Facebook 440 Tear Down - What's Inside? 

The HP on the later blocks were for police special cars and trucks for the military and I got that information from a gentleman I knew worked for Chrysler back in the 60s70sand early 80s and built these cars.everything he had told me has been found to be truth.....I am so glad that Man came into my life and trusted me enough to share his knowledge......he was the guy to see here in central Massachusetts on Mopar....he came out here in the late 80s to be closer to his family and grandkids from Detroit/ Michigan

Nick I,m in my 60's have used Fram filters 40 plus years never had a problem.

It’s stamped HP because they made cop cars with “high performance”440 engines until roughly 78. Those engines basically had all the hp stuff( double valve springs, windage tray, magnum cam etc) except the higher compression and forged crank. I have a 1977 440 hp motor, it came from a cop car.

At 14:42, pause this video. There it is, Nick at his best; educating us about the Mopar Big Blocks. Look past Nick in the background, there are his 2 baby's, Totally restored U code Challenger 440, and his Hellcat Challenger. One word describes this man and what He has accomplished. *Legendary*

The look on Nick’s face when he realized there was no head gasket had me in stitches. Good stuff! Absolutely love this channel! I learn and get entertained at the same time. 👍

MOPAR for life 👍🏻💯⛽️🇦🇺. Great pull down Nick . Get her done .

I sold Fram filters for years, had a oil change, chain of stores that used them for years and bought thousands of Fram oil and air filters, I don't know of one claim or come back that they ever had because of the failure of the Fram filter. They made filters for cars, light trucks, HD trucks and commercial equipment. They are still in business all these years so it can't be a bad product

I have a 76 440 with HP markings which came from a Plymouth Gran Fury cop car. Has the valve springs with dampers, double roller timing chain, windage tray and baffled oil pan. Also had the 440 Magnum / Super Commando cam. These I believe were net rated at 255 HP. Quite a bit more than the standard set up in a civilian car. These cars could hit around 130 in the mid sized cars. Not much else American made at the time could touch it. Maybe not a muscle car, far from being a total slug. Enjoyed the video!

I remember H.P stamps in the middle to late 70's and earlier going into police interceptor cars. Besides the ATF in the cylinders, and the rockers being backed off the valves I've seen people do that putting an engine up in storage before. The rest is a mystery. Atleast it found you to save it😊 thanks again guys.

I could watch these tear downs all day long. Thank you!

Love to see detective Nick tearing down a 440 and analyzing what he finds.

Thank You Nick Every Time I Watch I Learn Something

Back in the day, (60's and 70's) I always used Fram oil filters. It's been years since I've changed my own oil, so I can't speak to their current quality. I know a lot of well known brands are NOT what they used to be.

Thank you for showing things like this some of us would never get to see it

In the 80's we were buying up every derilect nopar powered motorhome /RV we could find. They had 440's and all the left over good stuff from the 70's stuffed inside

Nick, I've been using Fram filters all my life. I got involved in racing back in '77, working on a stock car, '69 Road Runner, 383 with 440-6 pack heads, averaged 3 wins a year. IN '87 got into a different division running a Chrysler Kit Car with a 340, and in all my years I have never had a problem with the Fram filters.

Something tells me this was going to be a project engine and got shelved. When they shelved it, they just threw it back together so everything was in one place. Then it got stored somewhere outside or somewhere that leaked on top of the engine. Still a great base to build a nice muscle engine.

I’ve got 3 440’s in my garage. One is an all original 69 that’s never been rebuilt. Doesn’t smoke and ran awesome. It’ll get a refresh and some upgrades soon. Great episode as always Nick. Thanks for the quality infotainment!

Tme and time again my eyes are drawn towards that beautifull red car on the lift.

Always so educational and entertaining! 🔧 Thanks to you Nick! 😎👍🏼

I pulled a 1975 440 out of a full size police car and it came with the big, high performance valve springs, a 6 quart oil system and had a windage tray. So there were high performance 440's in full size police cars in 1975 and a 1975 casting date might be a 1976 engine. Some of the late police engines had 5/8" spark plugs, which makes using headers easier.

