What was the last year for the slant?

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Palmetto

Palmetto

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What was the last year for the slant here in the states? I want to track down a slant in a junk yard, but don't know how late I can go to find one.
 
81-87 slants are hyd lifter instead of solid, have cast iron cranks, and a different valve cover than earlier models. The last few years they were only in the trucks and full size vans.
 
Hands down 1975 had the best prodution cam .....if your going to use it all stock .........plus it had hardened valve seats ......and if you look at the horsepower ratings...they seem low....remember that past 72or 73 horsepower ratings were measured in SAE Net ....meaning that was horsepower at the rear wheel.....

the earlier ones had higher horsepower ratings but it was gross horsepower ...meaning the engine on a stand .....not accounting for the power loss through the drivetrain and factors from the car.

For a bunch of reasons i call 1975 my pick

i always avoid early slantys .....in general the 70s improved a lot stuff stuff in terms of reliabitly. and on a slanty i would argue that they never lost much if any horsepower from the number manipulation .....strange how the slanty has historically stayed very close to the same compression ratio from beginning to end.
 
74 or lower were forged cranks, that means a lot if you're really gonna build them. Ranidart,You made a great point about the horsepower gross and net! Some guys don't know that.
 
actually i feel like an *** now bcoz i didnt read correctly ......the original question was "what was LAST year for the slant"..


i thought it was "what is the BEST year for the slant"

OOPS OOOPSY OOPS LOL
 
dovercrossing said:
74 or lower were forged cranks, that means a lot if you're really gonna build them. Ranidart,You made a great point about the horsepower gross and net! Some guys don't know that.
Click to expand...

The forged crank was phased out of production at the end of 1976. The cast crank /6 can be identified by an "E" stamped next to the engine number (i.e. 225E).
- according to the Mopar Engines book.
 
RaniDart70 said:
actually i feel like an *** now bcoz i didnt read correctly ......the original question was "what was LAST year for the slant"..


i thought it was "what is the BEST year for the slant"

OOPS OOOPSY OOPS LOL
Click to expand...

You may HAVE an *** but you are NOT an ***, LOL
 
This will be a helpful thread for many I bet, and in years to come..
Knowlage is a good thing :)
 
Palmetto what are you working on/planning to do, why specifically are you looking for the last of the Slant 6's?

and RaniDart70 ,the ratings did change in 1972. The '71 225 Slant Six was rated at 145HP/215 LB-FT of torque and the '72 225 Slant Six was rated at 110HP/185 LB-FT of torque but the difference had to do more with the amount of parasitic loss from the underhood accessories the engine had to move such as, water pump ,fan blade, powersteering, alternator etc not from rear wheel ratings. I can tell you that my '72 Valiant with the 225 slant 6 dynoed at the rear wheels to the tune of 79HP and 140 LB/FT of torque and before you go saying that is low...the car is no slouch (considering the Slant 6..LOL) it ran 17.8 at 75MPH in the 1/4 mile so if you are correct where is the other 30HP that I theoretically am supposed to have. By the time the awesome Slant got through turning/moving all the underhood accessories and the rear wheels it lost about half of its gross HP rating, well at least in my case! Its still a torque monster:cheers:
 
Hey, for sh$#s and giggles look around a place with a bunch of old forklifts out to pasture. Older TowMotor lifts had industrial slants in them. Get one of those, rebuild it and forget about newer slants. After reading what I just typed I think I am gonna take a peek for one myself?
Chas.
 
I want to get one and see what I can do to squeeze some horsepower out of it with bolt-on things like 4 barrel intake, heavier cam and headers etc.

Thanks guys, I knew someone would know. That is what I love about this site!
 
Palmetto said:
I want to get one and see what I can do to squeeze some horsepower out of it with bolt-on things like 4 barrel intake, heavier cam and headers etc.

Thanks guys, I knew someone would know. That is what I love about this site!
Click to expand...


