It's crazy you had to prove it's a 318 like it's impossible to make power with anything less than 340/360 guess that's the line where physics stops working. Sucks she let go on you, doing another 318 or moving on to something else?
I don't own the Barracuda, it's "Gary's Garage" on YouTube. I am, however, building a 318 Magnum based 390 (dished pistons, RHS heads) for my '99 Dakota R/T ext.cab. It's a heavy truck and I want more bottom end but really don't need a 408, so I used an old 5.2 block from a '92 D-150 shorty that I upgraded to a 5.9 Magnum. I want to keep the original PCM, and I'm hoping 30" of displacement via stroke will work by just upsizing the injectors. I did that on my D-150 5.2->5.9 swap and it worked perfectly.
I have also done the 328" 318 trick, and I call it my "baby 340" LOL. It runs really well, with #302 heads, a 270s cam with 273 valve gear, a Street Dominator intake and a 625 Street Demon with headers. I want to do a flat-top 392" 318 with aluminum MP Magnum heads soon, I think they are the greatest thing for the street (4" crank motors)!!!
