20 Moments That Made the 426 Hemi Engine Great

MotorTrend

David Freiburger takes us on a journey through time as he recalls 20 moments that made the 426 Hemi engine a legend.

Transcript

00:00 The 426 HEMI is a legendary, but why?

00:03 I'm David Freiburger and I'm going to show you 20 moments that made the HEMI great.

00:08 You know the 426 HEMI as the engine that so famously came in Dodge and Plymouth muscle cars

00:24 from 1964 to 1971, but it really all began in late 1963. As a matter of fact, the very first

00:32 blocks were cast in December of 1963. And this engine was based on the existing big block

00:38 architecture, but it had cylinder heads with hemispherical combustion chambers very similar

00:43 to the Chrysler HEMI of the 50s. The thing is, it was being engineered only for racing. And so our

00:51 story begins in early 1964 at a NASCAR race. In February of 1964, the 426 HEMI attacked the

01:01 Daytona 500, the race that the engine was built to win. Now, I told you how they had cast those

01:07 blocks in December of 1963. Well, they had a problem cracking. And so they had to cast more

01:14 in like the first week of February and the race was just a couple weeks away. Meanwhile, the HEMI

01:20 was preparing to dominate. There was twin 100 mile races before the Daytona 500 and they were both

01:27 won by HEMIs by Junior Johnson and Bobby Isaac. When it came to race day, qualifying was once

01:34 again dominated by the HEMI when Paul Goldsmith just smashed all the records for qualifying at

01:40 the track. And then in the end, the HEMI took first, second, third, and fifth. Richard Petty

01:48 won that race and nine others that year and took the championship. The 1964 Daytona 500 is the

01:55 moment that the HEMI began. People don't realize that the HEMI almost made its debut in drag

02:02 racing even before the Daytona 500. They had them ready for the NHRA Winter Nationals in February in

02:08 Pomona, but they were too slow so they held back. And then they revealed the car in public at

02:13 Detroit Dragway in April of '64. And a few weeks later with new carburetors and a new camshaft at

02:19 an AHRA event, one of the HEMIs went 11.06 in the quarter mile and became the quickest quarter mile

02:27 stock class car on the planet. In September of 1964, it was time for the NHRA Nationals and the

02:34 HEMIs decimated the door slammer classes. Here's one example. In Superstock, the quick 16 was eight

02:42 Dodges, seven Plymouths, and one Ford. Naturally, a HEMI won that deal. And Factory Experimental and

02:50 a couple of other classes. The world was on notice that the HEMI was here to stay. Also at the 1964

02:56 NHRA Nationals, Dan Knapp showed up with a AA fuel dragster that was the first one ever powered by a

03:03 426 HEMI. On October 19, 1964, NASCAR banned the 426 HEMI. It was just too fast and too dominant.

03:14 And in response, Chrysler said, "We're out of here," and pulled themselves out of competition

03:18 for the 1965 season. In late 1964, drag racer Dick Landy did something that was going to make a huge

03:28 impact on the drag racing sport. He took his HEMI 1964 Polera and radically altered the wheelbase.

03:35 The whole point of this was to put more traction on the back tires, just by putting more weight and

03:41 leverage on them. The thing is, that stupid looking car was going to coin the term "funny car," and it

03:48 was going to change the face of door slammer drag racing for 1965. In February of 1965, NASCAR

03:56 builder Ray Fox had a brand new '65 Coronet that he'd built for NASCAR, but it was outlawed, so he

04:02 had to do something. So he put a supercharger on the HEMI, he put Leroy Yarborough in the seat,

04:07 and they set a closed course record of 181.818 miles an hour. Also in early 1965, the HEMI was

04:16 responsible for a whole new trend. It was the drag racing exhibition wheel standard. The very first

04:23 one was engineered from within Chrysler. They took this A100 pickup truck and put a HEMI in the bed,

04:30 and it ended up doing giant wheelies. It was the original wheel standard, followed closely by the

04:36 Hurst HEMI under glass Barracuda. These cars were designed just to stand up on the rear bumper and

04:43 run the full length of the quarter mile. 1965 would see the most ludicrous cars ever commissioned by

04:50 an OE manufacturer. Dodge and Plymouth built 16 HEMI-powered cars with that awesome altered wheel

04:57 base inspired by Dick Landy. They acid-dipped them to the point that they were falling apart just to

05:02 save weight, and they sent them out match racing for the drag racing world in 1965.