I'm probably gonna take a lot of flack for this, but I'm gonna say it anyway, because after reading all the analytical performace information I could get ahold of on this site and others, I really believe it to be true.

That slant six can be made into a real powerhouse IF you don't try to do it using the tried-and-true, conventional methods of hot rodding.

These engines have several factors that make them very poor candidates for horsepower upgrades by increasing the breathing using say, a 4bbl manifold, headers, a longer duration, high-lift cam and higher compression.

Those are all methods that work well on MOST normally-aspirated engines.

They don't work very well on slant sixes BECAUSE, the basic engine design of the slant six was arrived at through the dictates of upper management at Chrysler REQUIRING a short engine (fan-to firewall) in order to produce an engine that would fit a "short" engine compartment (fan-to-firewall) for the new Valiant and Dart. They also wanted to have a low hood line, but that's another story.

The engineers were required to design an inline six that was smaller in a front-to-rear dimension than was really practical for an inline, but they did it anyway, the only way they could: They designed it with small-diameter pistons (and bores) and the 170 was born.
The 170 had a lot going for it; it had a good rod-length-to stroke ratio, a short stroke (low piston speed) great rpm potential and a cylinder head that fit the displacement very well; it breathed so well that even at 7,000 rpm, it made good power. The Hyper Pak was born and proved to be just about unbeatable in racing for engines of that class (displacement.)

The following year, Ma Mopar needed a station wagon/grocery-getter engine for the B Bodies. What to do?? The 170 was just too small.

Some genuis got the idea to stroke the 170 a full INCH, which did several things:

Made gobs more torque than the 170.

Changed a great breathing 170 into an asthmatic, strangulated also-ran, because in their haste to get that engine (170) to market, the guys who designed it didn't leave much room for improvements in breathing for the new 225, which was THIRTY-FIVE PERCENT bigger than a 170.

They never changed the valve or port size of that original 170 head.

So, you can port that head and add bigger (1.75" X 1.5") valves to it, but it's never going to breathe like what is needed, to make good horsepower/cu. in. numbers.

A 300 HP 225 slant six is a real accomplishment, and that's only 1.3 HP/CI.

You can build a 3,000-pound A body street car that will run low 14's, but it will have to be a radical-cammed engine with lots of compression and a good exhaust system. Deep gears will be needed to make it really perform...

If low 14's is fast enough for you, that's probably what you should do, but swapping a 360 Magnum in there with a mild cam and headers will give you better performance, cheaper.

The alternative, if you want to run quicker than that, and keep your slant 6, is to put a turbo or supercharger on it. The slant six basic engine has a very strong infrastructure and can stand quite a bit of boost before bad things start to happen... like over 20 pounds...

A 300 HP boosted slant six would probably last forever (nominally) and is pretty easy to put together.

Food for thought...
 
Bill Dedman said:
That slant six can be made into a real powerhouse IF you don't try to do it using the tried-and-true, conventional methods of hot rodding.

A 300 HP boosted slant six would probably last forever (nominally) and is pretty easy to put together.

Food for thought...
Click to expand...

I shortened the quote but I don't see anything wrong with it. The easiest way to make the slant breathe is to shove the air in with forced induction. It is complex and must be done correctly for it to live, but it doesn't come with the same trade offs as big cam, big carb, lumpy idle hot rodding does. What is max hp people are making with a slant somewhere in the 600 range. That is pretty good for an engine that started at a realistic 140 hp. I might be buying a tig welder this weekend and if I do I won't be able to stop myself from welding up a stainless turbo header.
 
Last months Mopar Action.A Chryco engineer,(Bob Torozzi) prepped a turbo /6,for factory field testing.(1975,6?) Hoover came out to Cali,drove it back to Mi,no problems.Car was never seen again.What if?
 
mcnoople said:
I shortened the quote but I don't see anything wrong with it. The easiest way to make the slant breathe is to shove the air in with forced induction. It is complex and must be done correctly for it to live, but it doesn't come with the same trade offs as big cam, big carb, lumpy idle hot rodding does. What is max hp people are making with a slant somewhere in the 600 range. That is pretty good for an engine that started at a realistic 140 hp. I might be buying a tig welder this weekend and if I do I won't be able to stop myself from welding up a stainless turbo header.
Click to expand...

