(car screeching) - It's the crossram
breathing, fire snorting, eardrum deafening V8 that
took America by storm. This absolute unit of an
engine has powered everything, from muscle cars to
your muscly dad's truck. - That thing got a Hemi? - Yeah. (car engine roars) - It's a legend so strong
that for the first time ever, we're dedicating an
entire video to an engine. This is everything you need
to know to get up to speed on Hemi! - Ram charger! (electronic music) - If you have been around since the early days of
Up to Speed, you know that we love Dodge, and Dodge loves us. I got their name tattooed on my chest. They sent me a note when I was sick. Also this Christmas sweater,
and these sweet Legos. And we all know that Dodge
made the Hemi popular. But before we get into all the Hemi cars that we know and love, I gotta
give you some history first. Good thing, this is a history show. (dog barking) Hey babe, no no. Did you get lost? The cars of the early
1900s had no power, baby. The Benz patent motor wagon
made two thirds of a horsepower. Can you imagine two thirds of a horse? Gross! If you wanted to go fast, the
best way to do it back then would be to drive off of a cliff. (slipping sound) The main problem with engines
back in the grandpa days was two fold. First was valve location. Early engines used what's
called a side valve design, where the valves live
inside the engine block. The air-fuel mixture enters one side of the combustion chamber and has to exit from the same direction. Because the air-gas mix
had to enter and exit the same side of the combustion chamber, air was restricted from
freely flowing through. That limited power. The side valve design was
cheap and easy to manufacture, so that was good enough for
a lot of brands at the time. I mean, I don't blame them. Cars were only like four
years old at the time, and everyone was happy with it. Except for one company, Welch. Now, Welch was a small automaker located in Pontiac, Michigan. In 1904, they dropped the Model 4-L. A seven passenger car
with a 336 cubic inch, 4 cylinder engine making 50 horsepower. In 1904. So how did Welch manage
to make so much power in a time when other car makers would struggle to make half that. Well put on your engineering
hats you Ram chargers 'cause it's about to get
technical for a minute. (electronic music) They didn't opt for the side valve design, with it's flat cylinder head, no. The model 4-L utilized a
hemispherical combustion chamber. This radical, and radical
shape completely changed how the engine made power, babeh The hemispherical
combustion chamber increased the volume of fuel-air mixture to burn while minimizing surface
area inside the chamber. (electronic music) All of the new stuff
that they needed to add to make an overhead valve
train work made the new engine more expensive to manufacture. But, the benefits were
immediately apparent. Just like my ex-girlfriend in high school showed up at my door with Nolan, I became, immediately, a parent. (laughs) And while Welch only
built four model 4-Ls, their influence reached far
into the automotive world. Brands like Fiat, Peugeot and Alfa Romeo were all experimenting
with hemispherical heads. It's kind of interesting
that Alfa Romeo and Fiat were playing with Hemis, and
now they are all part of Dodge. So I'm sure by now all of
you guys are wondering, "I thought this fricking
video was about Dodge. When does Dodge show up?" I'll tell you. 1940, Chrysler had began
development on an engine for fighter planes, the
coolest vehicles ever. It goes fighter jets, rocket
ships, horses, NASCARs, Volkswagen golfs. The engine they came up with was a gargantuan, thirty six
frickin' liter, V16, called the Chrysler 14-2200, with Roman numerals. The engine was actually
designed to run upside down, so when it was mounted on
a plane, there'd be room for nose mounted weapons. The hemispherical combustion
chambers weren't enough for the engine to make
power at 25,000 feet. At that altitude, there isn't
a lot of oxygen to burn. So they had to find a way to
cram more air into the engine. You see where I'm going with this? That's right. On top of a 36 liter
engine, Chrysler also bolted a big old, General Electric
made, spinny boy on the back. The end result was a
maximum power output of 2,500 buff horses at only 3,400 RPM. While Republican Aviation
built two P47 fighter planes with the 1422 under the
hood, the war was almost over by the time the engine was ready. Ain't that always the case, war ends right before you get
to use the cool stuff. After the war, the Chrysler
engine development team kept experimenting with
the hemispherical designs. First, in single cylinder
lawn mower engines, believe it or not. Then in V6 motors. Those were either too weak,
or too heavy, or too long, or too raw. Chrysler's next generation
engine would have to be-- - The V8 engine. - Yes, and the V8 engine. - By 1950, the Chrysler
team was hard at work, just in the lab, cranking
on the new engine. It was a 331 cubic inch V8
sporting a forged steel crank. Hydraulic lifters, and those sweet, sweet war
proving hemispherical heads. I have a slightly hemispherical head because my parents left
me in my crib too much when I was a baby. (whimsical music) Hemispherical heads might
be great on engines, but they're not great on babies. Make sure that you rotate your baby, at least once every hour to two hours. (whimsical music) Chrysler was on top. They called this little baby
