Re: {Chrysler 300} 300F Exhaust/ Ram heat

This is not meant to be a rant. Maybe just a little sharing of self reflection.

I am by no means any kind of genius mechanic, but I bought my first 61G ram car in 1986, and my current G ram convertible in 1998. I owned and operated both of those cars in MA up until just a couple of years ago when I moved to Texas.

I drove those cars as often as I could, even after the short car show and cruise night season was over in the cold northeast, as long as the sand and salt had not been applied yet to the street or had been washed away by early Spring rain.

I'll admit they might have been a bit of a pain if I had to drive to work and back as daily drivers, but for the most part, even on the coldest days of winter, a bit of extra pumping of the gas pedal to get the car started, followed by no more than a minute or so of fast idling, and I could enjoy dry, cold winter drives in either of them. I was lucky to take more than a few New Year's Day drives to celebrate another year of G ownership. The worst part of driving those cars in cold winter weather was the racket that came from the speedometer head/cable screeching away from frozen grease that had lost its viscosity until I could blast the interior heat to warm up the mechanism. I just never had all that much trouble with either car, probably because I never expected instant starting and flawless performance in the first few minutes of driving below 40 degrees.

In my youth in CT I had a 63 Plymouth with wide block 318 and a 2 bbl, as well as a 70 Duster with a 225 slant six and a 1 bbl, and it was just common to expect to hit the pedal once to set the automatic choke and fast idle cam, then a few more times for a little extra gas to get started on a cold morning, then sitting a bit at high idle before stabbing the gas a couple more times to get the idle to drop down a notch or two off the fast idle cam before putting the car in gear and heading off to school or work, knowing that you'd better pay attention at the first couple of stop signs to avoid stumbling or stalling until that temp gauge came up. It was all second nature to get the starting procedure down and knowing how to feather the gas pedal until 'operating temperature' arrived.

It's now 2025, and the decades have flown by since we all started driving cars equipped with electronic ignition, fuel injection, sensors to measure many parameters and a computer(s) to make adjustments to mixture, timing, etc. on the fly. Easy to get spoiled. Try going without your microwave oven for a week.

We probably just spend more time in modern technology cars and less in our old technology cars as both we and the cars age and that's not necessarily good for either us or the cars.

I also have an antique radio/TV/phonograph hobby, rather than streaming everything flawlessly over the internet on my smartphone through earbuds, so I get to periodically adjust the tuning of an old vacuum tube FM radio that is not equipped with AFC (automatic frequency control for those of you who've forgotten) and might slightly drift off the station until fully warmed up, or hear a little hum from an old amplifier or buzz from an old speaker for the first few minutes of operation. It's all part of the 'charm', until it stops being charm and becomes a pain in the butt, at which time you need to decide if you still want the old car and/or old electronics to appreciate what they were at the time, or if you should sell it all and go get a Bluetooth equipped Hellcat or SRT-8 300 from this century. Just please don't yank your crossram equipped 413 in favor of an LS3 swap for better 'driveability'. ;-)

Thanks, and Happy New Year!

Now to go out to the garage and begin removal of the driver's side head of the G to complete my winter valve job since I had to remove the passenger side due to a burned exhaust valve on cylinder #4 and subsequent loss of compression. I know it won't be as easy as the passenger side with all the other stuff in the way on that side of the engine bay. Wish me luck and patience, and thank you all for the wealth of knowledge that will hopefully keep me behind the wheel of my oldies but goodies.

On Fri, Jan 10, 2025 at 2:47 PM <dplotkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I can confirm it was the Ramchargers who came up with all this plumbing. I spoke to several of them at Carlisle in 2007 as I neared the end of my Savoy SonoRamic build. I recommend a read of their book "We Were The Ramchargers" as it will validate their adoration of pipes.

There is no question that the 1960 Ram setup was a byzantine affair from the subject carb heat to the 19th century bell crank carb linkage. More than one period auto journalist pointed to that. Today these are hobby cars. We fiddle with them and ruminate over how they could be better but they really are just old cars. We should let them be that way and learn to be happy with them.

My 61 Savoy has no choke or carb heat and never sees cold start temps below 68F. Once it has fuel it will catch and with feathering for say 20-35 seconds she will idle out of the garage. Are conditions that much different where you live? Are you starting a Ram car at 23 F and gnashing your molars?

