Hi, Bob I have at long last found your web page again after failing to bookmark it the first time I discovered over a month ago! Yours seems to be the most complete and accurate data on this family of engines that I have found to date. Better than some of the so-called experts in the Mopar magazines. There is one thing I’m not sure I understand you correctly on, though. And you are not alone in this area. There seems to be a widespread belief that the277-301-303-318-326 engines are merely a modification of the early hemi engines. I do not believe this to be the case, although I would concede that there might be some interchangeability of parts. I have always considered these to be an entirely separate line of enginesfrom the 241- 259-270-299-315-325-331-354 versions of their hemi head brethren. My basis for this assumption is the very different shape of the rocker-arm covers, the combination intake and water manifold serving as the valley cover also the large water pump bolted to and through the cast timing cover, and the oil filter canister fastening directly to the lower side of the cylinder bank instead of hanging vertically from a protruding boss of the crankcase. In my mind, these differences constitute sufficient reason for considering them a separate engine design, although some might perceive them as minor, I suppose. ** Over the last 35 years or so, I have owned a number of vehicles with various sizes of all the engine families mentioned under the hood. I had at one time 2 ’55 Dodge 2-door hardtops; one with the Super Red Ram 270 Hemiw/2Bbl (183 hp) the other with the Red Ram 270 Poly w/2Bbl (175hp). The total difference in these engines were the heads,pushrods, and valvegear, rocker covers, and exhaust manifolds. The crossover pipe was probably different as well. In 68 I installed a 56 Plymouth 277 in a 46 Dodge ¾ ton wrecker, made a real nice truck out of it! That year I also ran a 59 Dodge with a 326 and a torqueflite on a 1/3 mile dirt track here in western Wisconsin for a few weeks, badly underfunded so it didn’t do very well. By the way to my knowledge the 326 was offered only in the 59 Dodge and was the only version of the family ever equipped with the hydraulic lifters.* It had an approximately .040 larger bore than the 318, but I don’t know whether these were recored blocks or simply overbored at the factory. In 64 and 65 I served on the pit crew of a 33 Plymouth coupe running as a Modified on the previously mentioned dirt track. The engine was a 301 bored to approximately 324 cubes, running extremely oversized 332 58 Ford pistons modified in the owners lathe. He used a bootleg Isky reground cam, 12” pipes off the ports, and and old teapot Stromberg 4 Bbl. No porting, no balancing just 12 ounces of liquid ether to every 10 to 12 gallons of hi-test, as most of the field was doing. Our chief competition was running a 352 cube small block Shivvy that was fully blueprinted and balanced. We took about half of the first and trophies those two years. I believe all the Hemi sizes were also produced with the Poly heads with the exception of the 392. These engines had a higher block so the heads were then farther apart making necessary the intake ports on he heads to be extended so that the same manifold could be used from the 354’s. The other exception would be all of the DeSotos Hemis. I don’t believe the 276-291-330-343-345 DeSotos ever had other than Hemi heads. In 57 DeSoto did offer a lower-priced Firesweep model powered by a 325 Poly, but this engine of course was supplied by Dodge. You are the first person, that I know of, to mention a dual quad option for the 56 Fury. Must have been quite rare. Must have been quite a surprise to the unwary Blue-oval or Bowtie driver. I currently have 2 60 Dodge 318 engines in my shop, one of which will be installed in my 45 Dodge Hi-boy street rod pickup. I think I know where a 4 Bbl manifold and AFB can be gotten. Anyway I hope this information will be useful to you and whoever or at least interesting . If you know of any other tricks for this engine, especially economy related, I’d love to hear them. My streetrod will only weigh about 2300 so more power for a daily driver is not really not critical! Thanks for the site and thanks for reading and God Bless Paul D. Hoffmeyer River Falls, WI. ** The second generation Poly were indeed a separate engine family they were originally developed by Plymouth engineers for the 56 Plymouth year. * The 326 was only offered in 1959 in Dodge Coronets, as for being the only Poly with Hydraulic lifters I don’t really know. BA PEA