Expert
Posts: 1622
Location: Seville, OH | StillOutThere - 2015-06-14 9:42 AM
These are heavy duty Dodge truck exhaust manifolds from the '54-56 period and these were cast in '56. Those Dodge trucks had 331 and 354" Hemis. Yes, Carl Kiekhaefer did use these on his race cars. They were not available on production cars any year, any model. Any time a casting or part number has a dash plus another number (typically 1 or 2) that indicates the mold that was employed to make them. This is a quality control in case of future problems. They are absolutely identical left and right (except mold number). Yes, they will bolt onto a 392 but have clearance problem in a torsion bar chassis.
The 4-bolt truck manifolds were used on the Dodge D-501, but some would argue that that was not a regular production car. I agree that there doesn't seem to be any difference between a -1 and -2, in fact my D-501 engine came with two -2's, both with the same casting date. I have had a number of sets of these. They all had either a -1 or -2 on them, but it is clear that not all the -1 or -2 came from the same mold. Maybe they cast them in pairs and when a mold required replacement, it became the new -1 or -2. I have one manifold with a casting date of 1963 which I thought was pretty late, unless it was strictly a service part. |