On Dodge or Plymouth Ram Induction was not simply the high performance option but also the towing or heavy duty option. It was the top engine and a guy who wanted to tow was often sold one of these instead of a 3361 or 83 4 barrel. Many Ram cars came back after recalcitrant starting, flooding, and plug fouling made them simply unpleasant in cold weather once the newness expired.

Today, unless using a Ram car as a pack mule we ought to be able to abide by its shortcomings just as the world has done for each of us for ours.

Danny Plotkin

-----Original Message-----
From: "John Grady" <jkg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, January 10, 2025 2:45pm
To: "Ron Waters" <ronbo97@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: "chrysler 300 club" <chrysler-300-club-international@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: {Chrysler 300} 300F Exhaust/ Ram heat

i don ‘t know, ram-chargers played a role too . idea of ram is right ( maybe not long ram) but implementation of heat had lots of poor engineering built into it

J fixed that . J with electric chokes even better . At one time i started looking st connecting chokes directly to one electric motion source . That would fix it . Along with no heat valves ..

On Jan 10, 2025, at 2:24 PM, 'Ron Waters' via Chrysler 300 Club International <chrysler-300-club-international@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

John –

Why do you think this was ? Lack of adequate/stress testing before release ? Or maybe Bob Rogers’ love of this configuration overrode concerns by the engineers ?

Ron

From: chrysler-300-club-international@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx On Behalf Of John Grady
Sent: Friday, January 10, 2025 2:06 PM
To: Carl Bilter <cbilter@xxxxxxxxx>
Cc: chrysler 300 club <chrysler-300-club-international@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: {Chrysler 300} 300F Exhaust/ Ram heat

Hi ,

I second Carls take completely

This idea among fans of 60 ram ( I am one !) that chrysler engineering had rams fully baked in 60 is flat out wrong . They ran so poorly for the average non enthusiast that they were pulled by the score . The issue is not carb heat , —- it was how it was done !

how it was done was a sad joke .

I bought two 300’s back in the dsy where the ad said “ complete ram setup

in trunk”. That was common.

I had a friend at a large boston Chrysler dealer he had 3-4 sets he just took home free . I helped him put a set on a 60 plymouth .

We forget - They were not just in 300’s , but performance Dodge D 500 and Plymouth Sonoramic .Maybe many more of them were there than in 300’s I bet . I was there , saw all this , 17 at the time .

Loading up snd stalling was the norm as one side choke often came off hi idle ahead of other as heat valves and chokes all had varying operating times . Then heat risers all rust full on in first year or two .

Put in D , still on choke even when new with 800 rpm + idle cold day it stalls . party starts , ends up flooded

This is not opinion;

if you think it is ,

consider :

1) rams were totally gone from 62 model year — A Chrysler corporate decision to end the extreme pain in service depts suffering from 60-61 ram complaints across the country . Enthusiasts put up, regular guy just wants his car to run ok

2) They came back with a total redesign of this area with manual chokes ( both open

a same time ) in 63/4! J — and constant bleed of much lower exhaust heat

3)dual heat valves gone on J K. -why?

4) race ram 62 had water heat using 60-61 ram, no heat valves -why?

5) floors of plenum DID melt I had one

6) max wedge had locked together chokes , like J , manual

7) modern cars have no manifold heat at all ( FI) to “help evaporation “ in combustion chamber —yet ice cold the run/ start is perfect .

8 ) carb heat came from poor fuels almost kerosene in 20’s -30’s you needed a “ hot spot” fuel

today has the opposite problem

9) state of art intake today is air gap design zero heat no crossover passages — only ambient and thats enough . zero drivability problems

They make a big deal

if hot oil not hitting air gap underside . later mopar had insulation pad there .



10 )electric retrofit choke stay in sync reasonably well, and with limited but uncontrolled heat (and location of carb right over exhaust) plus ambient heat means it runs evenly side to side , all through warmup. It is an “ air gap”

of sorts . cool air equals more O2 more power

— and with even heat will thus warm up ok , stays even action side to side if over 30 out

if you give it few minutes , below that too,

Key is both sides are even , stay even . That sync is not true of 60 -61 stock

without endless fussing , service bulletins, etc ,

maybe ok for a day or two weeks..

yet all have worn out mixture adj screws (!) Must be grandma in

there daily ( laugh)

That said, I love them , acknowledging real problems is part of fixing them?

jg

On Jan 9, 2025, at 9:00 PM, Carl Bilter <cbilter@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Well, imho, Don is most certainly NOT a dumb guy, and I for one have learned a lot from him. When Don speaks, one would be wise to listen. And he likes classic rock as well as 300s and Imperials which makes him an ok guy in my world.

