Manual for a 1930 Dodge DE

[Guest John1918]

It appears to be a "light 6" with a bore of about 2+7/8 inch. I must have been asleep but I have never heard of it before:confused:

[Guest John1918]

Has anyone else heard of the Dodge DE? It appears to have a DD body but with a smaller engine, like a DC8 with 2 cylinders lopped off. Manual was printed in USA but what market was the car sold into?

[Guest 1930]

DE was export only, 6 cyl as you mentioned starting with car # EC-001-P thru EC-115-R manufactured/sold for the 30 and 31 model years

[Chrycoman]

Has anyone else heard of the Dodge DE? It appears to have a DD body but with a smaller engine, like a DC8 with 2 cylinders lopped off. Manual was printed in USA but what market was the car sold into?

It is actually a DD engine with a 2-7/8" bore. In the 1930's Chrysler built export vehicles with a smaller bore to get around the higher taxes on large bore engines. That was the main reason for the long stroke engines in Europe at the time. The 2 7/8" bore engines used slightly different blocks than the regular 3.25" bore engines, with the cylinder wall diameter being smaller than the 3.25" bore and, naturally, more space between the cylinder bores. In the case of the DE, the pistons and rings were shared with the DC 8.

The DF was a taxi based on the DD 4-door sedan, while the DI was another export with a 2-7/8" bore based on the DH while the DJ was a taxi based on the DH. For 1932 Dodge offered a 4-cylinder DM for markets outside North America based on the Plymouth PB - the very first "Plodge". The next Plodge would appear in 1934 - the Canadian-market DT.

In 1933 Dodge began using the same system that Plymouth, DeSoto and Chrysler used - adding a single "X" to the model number to denote a small bore. Thus the 1934 DR had a 3-1/4" bore while the export DRX had a 2-7/8" bore. When Dodge decided to introduce a cheaper series of cars, it was labelled the DRXX. Could not call it a DRX as the DRXX used the DR engine. After the war Mopar used a lower compression ratio instead of a smaller bore. In 1951 for eaxmple the US-built export Plymouth six had a 6.25:1 compression ratio while the American market Plymouths had a 7.00:1 compression ratio.

Bill

Toronto, ON