Saw something weird this past weekend at a Lemons race. (I know what you're thinking... "No $#!+!") Well, I specifically mean I laid eyes on a weird slant six.

For background, some friends of mine race a 1963 Dart 2-door that currently has a later-model engine installed, a cast-crank block with a peanut plug head. The car's also been converted to a later floor-shift A904. They spun a rod bearing during Friday practice and started hunting around for a replacement engine. The one they found had been sitting in a local guy's backyard for years, but reportedly "only had 20,000 miles on it." It also had big holes rusted through the valve cover and about 2 gallons of water in the oil pan, so they opted not to install it... but that's another story.

On first inspection, it looked like a cast crank block. Peanut plug head, three-digit block casting number, uniform water pump support rib (i.e. it doesn't get wider toward the block). But when they pulled the oil pan (not sure exactly what kind, but it looked like a passenger car pan), it had the much wider rod caps and slightly wider main caps of a forged crank. When they pulled the head, it also had a stamped steel head gasket and stock bores. So I'm guessing it had never been apart before. I called up Lou, who said it would take a lot of work to install a forged crank in a block made for a cast crank. He guessed that it might've been a transition year engine that came from the factory that way.

Anybody ever seen one of these? I actually have it in my garage, so I can get some pictures and check the stamped number on the block pad when I get home tonight.

The other weird part is that the engine was attached to a cable-shifted 904, with a long tailshaft and a four-bolt output flange. Unless there was some weird application that used a cable-shift trans with no slip yoke into the mid-70s, I'm guessing the engine was transplanted into an earlier vehicle at some point in its life.

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Somehow I ended up owning three 1964 slant six A-bodies. I race one of them.
Escape Velocity Racing

The block rib deal is not 100% accurate, and there is a changeover period where it can go either way.

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Official Cookie and Mater Tormentor.

Warning for those without high-speed internet: the pictures linked in this post are very large.

Can anyone help decode this stamped block number from the pad behind the alternator: 5225R 287 (I think)
The cast number on the driver's side looks like 038-11, but could be 033-14 or some combination thereof. It was dark when I went outside to take these pictures.

Here's a picture of the transmission from above.
The numbers on the driver's side pan rail are a little hard to decipher, but it looks like 2466118H (although the H might just be two vertical stripes) followed by 1468252 (although the last digit is misaligned off the bottom edge and could be a 3).

Identifying the engine is mainly just to satisfy my own curiosity, but I'd really like to find out where this transmission came from. I bought it from these guys thinking I might be able to use it for parts.

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Somehow I ended up owning three 1964 slant six A-bodies. I race one of them.
Escape Velocity Racing

Engine
5: 1975 model year
225: Duh
2 8 7: proof Chrysler were in such shambles in 1975 they could lose toilet paper on its way from the roll to their backside. Instead of the 4-digit number referring to the 10,000-day calendar that "should" be there, roughly from 4767 (16 Aug '74) through 5110 (25 July '75), that's an olde-tyme date stamp suggesting the engine was built on 8 February 1975, with the "7" meaning a production line, a shift, or the stamper's favourite number.

So: a 1975 engine. Peanut plugs (check), forged crank (check).

Transmission

2466118: A904 for 1965 B- and C-body cars with 225 engine. Flange output shaft for ball/trunnion front U-joint, twin-cable shift.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Thanks, Dan! It sounds like this type of 225 is more common than I thought.

DD's block article says the "2nd generation" forged crank blocks with a 2806830 casting number were made through 1975, and elsewhere I've read that the switch to cast cranks came in mid-1976. So I guess this later "narrow-rib" block with a forged crank makes up the difference in late '75 and early '76 engines.

I have some more questions about the transmission which I'll move to a new thread in that section.

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Somehow I ended up owning three 1964 slant six A-bodies. I race one of them.
Escape Velocity Racing