The embossed mic'd at <.020? Man the ones I took out were paper thin. Must have been an illusion. I bet Mopar saving a buck on these stamped shim gaskets bit them in the *** in warranty work so they ended up putting standard gaskets on later years.
I am questioning Galens 1.87 intake valve size of the 66 D-Dart/273-4 CAP (clean air package!!!) program as I just dont see it anywhere in the literature.
Here is a quote from a Paul Canizzaro
"I worked for Chrysler from 1964 thru 1969. I worked with the Special Performance Group, under the direction of Dick Maxwell and Tom Hoover. I worked on and helped prepare the 1966 D-Darts during the spring of 1966.
...we could not install larger valves in the heads without serious modification (notching of the block).
....at about the same time, the Muesers ran a 12.78 with their Corvette. That time was not achievable with our 273, and we knew it. Right then and there, the D/Dart program was basically over. ...
So we prepared a water-downed version of
the D-Dart, nowhere what it was supposed to be. .. The cam would add about 20 horsepower over a stock unit. ... In reality, it was a cheap way to increase horsepower, In fact the engine only put out about 255 horsepower, which would have put the car in F/Stock, and would have been more competitive. The only reason the headers were installed (to add about 15 to 20 horsepower),
was that we had already purchased the units. It was really fake horsepower...
...We argued that we should not produce a half-baked project, but somebody up there in the head office wanted the cars out there. Really it was cover your butt project. Though there are claims that 50 cars were produced in April of 66', the truth is about 25 or so were
built. To this day, I have only seen (2) D-Darts race. I have never seen a true D-Dart at any Mopar meets...
now if the member here that has 2 D-Darts can put to rest this 1.87 valve issue, Ill sleep better tonight. Curiously, the 1.87 figure is the valve center to center of all LA heads.....and its also a dyslexic 1.78. I wonder if something got screwed up in translation?
