1979 E58 360-4V

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kmccabe56

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How were these engines "finished" at the engine plant? I've seen E58s in L'il Red Trucks with chrome rocker covers and a chrome air cleaner lid and I've seen what's supposed to be a "stock" E58 in a car that has black rocker covers and a black air cleaner lid.

I'm redoing an E58 for a '79 Aspen and want it to look the way Highland Park intended.
 
The little red truck had a dual snorkel air cleaner and chrome dress. My Police Aspen just has blue parts, black air cleaner but I never saw anything chrome on police cars other than some 60's Ferds. Some Super coupes may have got through with chrome as an option. I have seen them but don't know if they really came on the car
 
Lil red truck was special and had the chrome dress up. Everything else should be black air cleaner and blue engine until the early 80s when they started doing the engines black.
 
78 E58 valve covers were black as far as I know with orange valve cover gaskets . I think the E58 valve covers went to blue in 79. LIL Red had chrome stuff
 
Doing them black helped hide the valve cover gasket oil leaks. International went to that in 2008 as well. You wouldn't see all of the oil leaks until they started really making big spots on the ground, and by then the warranty was up. Smart move
 
Lil Red was an EH1 and was special production. E58 was a regular production engine, but considered HD/HP, and came with black valve covers. All other V8s of the time we're all blue. Black air cleaners were the norm from 75 on
 
Wouldn't it be great if Mopar Performance could manufacture a crate E58 now?! Basically the same engine "off road use only" wink wink, so up the compression ratio and a bit more cam but the same basics otherwise as in all the HD stuff, nodular iron, sodium filled valves, double roller timing chain, windage tray, etc. Just a nice tame street engine for those who don't want a lopey idle or anything attracting a lot of attention but want some more cubes and power than their stock smog engine and want to keep it small block and use their brackets and accessories, keeping price down.
 
I've never seen an e58 with black valve covers other then a couple pics online but it does make sense, hides the spilt oil better.
 
current folk lore says the back valve covers [with the red silicon gaskets] were to identify E58's that were built at "Chrysler Marine" on a special assembly line. The black color was not for hiding oil leaks...come on is it winter already?
 
There has to be a better reason then to distinguish where they were built. Customers don't care and dealers and assembly could tell from the part number.
 
Need do no more then with any small block mopar.

Look at the block stamp... 78 Black VC E58 here simple 8W (Windsor engine assembly) 360HP.

All folks need to do is look at there stamping for year, assembly plant and the 10,000 calendar to determine the date.

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My 80 Aspen A38/E58 AFTER I re-gasket everything and repainted factory color. Man I miss that car/engine.

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