Help me please tryin to beef up 318

My 318 was decent, nearly stock fox body fast, with 4 barrel, MP dist. and control box, 2.94 gears and a 2200ish stall. The 5.0 only has ~225 HP. But that was quarter mile, and my dart was SLOW off the line.... The addition of headers did almost nothing for me with stock heads and cam.

I later changed to a big cam, "302" heads and thin head gaskets. Man it ran good, should have easily taken out a stock to mild fox body, but not 300 HP... I never raced it though, as I had a crankshaft issue. Now I am building with some compression.

I wouldn't recommend the 360 heads without good pistons, but since your budget is tight you could get away with them with a midrange cam, thin head gaskets, and a lot of gear, like 3.73 or more.

Also since your 318 was rebuilt we have no idea what pistons you have or how far down in the block they are. So it is more like guessing