I got this from Allpar.com
http://www.allpar.com/racing/nascar-dance.html

Is there a shread of truth to this? I have heard stories, but those were stories.

 

I haven't heard of the 427 being called a semi hemi. I have heard the Boss 429 called that. The overhead cam "production" 427 was a single overhead cam (427 SOHC). I read once in Hot Rod about a 426 DOHC Dodge hemi that was being developed, but in an initial test (spun by an electric motor), one of the cam bosses cracked and it was mothballed. The engine was later dusted off for use as a display in a museum somewhere.

 

I have heard that they toyed with the idea, tested it, but ultimately scrapped it. something like that would have at least made 750hp easy

 

I have a copy of a '65 HR mag with the 427 sohc on the cover, so I was awake and alive at the time this was all going on. I've read the same thing as above.

Sometimes people would call a V8 sohc a dohc as there are two cams. I has to be two cams in the same head to be a dohc. (I had one of those, too, a Honda CB450 DOHC torsion bar spring pita...but I digress...)

 

I've heard about the DOHC Mopar. I have heard there was 2 built and when the idea was scrapped, someone at the company stole on in many pieces.

 

Here's one in action, kind of.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPJ_B10iy4k

 

Here's one in action, kind of.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPJ_B10iy4k

http://www.geocities.com/infieldg/v8sohc427.html

 

The only DOHC motor Ford built back then was the small block for Indy racing.

 

They also put one (DOHC 4.2L/255ci) in a 1964 Ford GT40 Prototype; chassis #GT/103

And she's a beauty. Sold at auction for a bit over $2.5 million.

http://www.rmauctions.com/AuctionRes...ars&Currency=#

Third one down.

I wanted to buy it, but I was two years too late, and a bit over $2.5 million short.

 

Bear 45/70,

Durring the life of that car: Early on they put in a pushrod indy motor (probably Gurney Eagle heads) but that is not how it was built from the Ford program or the LeMans race series. It now has been retro fitted with the DOHC Ford Indy engine, but that is not from a Ford instalation. I personally know a guy about 15 miles from me with a DOHC 255. These kave magnesium blocks and produce around 600HP with injection, 800HP in the later turbocharged coyote version.

65F100_352,

As to your orriginal questions as I own a 427 SOHC and have been arround many. Ford didn't remember what they had learned 5 years earlier when the built the Boss 429!! Why??, Because early prototype 427 SOHC motors were "SEMI-HEMI" The intake and exaust valves were across from each other, but at an angle, just like the Boss 429 to be built 5 years later. You may have seen pictures of one of the Semi-Hemi 427 SOHC engines. In the picture I have seen, This engine has an airfilter assembly on a single 4 BBL engine that has the spark plug tubes going through the bottom of the valve cover near the exaust ports. This motor has early finned valve covers with no oval 427 SOHC in the center of the covers. All early 427 SOHC lash cap rocker engines had these early type magnesium covers. I sold mine years ago as I own a lash cap engine with the good heads. Ford found that the more they moved the valves into a true HEMI configuration, the more power they made. The early prototype semi-hemi 427 SOHC heads only made 50 horsepower more than the Hi-Riser and therefore wasn't worth the extra weight of those early heads. I have personally seen a set of these early heads at a swap meet years ago with the sparkplugs at the exaust side of the head, so know your stuff if you ever want to part a cammer together.

In 1963 Ford was mopping up in NASCAR with the single 4BBL 427 FORD Hi-Riser. For 1964, Chrystler came out with the 426 HEMI. Ford still one some short track races with the better low end of the Hi-Risers Dog leg intake runners, but the big tracks belonged to the HEMI. Ford through together "the 90 day wonder" also known as the 427 SOHC "CAMMER". Chrystler saw the riting on the wall and made blueprints for a 426 DOHC 4 valve engine. It is rumored that two 4 valve chrystler hemis were built, but no pictures have ever surfaced of those engines, let alone the engines themselves. The blueprints do exist, have been doccumented, and their location is known. In 1964, several NASCAR drivers were killed. The most notable was "FireBall Roberts". There were no 426 Hemis in any street car ever in 1964, the same for the 427 SOHC Ford. No production car with a cammer installed on an assembly line was ever sold to the public, although alot of rumors taken as fact otherwise. In 1964 General Motor logged a complaint with NASCAR that these were not factory engines. With the deaths from heavy cars with too little tire and too much power, NASCAR agreed and outlawed both engines. The cammer was outlawed before it ever even raced. A minimum production was set that 500 engines must be sold to the public in factory cars to quallify an engine to race (both engines were hand assembled tool room pieces) Chrystler got mad and pulled out of NASCAR and didn't race in 1965. Chrystler started putting the 426 hemi in street cars in 1966, and returned to NASCAR that year with it's now legal engine. If GM hadn't filed a complaint, a 426 DOHC 4 valve HEMI would have been built and the cammer would have raced, but the 426 HEMI may have never seen the street.85e150six4mtod is absolutely correct in that some baffoons thought that because there were two cams that the 427 was a DOHC. That thinking is wrong.

Roger