I just want to say how grateful i am for your videos!!!! i have learned so much about engines and cars since then and i cannot wait to share my knowledge with others who are just as passionate to learn!!! i plan to throw a 427 TD in a 03 mustang and see what she does. thank you for doing your job and doing these videos!!!

My late dad had dual heaters on his Hemi Roadrunner. Story told is the previous owner had them installed via the dealer after one winter in his unheated and non insulated garage in South Dakota. While it was not factory, he still had the dealer work order for them when folks would comment about them when he took it out to car shows and what not. I'm in the process of restoring it, and I'm going to put it back the way I found it as best I can.

I’m a dinosaur, still run big block Chevys with 427 cranks in them when the trend is to make them big. Don’t get me wrong I’ve built my share of strokers but there’s something primal and raw about a big block with a sub 4” stroke and big cylinder heads. They respond, they just do everything right. That being said I’m a huge 383 fan. How can you not love a big block with a short crank? Add a set of modern Aluminum heads, lightest piston you can get and still be rugged, Aluminium rods and flywheel, you’d have the ultimate motor for a Dart or a Duster.

Had the good fortune of working in a salvage yards since 76. Sold evey one of my mopar friends and myself more than 20 of ex san Jose california police car motors. They all were stamped Hp even though all 74 up engines as this one has are cast crank motors. (Notice the huge harmonic balancer) Pushed my 67 fastback with fenderwell headers and alum intake to low 13's and high 12's with stock cam. They came with dual roller timing chains but we advance the cam 3 % never remember any of them being bad when we started them. We had to weld the weights on the torq converter of the older 727's ( took us a week to figure out why it had a strange Vibrationan lol) we just pulled the dust shield chisled the two weights off the late torq converters and arc welded on the converter about were we thought they went , drilled a few dimples in the weights to make up for the arc weling material and all was good Vibrationan gone. Done that about 6 or 7 times before a local engine builder at the machine shop told us " that won't work!) Good motors would run on anything with the low comp pistons. Never seen a broken crank or anything negative about the cast crank !! We put those 440's in 69 chargers,69 road runner convertible, 66 corners paid $150 to $350.00 for the motors ( more than we paid for some of the cars!)

Truck and motor home 440’s had the heavy “6 pack” rods also.

JUST LOVING THE TEARDOWNS SPECIALY WHEN NICK SAIS IVE NEVER SEEN THIS BEFORE

I've used Frame for decades without any problems. I always disassemble my filters during oil change every 3500 miles to check for metal partials.

Steve from Adelaide on vacation in Melbourne Australia tuned in

Nick my dad had a 1976 Dodge Maxi Van with that same motor and set up it was runner even loaded down with all his tools it would scream it was wilded.😁

Wow just wow all out the box brand new HEMI engine....only at Nick's garage!!! And on a school night perfect !!👍

Lots of engines in the 40s and 50s made it 100k miles with no oil filter at all. The fram is a cheap made filter. Back in the 90s Cummins sent out a bulletin that they would not warrant an engine with a fram filter. Apparently there had been a cold snap and a bunch of engines got wiped out because the filters came apart and parts of the cardboard end caps were getting lodged in oil galleys and piston cooling jets. Customers were told they had to go after fram to pay for engine repairs as tests had shown the filters did not meet Cummins bypass requirements on the filters.

Love your videos Nick. My dad was Mopar builder and if he was alive he would be a big fan

Germany has the thumbs up 😉

Wow that was an interesting tear down Nick and it looks like it can be rebuilt and I'm sure you will make it something special too. Can't wait for the finished product now.

Standard bore you got something to work with if the block isn't cracked...Nicks Garage makes my Monday evening.

Love the 70’s Tv show music

Very interesting teardown Nick! At least you have a block that can be decked, go .030" overbore to get a good starting point. I can't wait to see you transform it into a nice cruiser engine.

