Inliners International Forums General Discussion MOPAR 218/230 cylinder heads

Can anyone tell me if there were any changes over the years to the cylinder heads used in Dodge/Plymouth cars?
If any, what years, and did the changes preclude interchangability with other years?
I have what I think it a 1934 Dodge head, is it the same the head in my 1949 Dodge? I'm trying to decide if I should hang on to it, or find someone with a 1934 Dodge who needs it? I'm planning on building a spare engine, and have located a rebuildable crankcase and crankshaft for a 1949 engine. Can I use this head? I'll eventually need pistons. I have a camshaft that may go off to Edgarton for a regrind. Other parts will be moved over from the engine that's in the car whenever I'm ready to do the swap.

Carlo, when I was building my '38 Dodge the Motors Manual gave different comp.ratio in different years. The '38 head was low,however, the '57 head was the highest @ 7.5 the best I remember. My donor eng. was a '56 Ply. so I used the rods, crank and cyl.head from the donor eng. on the '38.Bored it .040 over and made a 234 ci eng.out of a 218. The diff. in the 218 & the 230 is the stroke. When you get to the '37 cyl.head and back sometimes they are not made for a heater. No outlet in the back of the head for a water connection and if its a true '37 eng. and earlier it may not have a water connection for the heater on the water pump. Many of the earlier cars had gas heaters. If you have time to look around for a '57 head and want the extra compression it would be worth it. Also the '57 eng. is already a 230 ci.,however, your '49 Dodge may also be a 230, haven't look in the book lately.

This head may not be as old as 1934, it was among a load of stuff that I got, most of it identified as pre-1937.
My head does have a heater connection on the top/front, that has the word "heater" cast around it. The back connection comes out the side of the head, instead of the top, but at least it has them. If I use this head, I'll need something to connect the pre-heat connections on my Edmunds intake.