beast the Chrysler firepower. Ugh! No power heads know it by another name. The first gen Hemi (car engine roars). The firepower Hemi
debuted in Chrysler cars like the Imperial, the New
Yorker and the Saratoga to wide the claim, naturally. People love the high powered
Hemis and the success convinced Chrysler leadership
to share the Hemi love across all of their brands. But instead of using
the fire power engine, Dodge and DeSoto designed
their own Hemi engines for their cars. - Announcing the new DeSoto Firedome 8. - A 276 cubic inch V8
making 160 horse powers - This is your new Red Ram V8 engine. - Ram chargers! - It made 140 horsepower. (car engine roars) By the late '50s Chrysler
Imperials and New Yorkers were available with a 392 cubic inch Hemi with 10:1 compression
making 345 horsepower. Get outta town. (car engine roars) But even though the engines were great, it was getting increasingly
difficult to justify putting them in passenger cars. I mean, having three companies
design their own engines was getting expensive,
and their complicated overhead valve design, remember, was really expensive to build. So Chrysler axed the Hemi in 1958. An additional factor in the
death of the early Hemis happened in 1957. The Automobile Manufacturers Association, AKA the Scrooge McDucks of the car world, banned all manufacturers
from involving themselves in racing. Wouldn't you know it just a
few years later after the ban, Ford and Shelby started to
build fast motors again. - What? I thought we all promised. - They're like, "You believe that little
gentlemen's agreement?" - Yeah. I thought we were all boys, dude. - Yeah, dude, we're boys. But it's not gonna keep us
from trying to be the best. - I should have known. I gotta go train. Ram chargers, roll out. (car engine sounds) - Enter Chrysler president, Lynn Townsend. The dude had two sons
who spent a lot of time on Woodward Avenue, which
was a street racing hotspot in Detroit. So Lynn's sons told him that
his cars were kinda boring, and that they got beat
a lot on the streets. Not that it is something that
you wanna hear from your sons. He decided that the Chrysler
family needed a total refresh. Chrysler engineers quickly
got to work on a new engine called the B-Engine or the Wedge. The engineers did a great job because the Wedge was a dominant
force at the drag strip, but not so much in NASCAR
ovals, which was basically the biggest marketing tool
that car manufacturers had in America at the time. Lynn's race engine group
leader, Tom Hoover, who also, probably invented the vacuum, had a suggestion. - If you wanna go to
Daytona, and go like stink, let's adapt the hemi head
for the Wedge engine. - And Lynn was like- - You're crazy man, you're crazy. - They had 10 months until
their work would debut at the 1964 Daytona 500. The team used the 426
cubic inch Max Wedge engine as the foundation. These things used crazy
looking cross ram intakes and humongous valves to
achieve superb airflow. The Wedge boasted insane
compression ratios, maxing out at an available 13.5:1. Just hearing one of these things start up is enough to send your
rivals running for the hills, or making little booty hole pucker. (car engine roaring) After 200 grueling laps, they
got first, they got second, they got third, with
Richard Petty, the king, in the number one position. The Hemi was back. (birthday blower) The engine development
team also built a 426 Hemi optimized for drag racing. Obvi it's frickin'. Duh, it's what they do. In the quest of NHRA drag racing
domination, Chrysler built turn key race cars from the factory. Built to run in the 1964 superstock class. I wish I had one. New rules mandated that no fiber glass or aluminum body work was allowed. So Chrysler stamped the
bodies of these cars out of super thin steel. Like imagine the thinnest steel you've ever seen in your life. Okay, you're doing it? Thinner. And the weight shaving didn't end there. The interiors were basically stripped out. They made the intakes out of magnesium and the cast cylinder
heads out of aluminum. These cars were known
internally as A-864 cars, available in the form
of the Plymouth Savoy. In 1965, these cars were
given the designation A-990 and can be heard as Dodge
Cornets, or Plymouth Belvederes. (car engine roars) Now all this success would be pointless if Chrysler didn't make the
hemi available to the people. The Hemi street Engine was tweaked for reliable everyday driving. Camshaft was milder, the
spring rates were softer, everything was better for low RPM driving. But the valves, lifters,
rods, rockers, crankshaft were all carried over
from the A-990 engine. This was a 425 horsepower race
engine for your daily driver, in the frickin' '60s. (car engine) For 1966, the street hemi was available in Dodge and Plymouth,
B-Body cars like the Coronet, Belvedere, Satellite, and the Charger, if you can afford it pal. The hemming was an $1,105 dollar option, which is the equivalent of
almost $9,000 in today money. When a majority of their
cars were restyled in '68, including the beautiful
new Coke bottle charger, customers' interest in the
Hemi was greatly renewed. I mean, these cars look
amazing, and all that power, it's a no brainer dude, it's the easy. (car engine roars ) Throughout the rest of the 60s and in the- Sorry. Dudy, come here. What's in your mouth? (muffling) The second gen Hemi hit
its peak in 1969 and '70 when Dodge and Plymouth used it to power their pointy boy factory race cars. The Daytona, and the Superbird. These cars were so far