Enjoy your videos very much. You guys do a great job! I am a Ford & Chevrolet guy but like to see the Mopar stuff also.

That was interesting. I guess someone put it together without head gaskets just to keep all the parts together safe in one place.

Your "Marketplace" 440 HP was probably from a police car. . . You might be interested to know that the E86 (sales code) 440 HP that was installed at the factory in my 1974 Dodge Charger SE had "Six Pack" connecting rods and a forged crankshaft.

Back in the late 70's and early 80's, I managed a parts store. The demo display from WIX Filters had a sectioned WIX and a Fram. The key differences between the two were the WIX had rubber seals at the top and bottom and the Fram had paper. Also, if you removed the filter paper from the inside, the Fram had about 10 feet of filter paper in the actual filter media and the WIX about 25. The point was that more filter media would trap more dirt because the surface area was larger because more folds in the filtering media makes more area. At the time, Frams cost $1.99 and Wix were $3.99. I have always run WIX or the factory filter from that time. The display made me a believer.

Motorhomes!

My dad used fram oil filters for years and never had a problem

Years ago when I was in high school my gym teacher told me he came home from school to find his boy had his car in the living room and had pulled the engine in there. Lol. True story.

Everyone talks about how good the 440 is but never really talk about the engineering reasons why and it all starts with the original big block way back in 1958. If you look at the previous engines, especially all the early Hemi's you can see Mopar was working hard to build a better engine. First of all let's look at the block. It is a deep skirted block. This was a new idea for Mopar. It makes the block much more rigid meaning you don't need 4 bolt mains to keep the mains from flexing like you do on a regular block like the previous Hemi and Poly engines. Second is putting the distributor in the front instead of the rear. It makes servicing the points, cap and rotor and setting the timing much easier. Since oil pumps in this era were run off a drive shaft driven by the distributor gear in virtually every engine made Mopar made the conscious choice to make the oil pump entirely external. Oil pumps wear and this makes servicing them a snap, almost as easy as changing the oil filter. There is no water that runs through individual pipes bolted to the heads or ports in the intake manifold so coolant leaks are minimized and leaks from the intake manifold in many different makes have been directly responsible for destroying an untold number of engines over the years. The block and water pump manifold ports are separated to give cooling priority to the heads, called reverse flow, that helps to minimize pre-ignition. They use stamped steel rocker arms that are very light and minimize valve float more common when using heavier components. Also the rocker shaft system is very efficient by eliminating deflection. The big blocks have an excellent oiling system. If you have ever primed your 383/400/440 with the intake and valley pan off you can see how the lifter valley and the cam are virtually flooded with a torrent of oil. This is why big blocks never seem to have an issue with cam/lifter failure, if regular maintenance is given, unlike so many other makes. The rear main seal is a lip style seal when rope was still popular and it has it's own housing instead of being in a groove on the rear main cap like most other makes, making it dependable but very easy to change if needed. They use 4 bolts on the bottom edge of the valve covers, 6 total, that helps to eliminate leak oil leaks. There are many other minor details that showed that Mopar engineers put a ton of thought and effort into building an engine that could have been used for many decades without a need for refinements. Had it not been for the EPA intervention of the 1970's I'm betting they would still be in production and very popular. As a mechanic who has worked on all makes these are some of the things that make the Mopar B and RB engines perhaps the best ever made. Today things like easy serviceability seem almost foreign and everything seems to be designed to fail, after the warranty is out of course. But not back when Mopar introduced the B/RB design. It was truly engineered to last.

Thanks Nick❤ have a great and blessed day

Another great teardown video: Nick is the automotive forensic pathologist!!! I never knew before about the importance of looking at engine parts and seeing what story they tell, until I watched Professor Panaritis at work. Good stuff!!!! Great week to y’all!!!!

I always learn something new watching these disassembly sessions. I wonder why you don't have them washed down first, but I guess you might wash away some clues to a problem the engine has. Thank you Nick!

Nick and George, Hello for Monday !!! Glad Nick getting it taken apart ...that water sure aint good for an engine to sit around in . Always enjoy and learn something. Take It Easy ...

