The DeSoto Firedome Hemi - Is This The Most Significant Chrysler Engine Of All Time? 

My father in law was a highway patrolman in Ohio in the late 50's. As such, he was in numerous high speed chases. During one chase, the car he was after, pulled away from him so quickly he ended the chase. He said the cars tail lights just got smaller and smaller till they just disappeared. Unfortunately for the guy he was chasing, they knew who he was and picked him up the next day. The engine in the car. Desoto Firedome. The patrol car was a 57 Ford, and this was the only time it was ever outran! Great video and subject matter! Love this stuff!

Had a 57 DeSoto Firedome when I was a kid. 341 2bbl hemi and typewriter Torqueflite. Learned the differences in the family quickly when I picked up a 392 4bbl intake at Carlisle and it didnt fit! Super smooth and torqey. Had an under the seat record player!

Man what a walking talking encyclopedia of Chrysler engineering 😳 May the force be with you .😮🎉

I've always had a big interest in those Chrysler Air Raid sirens. Dodge truck frame, hemi, and some cold war style stuff!!! Cars are what I do, and history is my passion

I'll have to let my brother know about tomorrow's video about the red ram. Back in about 1980 to 82 he bought one to put in a t-bucket he was building. Over 10 or so years he researched red rams to death. Jim Rini did the machine work on it and had an Isky reground cam, reworked small block distributor and 4 barrel intake and carb. My brother built a spacer so he could install a torqueflyte trans behind it. Neat stuff

This guy knows his crank flange from his deepstate! Top work Sir 👍

One thing I've noticed with the early hemi's is how smooth they are, very little or no vibration in them.

Years and years ago I rescued a 53 Chrysler Saratoga from the crusher. It has the 331 hemi. The motor had been pulled and disassembled. You could still see the crosshatch in the cylinders. Unfortunately these things are not cheap to rebuild so it sets….

Had a 55 Desoto with that engine given to me by my father in law who bought it to tow an under warranty Cortina back from rural Pennsylvania cause no one could fix the transmission. my 49 Chevy blew up and we needed a car to back to Illinois. I knew it was special when I saw the dual point distributor, but didn’t understand what it was. Drove it home and both my wife and really liked the engine. It felt tireless and at ease compared to other V8s. Eventually sold to a friend on his way to San Francisco where he sold it on to a guy who blew the engine up street dragging. An honourable end compared to mouldering away in my father in laws driveway.

At first, I thought this video would be almost as fun as watching paint dry...😂 There's a pretty good sized Surplus Store about 40 miles from where I live... They always have some pretty crazy Military surplus for sale and you never know what you might see there. About five years ago, I happened to go up there just to poke around and was of course BROKE as a joke at the time. I'll be damned if they didn't have FOUR brand new, in the crate, early Fifties Chrysler generators for sale that weekend. Each powered by a 331 Hemi.... And get this - only $2500 each. That's the story of my life... A day late or a dollar short 🤣 Happy New Year, Uncle Tony!

The firedome was the first engine I ever built with my grandpa, he ended up shipping it to Germany for a guy restoring a Facel Vega, which used the firedome as the stock motor back in the fifties. Good stuff man!!

Good stuff man . And actually the 354 truck engines ( Chrysler FirePower ) were available in big trucks for the 1959 model year . I'm sure they were cast in 1958 but there is an engine code for 1959 blocks.

Desoto 345 was the first American engine to make 1hp per cubic inch.

Very interesting. 20 years ago, my father and I bought a 1955 Desoto fireflite 4 door for $800 with the 291 4-barrel "Fireflite Hemi" (200HP) and 2 speed "Powerflite" transmission". Unfortunately, it never made it to the road, and I sold it a few years ago.

I'm building a DeSoto 330 right now.... block is in the shop. I'm building it to be blown, so using main cap studs and 340 main caps. Using H beam rods designed for 400 Pontiac and custom blower pistons from Hot Heads Hemi. Hot Heads also sells a blower manifold which isn't listed. Going to be using a 6-71 and two Edelbrock carbs. Engine is going in a 64 Barracuda gasser. Like Tony says, cams are the DeSoto's Achilles heel...there just aren't any. So I'm having a factory cam reground. Also tuff to get main and rod bearings for stock caps and rods, but I'll be able to use LA main bearings and Pontiac rod bearings. I was told it can't be done.... So I'm doing it.

