Redline Rebuild: Chrysler Slant-Sixes Done Mild and Wild

Engines don’t always get a second chance at life. Many are assembled, dropped into a chassis, and then driven until they cannot drive anymore, fixed, driven to the point of failure, fixed again, and repeated until the cost of the repair is no longer rational to the owner. Lucky engines never hit that point. But really lucky engines lie in wait until Davin Rekow and the Redline Rebuild team come to the rescue. The latest rescue mission was a Dodge two-for-one worth watching.

The Chrysler slant-six is an engine that you likely know from its role as the butt of a joke. The facts aren’t laughing though. With 170-,198-, and 225-cubic inch variants and a production run that spans decades, the “leaning tower of power” is an attraction worth seeing. The first to appear in this Redline Rebuild is sourced from a Dodge Lancer station wagon wearing all of the grime from a life well lived.

After swapping the automatic transmission for an engine stand, the oh-so-rewarding teardown can begin. Davin will even admit that while disassembly is not his favorite part of the process, it’s up there. “You get to see the engine so completely, its always interesting to try to figure out its history.”

And this engine got cleaned up and went back together faithful to that history. The turquoise paint really dressed up the cast iron block and cylinder head, even though we thought they were beautiful right out of the machine shop too. Right when that stocker went off to get sized up was when slant-six number two arrived in the shop, this one a little rougher starting point. By the end, this one got a host of performance touches, including bolting on a Torqstorm supercharger. We aren’t saying the restored stock engine isn’t as lovely, but something about that four-barrel pressure fed by that belt driven blower is just extra attractive.

Hidden inside the wild build are some pistons that required Davin to do some machine work of his own. He needed to ensure the piston-to-valve clearance would be acceptable after the increase in camshaft size and bump in compression from replacement pistons. A little off the top made the compression just right for the additional air and fuel the blower will be pushing in. Davin made sure the path to the cylinders would be a smooth one also by doing plenty of grinding to the intake and cylinder head, slowly adjusting the shape to maximize the flow.

Davin said it was fun to build the same engine twice for once, proving that even just the second round is enough to say “not my first rodeo” and, ahem, dodge some small catches and particular tips pertain to the Chrysler slant-six specifically. He was tight lipped about which engine will be going back into the Lancer, or even if either were. He seems to always have something fun up his sleeve, so we think it might be best to click subscribe to the Hagerty YouTube channel and watch for the next Redline Update.