Thanks Nick and George. I enjoy engine tear downs and builds. I need another project, my engine stand has been collecting dust!

Was thinking most filters used paper for as long as I remember. I began changing oil filters in the early 1950s. They only fall apart if you get water in them. Then you got more than filter problems.

WIX filters for the win Nick.

Learn something new every day. I thought the exhaust gasket was to stop the exhaust manifold from cooking the valve cover gasket’s. Thanks Nick

Like other great YT videos, Nick is a mentor to us, no big ego talking down to the masses. High respect.

Hello Nick, Love your channel, I'm a. Old Mopar affecteniado. As for Fram oil filters I've ran them on Mopar, Chev and never had a problem but I always changed em on reg intervals. I don't use them now as I reside in Europe and not Texas now. In my humble opinion these opinions were quite likely rendered by "keyboard experts". KEEP up the great content as your stuff is Golden.

Congrats on a quarter million subs guys!

That was fun to watch thanks Nick.

Hearing the music 🎶, I feel like I’m watchin a Shaft tv 📺 show LOL 😂

The problem with the 'older' FRAM filters wasn't necessarily the filter material, but the anti-drainback valve was cardboard and would get soggy and ultimately break apart.. They seemed to have solved this that i've seen and they seem to use the silicone valve now. The filter medium in general with FRAM isn't horrible, but you do get less 'inches' of filter material than say a WIX

That 440 got the craig's list rebuild.

It's Monday and here I am!

It’s great to see this good sound engineering from the 70s ,Not like the modern throw away junk

I like WIX oil filters. Not a fan of the fram sure grip filters. But to each is own.

Pretty cool that your client has an HP block!

This video reminded me of my ’78 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am that I owned from new to many years after. At the time I sure thought I had a muscle car but actually I have come to learn that car was from the detuned engine era. The compression was only 8.1:1. That meant that 400 cu. in. engine only developed 200 horsepower. My ’12 Chrysler 200 Touring convertible with the Pentastar V6 develops 283 horsepower from only 220 cubes, which has way better performance than that old Pontiac, so much for my so-called muscle car from 1978. 🤨

Considering no rust maybe it was just full of hydraulic fluid? HP stamp makes sense from where I'm sitting, with the Toyota Corolla's (the one you had in a while ago) they also mix-matched early & late heads & blocks, whatever they had at hand basically.

They made power tools for us old guys !

We've gotta get Nick to 250K Subscribers during Carlisle!!!

Excellent knowledge Nick nice video regards from Greece 🇬🇷❤️

Teardowns are "fun". You never know what to find. In a Ford 351 I found two pushrods and some spare change coins in the oilpan. I bought a 360 Mopar With no compression on one cylinder, it was put together with on one head on one cyl, the intake valve in the exhaustport and the exhaustvalve in the intake port. Surprise. Cheers.

That’s a nice block, pretty much virgin. Heads look good at first glance, stripped and dipped will tell all. This will be fun, an engine from “cocoon” to “butterfly”! Watch this kids, about to be a perfect cruising motor with sound and torque. 🤪😃👍

His camera work and sound are getting better he has good people doing the RU-vid for him

Shout out to Nick- from Indianapolis Indiana!! Enjoying the show!!

people always complain about the fram filter because the top and bottom of the element is cardboard and not steel like other filters , but i saw no issues with the carton style top and bottom on this filter , i say it passes as good

Nick, in the 70s Fram oil filters for motorcycles were known for spitting the filters right off their threads. They kept the rep, I think.

Another excellent tear down..I learned much! Thanks.

Great video as always! Here in Illinois I have known several people who got 440s from old motorhomes. They were used in them for a while after they stopped using them in cars.

Nick, a big hello from Milton Mike to you and George great job.

