What does HEMI mean ?

  • Thread starter DasBoot
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ferrari_chris
It sounds very possible. Marketing will try and get away with anything. Just look at that plastic pig they call a GTO (the new one). It's an Australian car with new bumpers for Gods sake - hardly the continuation of an legend is it? :)

These new models that wear the Hemi logo have in fact a hemispheric combustion chamber.
 
New HEMI's do in fact have hemispherical heads. It improves airflow past the valves, into and out-of the combustion chamber.
It's nothing new, and Chrysler is not the only manufacturer to utilize a hemispherical architecture for the heads.

In fact, every top fuel dragster, regardless of sponsor or manufacturer's affiliation, uses the HEMI patterned from the Chrysler design of the 60's and 70's muscle cars.
 
Some of you on on the right track, but most still fail to understand that it was only a Engine type.....Small Block, Big Block, Hemi and so on.

This will probably let everyone know my age but what the hell.....back in the early sixties I had a 1934 Ford 3 window coupe and I dropped in a 54 Desoto 254ci Hemi, it had so much tourgue it twisted my stock frame.....I could put my hand completely under the right front wheel.....I had to straighten out the frame and box it in to solve the problem....Don Garlets the most famous of the old school Drag Racers also used these early Dodge Hemi's with amazing results.

Blackjaxe
 
Actually, the new Hemi engines aren't truly hemispherical. They are somewhat more hemispherical than most engines, but their design really isn't anything revolutionary, nor is it true to the original Hemi. It's somewhat of a hybrid. The reason why they are not as true of a Hemi as the original is because while the design creates a lot of power via the ability to flow huge amounts of fuel and air and the plug location as others have mentioned, it's incredibly inefficient. That's the reason why they were dropped in the early 70's in the first place, is because they were impossible to get past emissions. So they had to somewhat compromise between power and emissions/fuel mileage (another thing the originals were horrible with) in order to be certified. That's why they have the cylinder deactivation, because it's an easy way to get the emissions just low enough for the government to pass them. They market it as helping with fuel mileage, but in reality it only works much on the highway in cruise, and even then it only has a 2 or 3 mpg advantage over the full 8 cylinders. If I could find a schematic of the engine I could show you, but I've seen it from a "build" a car magazine did.
 

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