B and RB engine question / wedge heads
 

Can someone clear up something for me regarding the B and RB engines?
All 440's are RB engines (regardless if they are stamped) and all 383's are B engines. Would this be a correct statement for 1966 to 1971 engines.

Extra credit question: Is their a way to visually see if a car has wedge heads without reading the numbers? I ask this because most of the time their is way to much junk in the way to see the heads ...dirt, hoses etc..

yes that is a correct statement.

wedge head is a combustion style chamber common on 90 percent of engines out there, if the plug wire goes through the center of the valve cover, probably a hemi or pentroof design, unless its a flathead or some f-n wierd ford thing its a wedge meaning if you were to look at the combution chamber from a side view it looks like a wedge. so if you see a normal looking old dirty valve cover with a bunch of hoses and dirt on it, its probably a wedge. numbers really wont tell you much, besides just the sheer size of the heads will tell you what it is.

"Can't see the heads??" Yer jokin, right?

On the older mopars, discounting FWD and so on, there's ONLY three combustion chamber designs

Wedge, on all "big block" engines like 361, 383, and all RB engines, 413 and bigger

"poly" on the what is really a SB 318 series, or the "early" 318

Hemi. I don't have to explain THAT, do I?

Frankly, I think Chrysler made a huge mistake in not further developing the poly design.


Back when my six pack RR was fairly stock, with 3.54 Dana rear, it ran 13.oh's--there was a guy who built a 63-64 B body, with the 318 poly, and a TWO BARRELL that ran right with it. 'Course, he wasn't running 3.54's either

This was at Carlsbad, in the early '70's