Durable, Streetable, Economic 318

One of the important things I have found in LA engines is to put the 273 & 318 in one class and the 340 & 360 in another. The engine pictured in my avatar I built. Really the only difference was the cam and bore. I Built that with a 67 273 block, 65 heads with the bolt matched Holley Dominator for the 65 heads because the 64 & 65 273's had a different intake manifold bolt pattern then the later ones. That cam was kicker it made great streetable power very much like the stock Commando Cam, it is a Crower # 31320 Solid Lifter. And of course I downsized the carburetor to a 570 CFM Holley Street Avenger. That car ran a stock 7 &1/4 inch rearend and a stock transmission with a stock converter, stock exhaust with high flo exhaust too. It did have a steel crank rather than a cast one. The thing about the 64 & 65 was the center hole cut in the back of the crank too, it was smaller than the later ones and the transmission slines were different than the laters as well. The transmissions were in fact set up for push button control cables which the government banned because of unsafe run aways. So the 273LA was replaced by the 318LA and the 273LA Commando was replaced by the 340 But you have to put it into an entirely different class because the only thing the same was the stroke. The bore on a 340 was huge, one of the factors for racing. Not to mention it was replaced by the 360 which made just as much power but through stoke rather than bore, that is why the 340 is in the same class as the 360 and only the upper engine parts are interchangable. Other than bearings, rod's timing cover and the such, and some of that stuff even had differences. The 340 was the one to have, it was the best of the best cast balanced crank on the ciruit at the time and the transmissions were built to accept them as well. See this takes us back to (The Little Red Engine That Could) the 273 Commando. So putting the 340 into the 360 class is debateable but done because of power factors and componet interchangeable parts. Nothing better to do tonight then rack a few brains. Go Valiant! Or how about Fast Back Valiant, nice! That being early Barracuda/Valiant. Valiant being the longest lasting car line throughout the muscle car years. Fabo's home page show's the years it ran! Cool stuff, these old MoPar's