1978? 360 with 318 heads why?

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johnparts

johnparts

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So I'm pulling the motor out of my Aspen and sure enough it's a 360 but for some odd reason it has 318 heads on it. Any thoughts as to why they would do that? Performance gains? compression gains? Or are 318 heads the same basically as the 360 heads on a later LA engine?
 
My old man bought a 360 with heavily ported 318 heads on it.

The engine was built for dirt track and the builder wanted high port velocity and lots of compression for mid-range torque.

It's also possible in your case that someone needed heads and they were the most cost-effective ones to get at the time.
 
Is this a factory motor? The reason I ask is that from time to time some really strange things come off the line. There was a guy in my home town that had a 73 duster that was a factory 318 two barrel car. No one could understand why the car was as quick as it was until there was further investigation done. It was actually a 340 with a two barrel intake! Seems from time to time when they would run short of motors trhey would make up motors to keep the line moving!
 
1968dartman said:
Is this a factory motor? The reason I ask is that from time to time some really strange things come off the line. There was a guy in my home town that had a 73 duster that was a factory 318 two barrel car. No one could understand why the car was as quick as it was until there was further investigation done. It was actually a 340 with a two barrel intake! Seems from time to time when they would run short of motors trhey would make up motors to keep the line moving!
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Possibility I guess. The car was originally a 318 4 barrel 4 speed and when I saw the 318 heads I kinda cried, but yesterday I saw the holy grail 360-3 on the side of the block I sighed in relief because I really didn't want to buy a car for the engine just to find out it was a 318. Maybe I sould look for block vin's when I get her out all the way. She runs too.
 
Any 318 head would give a CR boost and especially the closed chamber 302 and 318 heads wouldn't be bad on a 300hp torquer 360 or 350hp with larger valves and porting but if the engine stock it's more than likely the 360 needed heads and had the 318 heads already on hand or got a great deal on them or thought its was a 318 so order 318 heads or something like that.
 
Somebody put them on later.
Just look at where the heads meet the block and see if u can tell the head gasket is not thin steel and just a felpro...
 
Actually a set of heavy ported big valved 318 heads is a good budget move if your porting it. Or your buddy does it for free. The limitation is it will not hold a heavy breather and a bunch of RPM, BUT, on a low RPM engine it'll perform nicely.
 
My guess is,since it is a 318 car.The original motor blew and the "shop" put a shortblock in it and may not have realized it was a360.I had a 84 4x4 150 ram that had the same setup but with the 318 two barrel intake.
 
67Dart273 said:
How do you "know" that these are 318 heads?
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Well I didn't KNOW but I looked up the casting number and they said they were 318 heads. Had I done some more research I would have seen they were also used on 360's from 1971-1989 so that was My mistake.
 
The 596 casting are 360 heads that are also used on318-4bbl. Applications.
 
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