Motorhome 440 Questions

[daves68]

  I recently scored a 440 form a 75 Dodge motorhome. When I started taking it apart, I noticed several things that were different.

1. Inside the lifter valley by cylinders 2 and 4 there are painted on letters from the factory. It's either HS or H5. Does anyone know what that stands for?

http://bellecityartglass.com/pics/1.jpg

2. There are several questions about the valve springs. First thing I noticed is the exhaust spring is shorter and has this funky cool ratching rotating retainer, what's up with that?  Is that something I want to use?

Also the exhaust and intake springs are wound in different directions. Why ?

And all the keepers are two groove as opposed to two groove on the intake and four groove on the exhaust.

http://bellecityartglass.com/pics/2.jpg

3. The 452 heads use tapered seat peanut plugs intead of the standard compression washer style. When did Chrysler start doing that?

http://bellecityartglass.com/pics/3.jpg

4. The power steering pump has an unusually large pully, is that good or not ?

http://bellecityartglass.com/pics/4.jpg

5. Because it's from 1975 it's a cast crank with the special damper. But this one is almost three inches thick and weighs 11 pounds !  Can I use a thinner (and lighter) one ?

Some other cool things I found, it came with a windage tray, it also has a double roller timing chain.
I only has 25,000 miles on it and there  is still crosshatching in the upper part of the cylinders. The outside of the engine is a little grimey but the inside is as clean as the day it was born. I figured the compression and it came out to about 7.5 : 1. What a joke. New pistons are a must. I'll probably put in new rod and main bearings and have the rotating assembly balanced. But I doubt I'll have to have any machine work done.

I would appreciate any input.
Thanks,
Dave

[Rolling_Thunder]

no new pistons...   just put 25lbs of boost to it 

[Chryco Psycho]

no idea on the internal markings
the rotaters on the valve are often used to extend valve life on truck engines where heavy loads for long periods are common , but they restrict the amount of valve opening so you will have clearance problems with high performance high lift cams
I have seen truck appications with taper plugs before , no tpassenger car or light truck though   
using a large pulley on the pump slows it down , for higher RPM use this would be good
Yes the damper can be replaced with a light damper , you will need to rebalance the rotating assy with new pistons anyway