302 HEMI Cross Ram on Ebay?

[MotownMadman]

A friend of mine has two of those three 302 Hemi engines on stands in his basement. Somehow he got the two a long time ago from Smokey Yunick who had got them from Chevrolet for testing and they never went back. I believe the third was put into a Daytona Yellow 69 Z28 built by Smokey, if I remember correctly the car still exists today in someones collection.
Motown

[JoeC]

Smokey Yunick was working for Ford in 69

[MotownMadman]

Joe,
As I said I was trying to work from memory, sometimes there are cloudy days, others are partly sunny. But I do know from all the research I just went through on the 68 Team Shelby TA car that Smokey was bouncing back and forth and doing a bit of Moonlighting for Chev that Ford wasnt aware of. No matter who had Smokey, the other side always wanted him. I believe he was working for Chev with the Hemi 302 which took place as early as late 67 to early 68. But, I may have the info all screwed up as trying to keep up with Maynard while he is describing his tresure trove is like listening to a 33 record at 78 speed. He has two of these engines, if I remember correctly at least one was all aluminum. I need to call Al anyway, I will ask him about these engines and re-post.
Motown

[Charley Lillard]

I had the Yellow car but it is now in Canada. Gary Holub has a Silver Z with one that he has done up with Smokey Yunick lettering in a Yenko Motif. Al Maynard has one in a Silver Z and I think 2 other engines. There were about 6 complete engines and several more sets of heads that were developed by Chevrolet and sent to Smokey for evaluation. I think Al has more of that stuff than anybody.

[JoeC]

Check Smokey’s books. He wrote about these heads.
I would have to check but if I remember right he said 200 sets were cast to make them legal for SCCA. Chevy was nervous about the Ford tunnel port head 302 making more power so they started on the 302 Chevy porcupine head program. Most of the work done in 67-68. They were working on hi rpm large airflow to take advantage of the large cfm 2x4 cross ram intake in the little 302. SCCA banned multi carb intakes for 69 season so there was not much advantage to the big heads and Smokey and Traco and others kept making more and more power with the stock heads.
As far as Smokey working for Chevy and Ford in 69 – I don’t think so. He had a tight big money contract with Ford given to him by his buddy Bunkie K. who also flew the coop to Ford. GM pulled Smokey’s GMC Truck dealership away from him. They both didn’t last too long at Ford.
Read the books no TV no Video games until your homework is done

[MotownMadman]

Hey Joe, I got some different books here you would have to read, the person who owned the Tunnel Port TA Mustang I found had worked for Ford and Team Shelby, he was also a thief who made off with whatever he could carry. I have thousands of pages of documents from Ford, inter office letters and memos, much of it having to do with the Ford racing program, Chevrolets high performance dealer programs and Fords lack of, attemps by Mickey Thompson to team with Ford in which in finally told Henry Jr to screw himself, and letters between Fords head of racing Jacque Passino to the powers that be indicating his displeasure with Smokey and Bunkie for playing both sides of the fence. So Joe, put away the high school books and dive into some college material. If you have an interest in this type of historical reading I can run off some copies and put a packet together to mail to you. You would not believe the fifty page marketing study Ford had done targeting their muscle cars to teenagers for street racing! If the insurance companies only knew. Also, you would not believe the smoke and mirrors fiasco that was played out as far as Fords withdrawal from racing, what a bunch of BS between what the public was told and what really was the root causes. I have been sitting here going through stacks of documents at the same type you were also reading.....anybody ever hear of gearheads anoynomous? Where do I sign up?
Motown

[JoeC]

Sounds interesting- I would love to read it. Do you have anything on Grady Davis? He was Don Yenko's Corvette racing buddy and VP at Gulf Oil. They sponsored Don and Dick Thompsons championship winning Corvettes until the blow up with Chevy in 1963. Gulf wanted to win LeMans. Chevy wouldn't play the game so Gulf took their money to Ford and made history.

[Salvatore]

Doesn't Charlie own that car?

[Keith Tedford]

Weren't these more of a canted valve head like the big block Chevies, as opposed to the Chrysler Hemi valve train layout?

[JoeC]

Keith, I don’t know why some call it a Hemi head. They used to call them “semi hemi” head or porcupine head