The early hemi and poly engine history is interesting. I always assumed all the hemis were pretty much the same except for bore/stroke/cubic inches, but there were a lot of differences. It's also interesting how closely related the DeSoto hemi is to the A/LA/Magnum engines. I found out through an engine swap just how similar the poly 318 is to the LA 318. I had a truck with the poly engine, and I swapped in an LA 318 pretty easily. And a lot of parts interchange. The big difference is just the heads and intake manifold.

I watch you all the time for your information and knowledge. Ment no disrespect UT. Love your channel. Keep up the reality and helping everyone. Great humer and knowledge. Kind regards

My cousin has a 53 de Soto with the fire dome an it's his daily driver I love this car.just driving all your worries just melt away

NOTHING like nice fresh paint. Love it.

Sooo entertaining Uncle T

Shoot Man, I would have bought a Avanti electric air paint gun from harbor freight and painted those walls in three hours. But of course prep time with paper on the bottom floors areas would take time. As long as your painting with latex, clean up is easy. Oil base clean up sucks.

Uncle Tony, little tidbit, the 4 barrel DeSoto hemi was actually called the Fireflite, the 2 bbl was the Firedome. My 1st car, owned 25 years was a 1956 Fireflite S24. My grandpa's was 1956 Pacesetter, featured in Special Interest Autos, my dads a 1956 DeSoto Sportman...

My friend and I rebuilt a 331 in a 1954 chrysler wagon. It wa so damn tight 6v was worthless. We started it with 12v for a few weeks. Fun memmories.

Thanks again UTG , learned something new today 😊

What about the Ardun head ? These were hemi heads made for Ford flat head V8s - a conversion kit.

Wow I could listen to this dude for a long time. I had a '55 DeSoto Fireflite which had the 291 hemi with a 4 barrel, drove it through college after I sold my Roadrunner (hemi actually better with mpg). Effortless torque and power, of course the car was a tank, would have parties inside with 8 people going down the road. Would have liked to have done a mild mod. Wish I still had it, might buy another.

Hemi Time !!!

Awesome video. great info. I was a painter in my youth, so I had to turn a blind eye to your technique with the roller but if you are happy with the outcome, that's ultimately what's important. I am very excited for this topic of the old hemi engines.

Holy shit, first work I ever seen you do Tony 😉

An early hemi would be cool in a 70s or 80s dodge truck.

A friend of mine in the 90s has a 56 fire dome 330 2 speed that thang would run 55 in low gear with 3 non flours on the plugs burning oil and valves all the way still run like a 100 110 with a car load of people 2 speed 2 burrow 4 door red and white what a fun car in the 90s when we where in high school

Every time I watch Uncle Tony, I learn something cool about Chrysler products. Their engineering was top notch.

Walls getting painted 70 Superbird Alpine white...😮

Why no hemi 318? Seemed like Dodge was fond of that displacement.

My dad owned a service station in the fifties. He said they were great engines but if you ran them for a long time they could be difficult to restart. His friend owned a Desota with firedome. They were racing from stop light to stop light. I don't remember what car they were racing against but he said nothing could be that Desota off the line. On a long stretch, it would be overtaken.

the Desoto is the foundation for a lot more than the poly

Interesting, Thank You .

I'm crying here in 38"heat lol

I wonder how much u know about the Plymouth 350 duel quad that is shown in the movie christen

Looking forward unk 👍👍

I found a DeSoto head in a junkyard I used to work in. I would have bought it, but my boss would have wanted both nuts for it.

Uncle Tony your nap isn't on the roller handle all the way. Thanks for the history lesson

Speaking this eloquently with that scraping noise going on is indicative of that scraping noise being what is going on in Tony's head all the time, thus is the curse of us ADHD people.

Fun fact: 1956 Dodge 315 and 330 Desoto have a longer stroke than a 426 hemi at 3.80 inches

Whats sad is manufacturers take good reliable designs and stop using them in favor of problematic designs that are designed to fail after so many miles.

Take a brush and cut in around that door trim! Never bump the trim with a roller.