The heat is used to enable enable some degree of acceptable driveability in the frigid winters of the northland. I don't drive the J in temps below 50 degrees; I have blocked the heat to protect the rams. With the limited use the car gets, it may be uneccessary.

Remember that J and ram K used factory equipped manual chokes. So, the isuues encountered with automatic chokes and lack of heat are not encountered on J/Ramk K For F and G with 2903 carbs, the Edelbrock electric choke kits can be used if desired. The PO installed them on my G. They work well and the chokes open at about the same rate. That said, as currently set up they open a bit too fast for cold weather use, but fine for warm weather when I drive the car.

Carl B.

------ Original Message ------

From "'dave mason' via Chrysler 300 Club International" <chrysler-300-club-international@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

To "Donald Verity" <chryslerdon@xxxxxxx>

Cc "Nick Taylor" <nicksgaragesd@xxxxxxxxx>; "93saturnfan" <93saturnfan@xxxxxxxxx>; chrysler-300-club-international@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Date 1/9/2025 5:40:39 PM

Subject Re: {Chrysler 300} 300F Exhaust

Hi Don,

Not planning to completely block the heat tubes.

Normally I would agree to keep things as-designed, this is one reason I don’t care for electronic ignition or disc brakes on these cars, but I have seen many damaged/ablated/repaired ram intakes, so my guess is they weren’t expected to last as long as we are now trying to have them last. I don’t have an explanation other than maybe the aluminum doesn’t like to get as hot as the intakes can get. Therefore my plan is to use block off plates and drill a hole in each plate, maybe 1/4”, to reduce the heat and exhaust flow going underneath the carbs but not fully stop it. I’d like to hear from you and others whether this makes sense.

D&K

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 9, 2025, at 17:54, Donald Verity <chryslerdon@xxxxxxx> wrote:

Chrysler put heat tubes on these cars for a reason. I may be just a dumb guy who is behind the times, but I will stick with what the Chrysler engineers found that works. BTW, Dave Schwandt's F had the J K headers on it.

Don

On Thursday, January 9, 2025 at 05:38:07 PM EST, 'dave mason' via Chrysler 300 Club International <chrysler-300-club-international@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Yes, we sure do; I can try and take some pictures, and also agree with Tony’s suggestion to at least partially block the heat riser pipes. Bob Merritt makes these block off plates, in a couple different styles. Also it may be worth asking Don Cole if there’s still a way to get a set of the heat riser pipes, with a run that are currently being made. In the case of our F, the original F exhaust manifolds have broken mounting ears, so its another case of making do…

D&K

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 9, 2025, at 16:01, Nick Taylor <nicksgaragesd@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I believe the Masons have an F with the 300J/K headers in it. I don't know what mods were done to the exhaust system. I'm sure Dave will respond with information when he can.

Nick.

On Thu, Jan 9, 2025 at 12:45 PM 93saturnfan <93saturnfan@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Good day everybody,

I have a few questions concerning 300F exhaust.

Is there anyone in the club who has successfully installed the larger long "header" manifolds as seen on a J or K on their F? And if so does anyone have pictures of this exhaust setup both from up top and underneath?

To my knowledge they are similar if not identical in size to the optional exhaust manifolds that were on the 4 speed equipped F but have some differences I'm not privy to at the moment.

My current situation is this: I have a 300F with a passenger exhaust manifold that is unusable and not repairable as it is in several pieces. The downpipes/exhaust crossover looks as though it's been repaired numerous times and isn't in the greatest shape.

However, I do have a good set of K manifolds as well as a full set of the smaller heat elbow/pipes that to my knowledge will fit. I do know that I will need some different exhaust flanges to meet up with the rest of my otherwise stock appearing exhaust.

My goal isn't modifying for the sake of it, I'm merely trying to work with what I have available to me while staying relatively true to the spirit of the car. Unfortunately being a younger member (31 years old) I dont have all the knowledge or experience I'd like to surrounding these letter cars and classics in general and I would like to avoid messing with things if I dont have to since this was my late grandfather's car and means very much to me.

It's quite the learning curve as my first classic car and first car with carburetors so please forgive any ignorance I may have, it isn't willful.

Thank you

Ryan Stevenson

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