After having put together one of these little jewels, I can assure you that building the header was far and away, the most difficult part of the exercise.

Somebody needs to build these things (turbo-headers) for sale. My racing partner built ours and he had never built a header before in his life. It can't be that hard, once you have one to work off of...

All the other stuff is pretty much bust basic, bolt-together parts assembling; no different really, than building a normally-aspirated engine.

Tuning will be the next hard step, but a good, wideband 0-2 sensor/meter will make that part do-able, I think.

It's not magic; just engineering.
 
The trams at World's of Fun/Ocean's of Fun here in Kansas City were run by propane-powered Slant 6's with A727's behind them.

I also know that 8 3/4's center sections were used in rollercoasters, but not specifically at WoF/OoF.
 
I completely concur!

Bill Dedman said:
I'm probably gonna take a lot of flack for this, but I'm gonna say it anyway, because after reading all the analytical performace information I could get ahold of on this site and others, I really believe it to be true.

That slant six can be made into a real powerhouse IF you don't try to do it using the tried-and-true, conventional methods of hot rodding.

These engines have several factors that make them very poor candidates for horsepower upgrades by increasing the breathing using say, a 4bbl manifold, headers, a longer duration, high-lift cam and higher compression.

Those are all methods that work well on MOST normally-aspirated engines.

They don't work very well on slant sixes BECAUSE, the basic engine design of the slant six was arrived at through the dictates of upper management at Chrysler REQUIRING a short engine (fan-to firewall) in order to produce an engine that would fit a "short" engine compartment (fan-to-firewall) for the new Valiant and Dart. They also wanted to have a low hood line, but that's another story.

The engineers were required to design an inline six that was smaller in a front-to-rear dimension than was really practical for an inline, but they did it anyway, the only way they could: They designed it with small-diameter pistons (and bores) and the 170 was born.
The 170 had a lot going for it; it had a good rod-length-to stroke ratio, a short stroke (low piston speed) great rpm potential and a cylinder head that fit the displacement very well; it breathed so well that even at 7,000 rpm, it made good power. The Hyper Pak was born and proved to be just about unbeatable in racing for engines of that class (displacement.)

The following year, Ma Mopar needed a station wagon/grocery-getter engine for the B Bodies. What to do?? The 170 was just too small.

Some genuis got the idea to stroke the 170 a full INCH, which did several things:

Made gobs more torque than the 170.

Changed a great breathing 170 into an asthmatic, strangulated also-ran, because in their haste to get that engine (170) to market, the guys who designed it didn't leave much room for improvements in breathing for the new 225, which was THIRTY-FIVE PERCENT bigger than a 170.

They never changed the valve or port size of that original 170 head.

So, you can port that head and add bigger (1.75" X 1.5") valves to it, but it's never going to breathe like what is needed, to make good horsepower/cu. in. numbers.

A 300 HP 225 slant six is a real accomplishment, and that's only 1.3 HP/CI.

You can build a 3,000-pound A body street car that will run low 14's, but it will have to be a radical-cammed engine with lots of compression and a good exhaust system. Deep gears will be needed to make it really perform...

If low 14's is fast enough for you, that's probably what you should do, but swapping a 360 Magnum in there with a mild cam and headers will give you better performance, cheaper.

The alternative, if you want to run quicker than that, and keep your slant 6, is to put a turbo or supercharger on it. The slant six basic engine has a very strong infrastructure and can stand quite a bit of boost before bad things start to happen... like over 20 pounds...

A 300 HP boosted slant six would probably last forever (nominally) and is pretty easy to put together.

Food for thought...
Click to expand...
 
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