justinp61
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Four valve reliefs? The piston in the photo has two.
I agree the pistons do look like old TRW's.
what do i have here
- Thread starter jimjimjimmy
- Start date
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Four valve reliefs? The piston in the photo has two.
I agree the pistons do look like old TRW's.
Yeah those are early two valve relief pistons. That "balancer" is from a poly engine and doesn't belong. That's all the trouble is. Just get a good 340 internally balanced balancer for it and it'll be fine. I would double check though that it does have a steel crank by pulling the pan.
Maybe industrial application, like a generator or agricultural. Kind of looks like the way they do the old farm tractor engines, single pully to the fan that's it.
They were in all kinds of non automotive applications. Kim
Just curious did the 340 have a cast iron 4 bbl intake manifold, a 2 bbl cast intake manifold or no intake manifold when you got it ?
And I suppose it is hard to tell now, but did it have a flywheel (hint manual trans cast iron or aluminum bell housing) or by chance a flex plate for an automatic transmission.
Flex plates use the short crank bolts, flywheels use the long crank bolts. Can tell if they left the bolts in the crankshaft. Also crank may have a pilot bushing in it for manual trans or an in out box for an industrial drive.
Someone may have retrofitted that industrial engine to go into a car after the overhaul mid life with the .030 over TRW pistons.
The thing with the industrial application of running a water pump, generator, or being a stationary power plant is that it could have been designed to run at a constant 2000 rpm where high rpm vibrations are not much if an issue. So was built it without the vibration damper.
A 2 bbl carb would have worked good in this scenario.
Could measure the grind on the cam too if you pull it out, could have been a low lift for industrial application with a 2 bbl carb.
Or maybe was just built with the traditional 430/444, 268/276 340 4 bbl cam.
Cam could have been easily switched out during the .030 over rebuild too.
More pieces of the puzzle, see what you can find out . . .
1968 production 340 engine info:
ok George i will check things out when i get home later on . i do know there was no intake or flywheel / flex plate on it when i got it but i know the bolts are in the crank .
Another version of the balancer-less industrial offerings, 1968 318.
Treblig
Well-Known Member
Like I said ....they are perfectly balanced from the factory!!!
cudamark
Well-Known Member
I've seen poly 318 pickups that had that balancerless crank pulley. Someone probably swapped that onto your 340 for whatever reason......pulley alignment, A/C to non A/C conversion, couldn't find the correct balancer at the time, etc.
That's all it is. It's being incredibly over thought. Just find out what kind of crank it has and put the right balancer on it.
Here's another vote for someone stuck a crank pulley from an old poly 277-301-318 not originally equipped with a crank damper on your 340. The 277 poly in my 56 Plymouth (looks just like a 318 poly) was not equipped with a damper from the factory, and neither were a lot of early 318 poly motors. Later ones had a damper. I put a 65 318 poly damper and lower pulley on my 277 when I put a new timing chain in it.
The damper isn't for balancing (well, not if the motor is internally balanced), and you can get by without one for a low rpm, low horsepower motor, but it will dampen high rpm harmonics and any 340 should have one.
By the way, according to my little white books, all 66-69 273s, 318s and 340s used the same damper. 70 and later had the timing mark on the opposite side and so differ from the early ones, but 70-72 318s and forged crank 340s also used the same damper. Manual trans 62-65 318 poly engines used the same damper as 64-65 273 wedges with manual or automatic trans. Automatic trans 318 poly motors used a different one for some reason, which is why the 318 poly damper I put on my 56 Plymouth doesn't look quite like the original 273 damper I'm running on the 71 340 in my 65 Barracuda. And so on.
The damper isn't for balancing (well, not if the motor is internally balanced), and you can get by without one for a low rpm, low horsepower motor, but it will dampen high rpm harmonics and any 340 should have one.
By the way, according to my little white books, all 66-69 273s, 318s and 340s used the same damper. 70 and later had the timing mark on the opposite side and so differ from the early ones, but 70-72 318s and forged crank 340s also used the same damper. Manual trans 62-65 318 poly engines used the same damper as 64-65 273 wedges with manual or automatic trans. Automatic trans 318 poly motors used a different one for some reason, which is why the 318 poly damper I put on my 56 Plymouth doesn't look quite like the original 273 damper I'm running on the 71 340 in my 65 Barracuda. And so on.
fratzog lover
Well-Known Member
Never heard of an industrial 340.
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