ahead of the competition that NASCAR had to nerf them in 1971 for racing to be even
remotely interesting. (car engine roars) Over in the NHRA, the Hemi
superstock Darts and Barracudas continued to (beep) everyone else up, Something they still do today,
at the Dodge Hemi challenge, held every year at the NHRA US Nats. (cars engines roar) With a legacy like that,
it's no wonder the 426 Hemi is one of the most iconic
engines of the muscle car era. So how do you follow it up? Emissions regulations
killed the 426 Hemi in 1971 but fortunately, Hemi fans
didn't have to wait long for the new Hemi on the block. Unfortunately, the
resurrected Hemi wasn't quite what they had in mind. (car engine starting) The 1981 2.6 liter, Hemi, available in the Dodge Aries and Plymouth Reliant
was a 4 cylinder engine built by Mitsubishi and it
peaked at 92 horsepower, which was a little short of
the previous Hemis' power. But this tiny boy Hemi
was technically a Hemi because it had hemispherical heads. Naturally, Chrysler sent
that Mitsubishi Hemi away to live on the farm
with my childhood pets. So the Hemi name lay dormant
for 16 years, until 2003, which is the same year
that a little movie called Lord of The Rings, Return
of the King came out. Coincidence? In my line of work, there's no such thing. The Dodge Ram was available
with a 5.7 litre Hemi V8 for the 2003 model year. The Hemi made 345 buff horses
in 375 pounds(mumbles). Those BV numbers had people
all over the world rolling up next to Rams and asking,
"That thing got a Hemi?" - Yeah. (car speeding) Soon the Hemi wasn't just for trucks. Cars all over the Chrysler
family were getting the Hemi treatment. I'm talking Dodge Durango,
I'm talking Chrysler 300c, I'm talking Dodge Magnum, I'm
talking Jeep Grand Cherokee, I'm talking Dodge Charger. (car speeding) But this new Hemi was a little different than the Hemis of old. The heads were no longer
half sphere shaped. The combustion chamber was
much shallower and flat looking by comparison. There were still only two
valves per cylinder, but now, they had two spark plugs. The second plug now fired
shortly after the first, which helped with emissions. The 5.7 liter Hemi might not
have been exactly the same as the legendary 426, but
it's still a frickin' Hemi, and people were stoked. But when the Dodge and
Chrysler SRT8 models came along in 2005, they needed something with a little humble power baby. (car speeding) Three hundred CSRT8,
Magnum SRT8, Charger SRT8, and the rest of the SRT8s
were equipped with bigger 6.1 liter Hemis. Changes such as larger displacement, cast a little on intake and
forged crank allowed the 6.1 to hit 425 hrsprs, the
same as the old 426. The Hemi got another boost in 2011, with the introduction of the 392. The 392 had been available for years as a great engine for race
cars, but it went mainstream under the hood of SRT8 cars
like the Charger and Challenger. The beefier engine now
made 470 to 485 horsepower, far surpassing the legendary
426 while being smaller and more efficient. But you guys know, that
the best was yet to come. (finger snaps) Thank you. Throughout this whole
story, the Hemi has stayed naturally aspirated. Relying on its big displacement
to make all that power baby. But what would happen if the Hemi was-- I don't know, just
spit-balling here(mumbles) What if it was super charged? That's exactly what we found out in 2015, when Dodge dropped the Hellcat, a 6.2 liter supercharged Hemi. Making a monstrous 707 hrsprs. (car roars) Chrysler didn't limit
the Hellcat to Dodges. In 2018, the Jeep Trackhawk
put all 707 hrsprs to the ground, with all wheel drive. I've driven one with
a bigger blower on it, it's one of the craziest
cars I've ever driven. The launch, dude, we pulled
on a supercharged Huracan for two gears. (car roaring) (laughing) A hundred and four miles an hour. You should know by now that 707 horsepower just wasn't enough, man. So in 2018, Dodge gave us
the Challenger Hellcat Demon, which used a larger 2.7 liter blower that boosted power to 808 on 91 octane, 840 on 100 octane. (car speeding off) We did a whole episode on that car, so if you want to learn more about it, check that out right here. I also drove one in another
thing, and I also unboxed it. It comes with a frickin' crate. Also, it's not even the craziest
one you can buy anymore. What the (bleep) is going on here. Are there no rules anymore? Last year at the SEMA show, Dodge unveiled the most outlandish Hemi yet. A thousand horsepower. 950 pound feet crate engine
for the price of $30,000. They call it the Helephant because yeah, these dudes are the frickin'
best at naming crap. - What are you gonna call your car? - I don't know, the Taurus. - What are you gonna call yours? - The Hellcat. - The Demon. - The Helephant. Most metal (beep) ever. This 7 liter thiccest,
thiccity, thiccity boy ever has aluminum engine block, forged pistons, the Demon's valve train and
an updated super charger. Dodge hasn't put the Helephant
in a production car yet. (car engine roars) I don't think any outro that I could write could be as good as hearing
a Hemi one more time. Colby. (car engine starts) Just like when my ex-girlfriend
in high school showed up at my door with Nolan, I
became immediately a parent. (laughs heartily) I love you.
I was just kinda curious about cars before, this guy's videos gets me excited about cars
Burnouts are cool, burnouts in crowded parking lots are not.