All wit NO CUE cards ;) ✊🏼🍺🍕

Hey UTG what are your thoughts about holley 670cfm duel feed single pump vacuum secondary on a ford 351w ho it was on a Mopar so it had the adapter for Mopar

Tony mate the wall 😂

I've been offered a 276 but wondering if my 6:71 blower will fit without mounting the thing crazy high to clear the distributor

Sooooo is Tony gonna build a Desoto for the channel

Big t the Desoto hemi do the heads on Plymouth interchange poly and fire dome

OK, Dodge DRS [Double Rocker Shaft] fan here. The "RED RAM name was applied to the base V8 Dodge engine during the 1953 to 1957 period, so here goes. 1953 & '54. The 241 cube Hemi engine was the RED RAM. [There was no Dodge Poly version] 1955 The new Poly 270 version was the RED RAM. The 1955 Dodge 270 Hemi was the SUPER RED RAM 1956 the Poly 315 version was still the RED RAM. The 1956 Dodge 315 Hemi was the D500 1957 the Poly 325 version was still the RED RAM. The 1957 Dodge 326 Hemi was, again, the D500 As a result of its later introduction, the Dodge version of the Hemi engines had benefited from correcting all the mistakes in design that both the earlier Chrysler & DeSoto engines had made. It was this Dodge design that Chrysler scaled up when they produced the 1956 354 engine & possibly the previous year's 331 Remember, the "RED RAM" name on the Hemi design was used for two years only, in 1953 & '54. After that it was Super Red Ram & D500. From 1955 the Red Ram was always a Poly engine. The 1955 & '56 Plymouth 259 cube engine was a bored out Dodge 241 with Poly heads. PS. It's my belief & understanding that the "A" & "LA" engines had their origin in the Dodge cylinder block design. The DeSoto engine still retained too many design elements from the early Chrysler & DeSoto engines that had been updated in the Dodge & later Chrysler engines.

The Desoto,the parts fit Desoto only.Chrysler,fit Chrysler and Dodge fits Dodge

Tony, paint the shop Omaha Orange 😂

You couldn’t wait for the HVAC work to get a bit quieter?

But if you get Fonzie to hot rod it you'll be even better!

Mopar or No car

Cool info dude😅

More significant than the Mission Impossible 318?

Celsius

Sez Tony: "The Desoto Engine never was a high-performance engine." I would point out Gene Adams and his Junior Fuel Desoto low deck 291, overbored and stroked to 305 c.i.d. In the 1960s there was a very popular, much cheaper drag class, "Junior Fuel." 305 c.i.d. displacement limit, natural aspiration only, straight nitro. It took Gene Adams a couple weeks to get his digger dialed in, and then he never lost a race. Was the first natural aspiration car over 200 mph. The competition was 305 Chevys and Fords. Adams would show up at the track and he'd automatically win.

Tony, what you say is interesting, but watching this video is like... watching the paint dry.

Tony your paint is drying

Uncle Tony. The painter man😅 you just going to leave it white?

Third!!

Tony. I will buy a new phone tomorrow as old one now dead. Remember I am in Oz, so will ask for e-mail or other means of contact via text

Forth 👍

Come on paint lol

This video is watching paint dry

What really surprised me was to learn that the hemispherical combustion chamber design was developed by Chrysler for an inverted V-16 fighter plane engine they engineered in hopes of a government contract before WWII- it was rejected, but by the end of it's run it was producing 3000hp. The war also produced Ford's GAA aluminum block double overhead cam V-8 of 1100 cid, that was originally a V-12 airplane engine that didn't make the cut. It was used in Sherman tanks and the late-war Pershing heavy tank...

I remember, when I lived in rural Mass. in the mid 70's, one of my pass times was exploring the old auto graveyards around there. Saw multiples of probably every description of early Hemi cars and engines in those yards, along with many other old makes of cars of course. I get to wondering at times what happened to them all. One fascinating sidebar, was the Chrysler Hemi powered air raid sirens of the mid 50's. I saw one on display at the Chrysler museum.

Nice technique UT! Hopefully that wall paint is industrial strength--something tells me some nice work will be coming out of that new shop!😎

Anything was what I wished for in my 51 Plymouth. Dreamed a Chrysler V8. Never happened, a chrysler straight 6 happened. Would do 60 in second gear. Those were the day.

I'm currently overhualing a 1956 330 desoto hemi, looking forward to all you have to say about the desoto hemi.

You are so correct about the Adam and Enriquez’s jr. fueler watch them many a time at Lions and other strips in So Cal. The sbc of the era had a hard time keeping up with them!

The Dodge hemi was about the size of a 215 Buick, super small, would fit in anything.