I am SO tired of people going on and on and on about Fram filters. It is like some sort of contagion. I don't know how many Ferraris I have seen at car shows with Fram filters on them, but no matter. I KNEW Nick would find no problem with that filter. And if there was a problem with these, you can bet Nick would know, considering he has about 1000x my experience on engines. I have used nothing but Fram filters in all my cars since I was a kid. That, and Castro GTX motor oil. Let's talk about my results. 1968 Charger, 383. Owned since 1978. Put over 70k miles on it, and it had about that when I bought it. No issues. And when I was a kid, I drove that car relentlessly. 1971 Super Bee, 440 (late model like this one). 60,000 miles I have put on it. 1988 Mustang GT, 201,000 miles on it, never even taken the heads off! It was my commuter car into LA for 15 years. 1970 Corvette, 1969 AMC AMX, and some others. Not one has had any kind of engine problem, and all of them pull well to this day. I am talking about 100s of thousands of miles on these cars. My dad had similar results with his Grand Marquis that he would drive and commute in. When he sold the car, the interior was all coming apart, it had faded paint and it needed a new top, but the engine ran like a top. There is no how, no way, that if Fram filters were that bad, that I would not have experienced some issue. I don't work for Fram, I don't have any financial interest in the company. But misinformation like this just has to be countered. It's the same lame blather when anyone talks about oils, or additives, or this or that. I remember being young, and I would go into auto stores, and some guy behind the counter would question why I was buying a multigrade. The next store I went into some other guy would question why I might be buying a straight grade oil. I laughed then, and I laughed now. One more thing. Try calling Fram customer service some time. I did a few years ago, talked with an actual engineer for a good 20 minutes! I went through all the stuff you hear online. They come apart. The end caps are bad. Blah blah blah. Ask those questions to one of their engineers. Now, I don't expect an employee of the company to talk bad about their product, but getting some straight talk about it on a technical level is fascinating. If find it funny that people will challenge other folks in a forum, but you never see them trying to challenge an engineer with their "evidence".

Thank you, such an excellent engine builder

looks like a good Engine for a Stroker Kit , If you going to build a Big Block Build it Big.

Thanks for the teardown!

Old car memories soundtrack. 😁

I cut open a brand new fram filter and couldn’t believe what i seen At one of the end plates the filter media was folded over and there was a hole where unfiltered oil could pass absolute truth i still have it

Funky music, gotta love it!

There's a plus it turns over.

I think it had a bit of a recent trip to the carwash to get a pressure clean, hence all the water. But when Nick wound it over with no plugs.... guys, we got a squirter! 😆

I just built my first 440 out of a motorhome got it for fee. A real heck of a job getting it out lots of swearing and lots of sawzall blades. I rebuilt it all back to stock and sold it and made a pritty good profit. Awesome video Nick cheers from Toronto 🍻

Awesome show good tare down should be a good runner good job Nick keep them coming and see you Monday

Great job Nick

Thank you, Nick!!!

I really enjoy a Nick's Garage tear down and Nick's historic knowledge is the best around Nick want's to find out the height between piston and deck When you build an engine with Nick high compression is what you get That's why Nick's Garage demands respect You can drive your muscle car with pride but only Nick's Garage shows you how it works inside and educates you about your ride If you want to learn about classic and rare cars Nick's Garage is your guide Thanks Nick Bless you George

Another great tear down video Nick! This one will be a great engine for your client when you get built up into a ripper!

Nick, I enjoyed watching the engine tear down. Thanks for sharing!

I've seen two things I've never seen , an engine without headgaskets, and cutting a milk crate to support the drain pan is brilliant.

I had an old Dodge Fury with a 440...it was n old police car. huge carb on it.

All in all that block looks good on that side.

Nick ,always amazed at your knowledge on the Mopar and how quick you spot something on them . Crazy with no headgaskets to protect head and engine . Nick , you got to write those Mopars books ...Nicks Building and Mopar Tricks !!!!! Take care

Good afternoon Nick and George. Another Monday, and we have a 440 teardown video, my favorite kind of video. I'm anxious to see how far the pistons are down in the bore at TDC. My guess is that it will be over .125 and probably more. A Monday is always better with Nick's Garage. Here we go!!