

[Satellite65]

Motorhome engines usually have very low mileage on them and most of those were highway miles. I recently helped a friend replace the heads on his 70-something Winnebago (440) and I couldn't believe how nice the cylinder walls looked, nice crosshatch, no ridge.

 

[goose69]

Motorhome engines usually have very low mileage on them and most of those were highway miles. I recently helped a friend replace the heads on his 70-something Winnebago (440) and I couldn't believe how nice the cylinder walls looked, nice crosshatch, no ridge.

The 1 I'm building is the same way. I bought a 55 thousand mile 1978 440 motorhome motor from a guy for $75.00. Had a piston & rod missing but all the cylinders were in beautiful shape. Also bought 1 other '77 440 motorhome motor with 40 thousand miles for $100 short block same way. Honed it out & reringed it, ran great!

 

[Jonnyuma]

I've read that motorhome blocks have a tendancy to "oval" the bores. Specifically the thrust side. Im not offering this up as advice, more like wondering if its true or

not. Seems like some o' youz guyz have worked-over a lot of RB blocks and would probably know better than whoever it was that wrote that. If later blocks can only take a .30" overbore, having the thrust side pushed out to, say .35, would pose a rather large problem. I'd have to assume it would take a LOT of miles to do that.
Any truth there?

 

[arizona satellite]

I have not heard of the "ovaling" of the bores but could see it if the engine had A LOT of hard mile's of heavy towing, the engine that I have, not sure of what it was, as the motorhome was stripped down to the frame but the odo showed 48k on it, amazing cylinders, only problem was the rings were stuck in the pistons( it sat for twenty years). lots of good information here but it seems the best thing to do is to get any block sonic checked.there seems to be a lot of very good reasoning behind all the different claims but with no real solid facts. I read recently that you want to completely avoid the 66 440's! this was in mopar action, why?? I could understand if it was a first year block design but the RB had been around for some time at that point, why would MOPAR action state that? I found a 66 440 out of an imperial but now I am not sure I should pick it up. what gives?

 

[Cranky]

The issue is like others have posted previously before. Regardless of Chrysler's direction on producing the production short block assemblies, the actual results varied. The Industrial engines (Motor home and Law Enforcement) are obviously a mystery to most, on production standards but Chrysler would not state the information in the Engine Manual if it did not hold partial truth.

I would choose an earlier build date (pre-1974) to have better odds of receiving more sought after internals.

Things were printed as how it was supposed to be but what actually happened in the foundry and in the machine shop was a different story. Remember, Chrysler was a fairly small company. Even tho they were part of the 'Big 3' they were a very small part. When you compare ChryCo to GM and Ford, they were David and GM and Ford was Goliath and GM was a good deal larger than Ford even. Chrysler did what they needed to do keep the money rolling in and didn't have all the corporate red tape that GM had to deal with when operating on a day to day basis so they rocked along and didn't make cost cutting changes so long as the money was still coming in but as time went on things got tighter and they still didn't change things much. Things were getting harder for them in the early to mid 70's and by 1980, they were getting the gooberment backed loans.

I have not heard of the "ovaling" of the bores but could see it if the engine had A LOT of hard mile's of heavy towing, the engine that I have, not sure of what it was, as the motorhome was stripped down to the frame but the odo showed 48k on it, amazing cylinders, only problem was the rings were stuck in the pistons( it sat for twenty years). lots of good information here but it seems the best thing to do is to get any block sonic checked.there seems to be a lot of very good reasoning behind all the different claims but with no real solid facts. I read recently that you want to completely avoid the 66 440's! this was in mopar action, why?? I could understand if it was a first year block design but the RB had been around for some time at that point, why would MOPAR action state that? I found a 66 440 out of an imperial but now I am not sure I should pick it up. what gives?

Don't know why the 66 blocks were ragged on by them. Same thing happened to the 8 3/4 with the 489 case gears being the strongest. Someone at some rag looked at the tapered pinion and said "wow, this must be the strongest of them all." Now it's gospel everywhere but how many 41 case pinions have seen break?

 

[goose69]

Not sure on how many 741 pinions have been broke. I've beat on mine pretty hard and even my buddy hammers on his in a low 10sec car, haven't had problems yet except bent axle tubes, lol.

 

[skylane]

Motor Home 440

I have a 78 MH 440 in my 69 Charger R/T and I could not ask for better. Original heads had hardened seats and the block had some beefier looking casting than the older blocks. Pistons, heads, exhaust and intake make all 440's run great.