05:08 By June of 1965, NASCAR was sick of dwindling attendance because people wanted to see the HEMI,

05:14 and they brought them back, but for short course racing only, and HEMIs won six of those.

05:20 David Pearson won the '66 championship with a HEMI, and Richard Petty in 1967 won it and

05:26 had the most dominant season in the history of NASCAR. On November 12, 1965, the Summers

05:33 Brothers Goldenrod used four HEMIs to run 409.645 miles an hour. It would be the world's fastest

05:41 wheel-driven car until 1991, and it held its class record for unblown cars until 2010.

05:49 1966 was the first year that the general public could buy a 426 HEMI off the showroom floor.

05:56 This was inspired by needing to have production numbers for NASCAR,

05:59 and because of all of the great marketing that the HEMI had done in drag racing.

06:03 In September of 1967, Big Daddy Don Garletts won the NHRA Nationals in top fuel. Now,

06:11 he had a 426 HEMI in this thing because Dodge made him do it, and at the time,

06:16 most of the other racers were still using the '50s 392-based Chrysler HEMI.

06:21 We believe that this win by Garletts was the very first time that a 426-based engine

06:27 had won a major drag racing event in top fuel.

06:30 In 1968, Dodge and Plymouth released my favorite muscle car of all time,

06:36 the super stock HEMI Dart and Barracuda. These cars were so magical that these days,

06:42 they're the only car with an NHRA class just for them. Super stock A HEMI is only for the

06:48 1968 HEMI Dart and Cuda. In 1969, Dodge was out to destroy NASCAR again, and they released the

06:56 Dodge Daytona for aerodynamics. And on March 24th, 1970, Buddy Baker got in a Chrysler engineering

07:04 car, and on a closed track, he ran 200.447 miles an hour. It was the very first time that a car had

07:13 exceeded 200 miles an hour on a closed course, and it was done with a 426 HEMI. NASCAR hurt the

07:19 HEMI again in 1971, limiting the aero cars to 305 cubic inches. Bobby Isaac solved that problem by

07:28 going to the Bonneville Salt Flats and ran a big oval track there and set a ton of endurance racing

07:33 records and a flying mile record of 216.945 miles an hour. In March of 1970, Don Garletts had a

07:43 transmission explosion that sawed his top fuel dragster in half. It was a front-engined car,

07:49 and in the hospital, he started drawing up a sketch for a rear-engined car. It wasn't the first,

07:55 but it was the most successful. He won the 1971 Winter Nationals with a rear-engined car and

08:00 then followed that up weeks later at the March meet in California, and he did it with 426 HEMI

08:06 power and set the world on notice that everybody was going to be going to the rear-engine

08:12 configuration. Now it's 1975, and even after the rear-engine dragster conversion, a lot of guys

08:18 were still running the '50s 392 HEMI until Keith Black came along. He made an aluminum 426 block

08:26 that would start the change so that everybody would be running a 426 HEMI.

08:31 That's the end of the history lesson. These days, the 426 HEMI has been refined by engine builders,

08:37 and it wins everywhere that it races, especially in drag racing. As a matter of fact, there is not

08:43 an NHRA alcohol dragster or funny car that runs anything but a 426, and of course the same is

08:50 true in the nitro classes, and the quickest drag cars in the world are the NHRA Nitro Funny Car

08:57 and Top Fuel Dragster, both powered by an engine with the configuration of a 426 HEMI.

09:03 In the end, one of the greatest achievements was done by Danny Thompson, who took his HEMI-powered

09:09 Streamliner to Bonneville and ran 448.757 miles an hour for the record as a two-way average,

09:16 his top speed 459.588. It made him the world's quickest piston-powered car,

09:25 and of course it was done with engines based on, you guessed it, the 426 HEMI.

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