Love the DeSoto and 270 Dodge RedRam hemi!

Thanks, Tony, for touching on the Ardun story in your live feed. Zora Arkus-Duntov like you said famously worked on the Corvette and in 1947 developed "hemi" heads that were adapted to the flathead Ford engine by gearheads. His designs were run at Bonneville too I believe. I think also that the heads have been reproduced by several others over these many decades.

this video made me wanna build one and throw in my 70 challenger!

I could just hang out w/ Uncle Tony wrenching on stuff while he's spouting all the history.

You are forgetting one hemi engine (the W-43 ). Not made by Dodge or plymouth but by oldsmobile.

All this very cool information concerning especially the bell housing design and bolt pattern brings up a question Ive had for years. Where did the B/RB engine bell housing come from and why wouldnt they have just kept one pattern??

My Grandfather was an elementary school principal in Tottenville, Staten Island NY.... He had a DeSoto... I guess my love for Chryslers is inherent....lol.

As a Brit born in the 50s, I always admired the DeSoto Fireflyte CAR. Those epic fins sold the 5 year old me! Now I know it had (or COULD have) such a primo motor, I want one even more, though I suspect I can't afford one. I love ALL the US "jukebox" cars of the tri-Chevy era, but for fins-n-chrome nothing beats the circa '57 Fireflyte!

Paint n talk would be multi tasking at its finest! How did the painting turn out???

Oh, some 'Honey-Do" ! Glad to see UT doing some Homework.

I have a '53 DeSoto with a totally stock 276 hemi. Great motor (160 hp and 250ftlb torque) At the time, Chevrolet Bel Air’s top engine was a 108hp/200ftlb inline 6. According to Motor Trend magazine tests, the FireDome engine working through Tip-Toe Shift with Fluid Torque Drive hurled DeSoto down the quarter mile in 19.7 seconds at 69 miles per hour. Top speed was 100 miles per hour. The FireDome could race from zero-to-sixty in 15.5 seconds, about five seconds faster than its nearest competitor. Motor Trend gushed about the car, lauding it as a car with “high performance characteristics” and calling the V8 Hemi engine the “engineering scoop of the decade”. In addition, I was super worried about the paint roller drying out during this post. Glad it was cut just short enough to finish the job.

Any excuse to stop painting!

The 392 Hemi was significant too because it introduced the 4 inch bore, which is paramount to valve area for good breathing in a pushrod V8, Further to this Wiki claims that the 354 was also available in a Poly version - But I've never seen one.

Yes it evolved into the “A” and “LA” engine. I sent my cam to Racer Brown in Baltimore MD for a regrind.

This reminds me of that scene in "Blackboard Jungle" when Mr. Dadier is trying to talk to the class when the shop equipment, the floor above, was making noise.

Thanks Uncle T, I've had a 1952 Desoto Fire Dome on an engine stand for about 15 years and one of these days I'm going to do something with it.. thinking maybe a trike with a bike frame and a truck bed? Either way I've learned more about these engines from your 2 vids about them than I ever have.. keep'em coming!

Good Ole Desoto. 64 Plymouth Fury was the oldest Mopar I every owned. Always wanted a Christine replica but my budget said no.

A little trick when using a roller to do painting is finish the strip on the down stroke, that way the paint won't attract dust.

My dad bought a 55 DeSoto when he was in high school it was only a year or two old. Always said they had a "popel" crankshaft (slang term for trees here that aren't good for lumbar), but the Chrysler hemi was great. My guess is it's one of those things that car guys just repeat because they heard it somewhere? He did have a bearing go bad, high-school kid driver probably using drip oil from the gas station he worked, but no, it was that popel crankshaft. That and getting his doors blown off by a 57 or 58 Pontiac are all I've heard about the car. I know they had forged cranks, once I even tried to tell him that. I should just buy a DeSoto hemi to bug him with it. 🤣

Another video of watching paint dry

What happened to that jeep 4.0 engine you were rebuilding from that Cherokee?

Your rollers' dryin out😉

Early Hemis, can you and if possible show more blocks,heads ect. This history is a MUSH for all know and you are the bloke to tell the stories and gather the evidence from the people in the know. What power can a 318 poly block make? We had them here in Australia and you can see the heavy casting areas compared to the LA. Can they deal with more power or are the early Hemi block poly engines different?