Tech4Dummies
Member
Hello, all! Picked up my first A-body not to long ago, it's a aqua/teal 1973 Duster 4-speed car, Dutchman Axles posi rear, really good condition for what I paid. No air conditioning, no power steering. Came with a tired 360 LA engine so I ended up swapping a 318 into it with some headers and a 750 eddie & performer manifold. Should do fine for a while as a daily driver once I button up the last couple details of the swap in the coming days, the engine started up and ran every time in its previous engine bay and it's done a lot of sitting around over the past couple years so it's probably pretty low mileage.
Anyway....It only makes sense, in my mind, to rebuild the 360 as a nice roller motor to replace the 318 in the future. I came across a brand new, dirt-cheap Eagle 4340 forged 3.58" crank on Amazon and a set of Scat pro-series I-beam 6.123 rods for half price from Jegs. Crank and rods are still available from those sites last time I checked, very good prices.
These are the only investments I've made thus far for this build so I wanted to run some numbers and info by all you Mopar gurus on here as far as most of the other components go and whether or not they compliment each other well and will be somewhat drivable around town,(concerned with tuning issues & stalling & hard starting) any advice is much appreciated. Here is the rest of the combo I had in mind:
Cam: Lunati Voodoo "Retro-Fit" Hyd. Roller, .560/.565 lift, 243/251 @ .050, 110 LSA.
Heads: Eddie Performer RPM (bare). i'm thinking titanium retainers, 5-angle job for larger intake valves (2.08 or maybe 2.10 if that's feasible?) with CNC porting and a trip to the flow bench. Goal is to flow 300 cfm at a half inch lift, or close to it. Oh and sodium-filled exhaust valves.
Pistons: I haven't looked into this but i'd like basic forged flat tops with coated skirts, aiming at 10.5:1 CR as called for by Lunati for that camshaft. The guys at my local shop will probably order them to match the combustion chamber cc they end up with after machine work, plan on running 93 octane too. They'll sort out the tuning on the dyno.
Intake/Carb: Port-matched Eddie Performer RPM air-gap and i'm thinking double pumper (doesn't matter what company - hit me with your suggestions) somewhere in the range of 750 to what, maybe 830 cfm? I don't want to overcarb it. Build is going to be roughly 370 cubes, hopefully a real 500 hp.
Bearings: No idea, never built a high performance small block mopar. Probably consult my engine builder for this but if you guys have any thoughts, by all means...
Oiling: Milodon street/strip 7-qt oil pan & windage tray. What oil pump do you guys suggest for this deal, probably going to make peak power at around 6,300 or whatever but i'll probably spin it 7k when racing, I'm going to breeze through the "oiling mods" sticky thread in a bit and consider all that info as well.
On to the general remaining thoughts of mine...going to use a high-volume aluminum water pump and i'm very tempted to go ahead and have the shop button everything up with a serpentine setup, there are only 3 pulleys on this engine plus whatever tensioner I might have to use. Going with an aluminum radiator & flex fan. I want to use a lightweight flywheel with a proven clutch (not hydraulic) that can handle 500-600 ft-lbs for peace of mind so all you street-strip guys gotta preach to me here. What works and what doesn't work for 11 second A-bodies as far as clutches go? I don't think i'll ever use slicks I was thinking more like 275 ET streets or whatever, launching at whatever rpm doesn't bog down.
Also thinking about doing an aluminum-case A833, non-overdrive old school nascar style box with 18-spline input shaft and steel bushings for the countershafts so they don't work their way into the aluminum case, not sure if its worth the money though...its just cool. Lol. But even if I stick with the iron case, what synchros/synchro material should I use?
These cars can only do so much with an unstroked street-driven small block so any weight I can remove is probably going to get removed. If yall havent noticed I've sort of geared a lot of this build towards weight reduction whether that be in the car or rotating assembly or whatever. Car is getting stripped and a roll cage and racing seats are going in at some point. Even if I don't take it to the strip that much, these items might very well save my life one day. These things are awesome death-traps :finga:
Thanks for reading fellas
Anyway....It only makes sense, in my mind, to rebuild the 360 as a nice roller motor to replace the 318 in the future. I came across a brand new, dirt-cheap Eagle 4340 forged 3.58" crank on Amazon and a set of Scat pro-series I-beam 6.123 rods for half price from Jegs. Crank and rods are still available from those sites last time I checked, very good prices.
These are the only investments I've made thus far for this build so I wanted to run some numbers and info by all you Mopar gurus on here as far as most of the other components go and whether or not they compliment each other well and will be somewhat drivable around town,(concerned with tuning issues & stalling & hard starting) any advice is much appreciated. Here is the rest of the combo I had in mind:Cam: Lunati Voodoo "Retro-Fit" Hyd. Roller, .560/.565 lift, 243/251 @ .050, 110 LSA.
Heads: Eddie Performer RPM (bare). i'm thinking titanium retainers, 5-angle job for larger intake valves (2.08 or maybe 2.10 if that's feasible?) with CNC porting and a trip to the flow bench. Goal is to flow 300 cfm at a half inch lift, or close to it. Oh and sodium-filled exhaust valves.
Pistons: I haven't looked into this but i'd like basic forged flat tops with coated skirts, aiming at 10.5:1 CR as called for by Lunati for that camshaft. The guys at my local shop will probably order them to match the combustion chamber cc they end up with after machine work, plan on running 93 octane too. They'll sort out the tuning on the dyno.
Intake/Carb: Port-matched Eddie Performer RPM air-gap and i'm thinking double pumper (doesn't matter what company - hit me with your suggestions) somewhere in the range of 750 to what, maybe 830 cfm? I don't want to overcarb it. Build is going to be roughly 370 cubes, hopefully a real 500 hp.
Bearings: No idea, never built a high performance small block mopar. Probably consult my engine builder for this but if you guys have any thoughts, by all means...
Oiling: Milodon street/strip 7-qt oil pan & windage tray. What oil pump do you guys suggest for this deal, probably going to make peak power at around 6,300 or whatever but i'll probably spin it 7k when racing, I'm going to breeze through the "oiling mods" sticky thread in a bit and consider all that info as well.
On to the general remaining thoughts of mine...going to use a high-volume aluminum water pump and i'm very tempted to go ahead and have the shop button everything up with a serpentine setup, there are only 3 pulleys on this engine plus whatever tensioner I might have to use. Going with an aluminum radiator & flex fan. I want to use a lightweight flywheel with a proven clutch (not hydraulic) that can handle 500-600 ft-lbs for peace of mind so all you street-strip guys gotta preach to me here. What works and what doesn't work for 11 second A-bodies as far as clutches go? I don't think i'll ever use slicks I was thinking more like 275 ET streets or whatever, launching at whatever rpm doesn't bog down.
Also thinking about doing an aluminum-case A833, non-overdrive old school nascar style box with 18-spline input shaft and steel bushings for the countershafts so they don't work their way into the aluminum case, not sure if its worth the money though...its just cool. Lol. But even if I stick with the iron case, what synchros/synchro material should I use?
These cars can only do so much with an unstroked street-driven small block so any weight I can remove is probably going to get removed. If yall havent noticed I've sort of geared a lot of this build towards weight reduction whether that be in the car or rotating assembly or whatever. Car is getting stripped and a roll cage and racing seats are going in at some point. Even if I don't take it to the strip that much, these items might very well save my life one day. These things are awesome death-traps :finga:
Thanks for reading fellas
