I was raised working on a Hemi in a B-body so I learned how hard things are since childhood haha.
Prime example is the simple valve spring swap I talked about at the beginning of this post.
Yesterday I put the new valve springs on with the engine out of the car on the engine stand. It took double the time that a wedge would take, EVEN ON THE ENGINE STAND. Even with the $750 Buxton engineering tool specifically designed for on head spring removal for Barton rockers. The tool is absolutely awesome as it works fabulously, however, it still took double the time it takes me to change springs on my wedge engine because the tool has to be bolted down to each rocker, opposed to the LSM tool I use for wedge heads where after you do the intake or exhaust, you just slide the tool over to do the same cylinder, much faster than the Hemi. Then include the fact we had to pull the engine, is just part of the Hemi Saga as we call it. Trying to keep the engine in a happy healthy condition for high performance is definitely a task.
As Doug said, they love RPM, even my dad's 572 stroker. LOVES RPM.
You can build a street friendly HEMI that won't "lose" its street driveability. You will pay though, no doubt about it. Even a street engine still needs to go through all the proper machining and preparation procedures. The biggest difference will be the component selection, compression ratio, camshaft specs, intake, carbs, all to accommodate the street over the track.
The ATI bolt together converters showed up last week. Both my dads and mine took less than a week to ship out from the time of order. Fingers crossed they work as good as our turbo action converters.
