i'm not gonna diss all you chevy fans, but i am gonna say when it comes to muscle find me a production engine that'll beat a 426 hemi. You gotta respect the mopars for that one. It's the 455 killer.
The chev 427 and the ford 427fe and the 427ohc where all engines to be recond with. The hemi name has just become a little blown out of perportion especially the new ones which are kinda a joke.
The hemi term referes to the the hemipherial disign of the combusion chamber (having the valves canted at an angle and the spark plug in the middle. The chevy big blocks also have canted valves how ever they still have a wedge disign with the spark plug on one side. Dodges hemi now as it was then was a bit of an advertizing gimic as half the cars on the road could argueable have hemi engines (honda,toyota to name a few). Dodge owns the rights to the name.