Engine Building Walt Austin Style
Story by David Marin
With the decision made to turn the CruZin’ 1941 Plymouth convertible into a daily driver, the decision had to be made as to how the car would be powered. We had the blown 392 (421) cubic inch HEMI engine but felt that from several standpoints that wasn’t the way to go. Why? Well, probably foremost in the consideration was reliability.

Our experience with the blower motor was one of mixed emotions. There was, on the positive side, the overwhelming feeling (and sound) of blown HEMI acceleration; brute power like no other. On the other hand, we’ve dealt with assorted overheating issues, relatively fickle behavior and, with the kind of power produced, handling in adverse weather/road conditions was, at best, spooky.

Assessing our options we gave thought to going with a MOPAR crate motor, perhaps even one of the
new 5.7 liter HEMI powerplants. We looked at the idea of other MOPAR mills as well. Maybe a 440, maybe a 383… we did know that we wanted to keep the MOPAR in a MOPAR configuration if for no other reason than the fact that we already had the custom-built 727 transmission.

When all was said and done we knew what we knew all along; ideally we’d like to stay with the 1958 Chrysler HEMI that was practically a gift from a good friend many years ago. The qualifier to that feeling was reliability. We’re planning on cruising 20K miles or more each season and we’re planning on doing so with a teardrop trailer behind us. We take the back roads when and where we can and we don’t need to worry about being stuck at roadside with engine problems.
With all this in mind we turned to the man who has as much “HEMI knowledge” as anyone… Walt Austin, owner of Walt Austin Racing (W.A.R.) in Tacoma, Washington. We could go into Walt’s impressive list of credentials to validate why we consider him a “HEMI guru”, but we did that last issue and if you missed it, you’ll just have to trust us.

W.A.R. will build most anything in the way of engines but Walt is quick to say that the best deal on a small block Chev is a factory crate motor.

“The crate engines are actually very high quality and they’re really reasonably priced,” he says. “We build high end, top quality engines, primarily HEMIs and we call them quarter-million-mile motors. Inside and out, they’re jeweled engines.”

OK. We never really needed any convincing and we’re tickled that Walt is willing to take on the building of the CruZin’ HEMI. Further, we’re happy to leave all the particulars to Walt. He knows far better than we, which camshaft will work best for our application, what compression pistons we should run, and we’re confident in the knowledge that everything that’s done will be first class.

There are though, a couple decisions that are left to us. How are we going to feed the HEMI… we have the big Edelbrock carbs that fed the blown HEMI and all we’d need to use them is an appropriate intake manifold which can be bought off the shelf fairly reasonably.

On the other hand, we’re going for a bit of a look; the hood will be up at dozens of shows and we want to give folks something that will make them look twice. Beyond that, we’ve always done a “double take” when we viewed those impressive eight stacks that perch atop a Hilborn fuel injection system. I guess we pretty much agree with Hilborn’s statement, “There’s nothing more hotrod than a Hilborn”.

We’re not talking about the go fast, 5,000 rpm “racing only” Hilborn systems, we’re talking about Hilborn’s “NEWstalgia” line of fuel injectors that takes a fuel injector with just the right nostalgic look and combines it with new EFI technology.

We do have some reservations about electronic (computerized) fuel injection. We don’t want to have to carry a laptop computer around with us in order to make adjustments or otherwise “fine tune” the EFI. We do some homework, talk to a couple of rodders that have been running the Hilborn EFI system for a while and all the reports are positive… and, no laptop required, just a slot screwdriver is needed to adjust the computer/engine.

Further endorsement comes from Walt, who has built a couple of blown HEMI mills using the Hilborn EFI system. Suffice to say, we’re sold.

The procedure begins with dismantling, cleaning and deburring and proceeds through what could be termed “normal” engine building steps… with a few W.A.R. goodies thrown in.

For example, Walt machines the push rod holes to accommodate larger push rods which he explains, “We go with 5/16 to 3/8-inch specially heat treated push rods for a couple of reasons,” he continues. “First, there is added strength and durability and, stock push rods are only a 1/4-inch and they flex. With the larger push rods the flex is eliminated and the engine runs better.”

For street applications (like ours) Walt says to look for a 392 to come in at 425 to 475 SAE horsepower with torque in the same realm.

“It is really mostly a matter of what camshaft is used,” he says. “Remember, we’re building a quarter million mile motor, plenty of power for the street, but not a race motor.”

That’s not to say that W.A.R. doesn’t build race motors… they do and they will.

“We build both 392 and 426 HEMI race engines,” Walt says. “A blown 392 will easily run 700 horsepower and is capable of 1,000 horsepower and more. It’s just a matter of what you want to do and how much boost you want to run.”

For our part, here’s what we know; we are still “dialing-in” our W.A.R. engine… it looks fabulous, sounds great and the throttle response with the Hilborn EFI is… WOW! Thank you Stuart Hilborn and Walt Austin!

EDITOR’S NOTE — Special CruZin’ “thanks” to the crew at W.A.R. and Hilborn for the help with photos and data for this article.