[Greg Reimer 7376]

Hi.Best of my knowledge and from my collection of facts re:W motors, for some reason,NHRA accepted the '62 409 heads and intakes on the '61 cars. Only around 540 '61 Chevys came with 360 horse 409's,this being all models included in the tally.The 360 horse engine was somewhat different in that all 8 pistons were identical,having a machined relief across the whole top where the intake valves wouldn't hit.This engine had small port heads with 3/8" dia. pushrods. I don't offhand have the casting numbers of the heads, and the intake was the same as the hi-po 348 aluminum high rise with a rather large AFB on it.It had a mechanical lifter camshaft with quite a bit of duration,but about .440" lift.The '62 409 had large port heads,casting number 3830690,the dual four barrel intake ended in part number 881,the front carb was #3361 with no idle mixture screws.The rear carb was #3362 and all idle speed and mixture adjustments were carried out on it. Quite a few of these engines had the Delco 1110919 dual point distributor with the dual window distributor cap.The '62-'65 hi-po pistons were all forged and had both right hand and left hand valve reliefs for the intake valve. The '61 heads had 2.08" intakes,1.72" exhausts.The later heads had 2.19"dia.intakes and 1.72" exhausts as well. The 409 horse top end was available as a "service package" mid year in '61,probably that secured it's legality. Interestingly enough,the two piece intake and the hi-po Z-11 heads were available mid year '62 as "service package" updates for the 409 in the 62 Chevies.I understood there was a huge performance increase with these-I never had any to try out for sure. Edelbrock has reproduced the 409 cylinder head and the dual four barrel intake,but it's not exactly like the original. In fact,it looks better. Someone needs to give it a try and report back. Let us know how this progresses.