What happened to all the Mopar Performance castings and materials ?

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wncmoparguy

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I saw a thread on one of the _ Bodies Only Site- I want to think it was Ebodies only. He had gotten a set of rough castings for the Stage VI head and finished them.

I can remember being told by a guy at Mancini who is no longer working on Mopars, he said when World Products got the Hemi blocks- "Say goodbye to Mopar Performance."

I didn't take it that serious as they had some really frustrating experiences.

My first MP experience that was positive was I able to buy a set of "Street Stage VI" heads- they were referred to that in a MP catalog I had which I wish very much I had kept- the pdf's certainly do not open. I paid $1400 for the pair complete, shipped to me. I built a 493" engine which made a heckuva lot of power, it actually made more power than the 70 Superbee could handle and honestly I should have had frame connectors and probably more.

I later had a set of Edelbrock heads for the B/RB and the engine actually made less power despite a fresh build at the beginning of a new race season. I put new valves and springs in my SSVI's and went back to them. Ce la vie. The Mopar SSVI also had the fewest problems fitting headers and did ok on pump gas cut with a little race gas. Rarely any pinging problems, and when there were, I always carried race gas. Car was a blast to drive.

Did any distributor buy up the remaining Mopar Performance stock ? Reason I ask is I have a Stage VI head that I need a mate to. I have a pair that are complete but are going to be used. I would not mind having another head.

Thanks.
 
Ha! When Daimler purchased Chrysler, that was the beginning of the end right THERE. You pose a good question though. What happened to it ALL? I bet there's some "somewhere".
 
I'd still like to know the situation with all the B/RB engine "rights" and tooling that was bought from Chrysler in the late 70's/early 80's.

Why would a company buy that stuff and then do nothing with it?
 
YY1 said:
I'd still like to know the situation with all the B/RB engine "rights" and tooling that was bought from Chrysler in the late 70's/early 80's.

Why would a company buy that stuff and then do nothing with it?
Click to expand...

To make sure nobody else does anything with it. Happens in industry all the time
 
I remember the debacle that was "Ask Dr. Z"- and asking someone "What the heck is this trying to sell ?"

I got my first Mopar in 1997. I didn't realize how little I knew then. I had the "Engine Bible" and I eventually got to where I was finding errors and just completely frustrated.

I know a guy who has been racing a '64 since he knew Ronnie Sox, Jake King, and Don Carlton- he showed me his copy of the "Bible" and it was all marked up. Eventually I tossed them I think. For pure nostalgia I wish I hadn't. One copy I had there was a section on /6 performance and it was referencing the early 60's 2bbl aluminum manifold and and the late 70's one that also came on some of the Aspen/Volare.
 
They probably sold all inventory and scrapped all the tooling.

Post #6, Are you talking about the MP "engines" book? I have a copy of that along with the chassis one.
 
YY1 said:
I'd still like to know the situation with all the B/RB engine "rights" and tooling that was bought from Chrysler in the late 70's/early 80's.

Why would a company buy that stuff and then do nothing with it?
Click to expand...
To make sure no one else did.
 
Companies are taxed on tooling weather its used or not. Some try to sell it if they can but most scrap it. I seen companies scrap 1/2 million in new tooling because they decided to cancel the project. In a merger, I can totally see it getting scrapped, the only savior would be if someone knew what it was and took it from scrap, but there are issues with that. If they started casting with the tool, then they we're not scrapped per the companies filings, so that is a problem and the guy using the casting without permission has a problem too, as they don't own the tooling. Plus casting tooling isn't set and forget, it has up keep, so if someone had it, it cost to keep it functioning. Then there are storage costs.
 
I bought a 78 NOS 440 block, with pistons and rods only, in 1984 in a shop a mile from my house. The cost was $250 and I put it in my 71 Cuda. He had a few of them and when I went back for another all gone. Another guy that was instrumental in getting surplus Mopar stuff that Chrysler was getting rid of was Jack's Auto Parts in N.J.. He was also one of the guys that helped bring a Mopar swap meet to Englishtown, only to have it destroyed by the IRS at it's grand opening and that was around 86. Maybe with the 87,000 new IRS workers we'll never be able to go to a swap meet without paying taxes on everything you buy. This president's term can't end soon enough for me.
 
tonysrt said:
I bought a 78 NOS 440 block, with pistons and rods only, in 1984 in a shop a mile from my house. The cost was $250 and I put it in my 71 Cuda. He had a few of them and when I went back for another all gone. Another guy that was instrumental in getting surplus Mopar stuff that Chrysler was getting rid of was Jack's Auto Parts in N.J.. He was also one of the guys that helped bring a Mopar swap meet to Englishtown, only to have it destroyed by the IRS at it's grand opening and that was around 86. Maybe with the 87,000 new IRS workers we'll never be able to go to a swap meet without paying taxes on everything you buy. This president's term can't end soon enough for me.
Click to expand...

Roland Osborne had quite a few NOS 400 short blocks in the 1980s. Seems to me he also had some NOS 452 heads. I'll have to dig out the old Chrysler Power issues to find the ads.
 
YY1 said:
I'd still like to know the situation with all the B/RB engine "rights" and tooling that was bought from Chrysler in the late 70's/early 80's.

Why would a company buy that stuff and then do nothing with it?
Click to expand...
Probably bowtie peeps hedgehoging.....
 
YY1 said:
I'd still like to know the situation with all the B/RB engine "rights" and tooling that was bought from Chrysler in the late 70's/early 80's.

Why would a company buy that stuff and then do nothing with it?
Click to expand...

WV64Signet said:
To make sure nobody else does anything with it. Happens in industry all the time
Click to expand...

I bet that’s the deal!
 
tonysrt said:
I bought a 78 NOS 440 block, with pistons and rods only, in 1984 in a shop a mile from my house. The cost was $250 and I put it in my 71 Cuda. He had a few of them and when I went back for another all gone. Another guy that was instrumental in getting surplus Mopar stuff that Chrysler was getting rid of was Jack's Auto Parts in N.J.. He was also one of the guys that helped bring a Mopar swap meet to Englishtown, only to have it destroyed by the IRS at it's grand opening and that was around 86. Maybe with the 87,000 new IRS workers we'll never be able to go to a swap meet without paying taxes on everything you buy. This president's term can't end soon enough for me.
Click to expand...
Jack is still around he owns Central Jersey motor parts, still has tons of mopar nos. I deal with him alot

Central Jersey Motor Parts - NOS Parts, NOS Mopar (cjmotorparts.com)
 
I can't locate it now, but back in the day, the name of the company that bought the B/RB tooling was pretty common knowledge.
 
YY1, at 1 time i was told that the mold for the bb was owned by a well known person in springfield illinois. not sure how true it was.
 
Most companies crush ALL of that stuff when they drop it.

When Buell went out, there were dumpsters by dumpsters of good, usable, sellable parts.

Munch Munch parts for lunch.
 
I find that somewhat hard to believe since Buell was a division of Harley and there was a fair amount of interchange.
 
After I bought that NOS 440 short block, I then needed Heads. It seems like everybody had NOS 452's and were selling them for about $200 a set bare. 1 set I bought was a 452 and the other head was a stage 4. I approached the vendor at a swap meet and he said he checked all heads before he sent them out. Well at the time he was the only one I bought NOS heads from so I couldn't have made the story up. Fortunately somebody was looking for 1 stage 4 head and I was able to send it to him. Shipping was $80 to WI.
 
YY1 said:
I find that somewhat hard to believe since Buell was a division of Harley and there was a fair amount of interchange.
Click to expand...

By that point, it was mostly 2nd gen XB's and 1125's. The Blast was gone, the tube frame was gone, and that's the point; even though they had plenty of sellable bikes.....crunch.

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YY1 said:
I find that somewhat hard to believe since Buell was a division of Harley and there was a fair amount of interchange.
Click to expand...
Buell motors were essentially Sportster motors. Working in the Parts department of a few H-D dealerships I sold and shipped lots of Buell obsolete parts overseas after Eric and Harley parted ways. The Buell Blast was pretty much junk and many were wrecked because they were used in the bike rider training classes. You can't imagine what they looked like after numerous drops.
 
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