engine build for reliability

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My thinking for the 5.2 is the newer head design, roller cam, lighter rotating assemble not having to worry about the oil killing the cam.
If the girl is in to power then use a 5.9 instead.
 
halfafish said:
Hah! This will meet with ridicule, but if you really want reliability, pull that 318 and put in a slant. It will run forever...
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My ex wife blew up a slant 6....

I'v e run 318's for many years and hundreds of thousands of miles... I got my old 68 Barracuda fastback at 180 k miles and dropped in an old reliable 318 and got both the engine and body to 500,000 miles...
 
mrhinsjc said:
So let's say you are going to build a small block and the most important goal is reliability. Say your daughter will be driving it. I have a 70 Duster and 69 Dart and both are pretty much blank slates. Both are 318s/ Here are a few of my thoughts.

mini-starter
Toyota alternator
MSD ignition and distributor
fuel injection? Not sure of type
bypass alternator gauge, continuous high-current wire thru bulkhead fitting.

What would you do? Say expense is no object.
Click to expand...


318 with a 340 cam...

Dual plane 4 bbl intake...

Holley 80457 with electric choke and vacuum secondaries...

Dual exhaust...

Factory electronic ignition...

Double roller timing chain...

High volume high pressure oil pump... With ungraded hardened distributor drive shaft/gear....

Upgrade the main power wire from the alternator stud to the ammeter with 10 gauge wiring...

Make sure you have a stronger rear axle than the 7 1/4"... Go with 8 3/4" or 8 1/4".... A good 318 will blow up a 7 1/4" axle easy... I went through 3 of them in 4 years on a mild 318 4 bbl before upgrading to 8 3/4' axle and never blew the 8 3/4" when I ran it up to 500,000 miles...
 
krazykuda said:
My ex wife blew up a slant 6....

I'v e run 318's for many years and hundreds of thousands of miles... I got my old 68 Barracuda fastback at 180 k miles and dropped in an old reliable 318 and got both the engine and body to 500,000 miles...
Click to expand...


I've seen ex wives break a bowling ball in a sand box without tools. And they weren't even pissed.
 
hell a 440 could be stone cold reliable in the car.. engine size really isn't an issue especially if its closer to a stock build...

to me parts availability is a big part of it too.. when ya start getting into msd dist and things like that you may not be able to run into your corner store for the parts to fix it...

keep it simple in my opinion...
 
Safety, brakes and suspension would be my main concern. Engine is the easy part.

I wouldn't build a car for my kids, they would need to be involved in order to learn what you/they doing, how it works and to diagnose and repair it.
 
My Wife drives a bone stock (except for HEI ign) 72 Dart 318 with a two barrel and single exhaust.
It has a roller timing set .030 over with a 68 340 style grind hydraulic cam, new MP lifters, new stock 904 trans rebuild, front power discs, power steering and a nice little Pioneer blue tooth/USB stereo with 6x9's.

Totally reliable little beastie and plenty of go for the average female driver.
 
dano said:
Safety, brakes and suspension would be my main concern. Engine is the easy part.

I wouldn't build a car for my kids, they would need to be involved in order to learn what you/they doing, how it works and to diagnose and repair it.
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This is exactly the path my son and I are taking. 65 Valiant, 170 /6. We're going to get it running well first, move on to the brakes, then the electrical. He's getting dirtier then I am. Teaching him as I go and re-learning what I've forgot. it's a great bonding experience as well.

I know this isn't really what the OP was asking about, but part of reliability is the ability to fix something in a pinch, even if temporary. Improvise, adapt and overcome....

My nephew once, had a tire pop a bead on his truck out four wheeling by himself. Grabbed a ratchet strap, some engine starter and a lighter. 20 minutes later he had the tire back on with enough pressure in it to limp home. Far too many kids these days have no idea what to do in an emergency situation.

Whatever you do, by all means, make her part of the equation and you'll make the reliability factor even higher.
 
Do get daughter involved
My daughter and her best friend won the tire change contest at the HS car show in the Pacer-- a real Indy style pit stop-and a Saturday of practice
340 cam - short voodoo would be better - can run a stock converter
carb in this century? in the Frozen north?
aside from that lots of good tips- especially do the electrical mods- eliminate the power through the body cavity new wire and fuzeable link from alt to relay
 
mrhinsjc said:
So let's say you are going to build a small block and the most important goal is reliability. Say your daughter will be driving it. I have a 70 Duster and 69 Dart and both are pretty much blank slates. Both are 318s/ Here are a few of my thoughts.

mini-starter
Toyota alternator
MSD ignition and distributor
fuel injection? Not sure of type
bypass alternator gauge, continuous high-current wire thru bulkhead fitting.

What would you do? Say expense is no object.
Click to expand...

Use which ever has the best 318. Replace the timing set up with a 340 double roller set up, including the drilled bolt for oiling. Replace the freeze plugs with brass ones, hoses and clean the radiator, fill with 50/50 mix of Prestone antifreeze. Change tranny fluid, filter, and adjust the bands. Replace seals and gaskets on engine, rear, and trans as needed. Check the rear bearings if 7 1/4 rear. Rebuild the carb, and replace the choke and choke pull off. Use a Chrysler electronic distributor, box, Taylor Spiro Pro helical solid wires, and platinum plugs. Run a headlight relay kit. OEM alternator is fine with an electronic voltage regulator. Good suspension, Brakes and Great tires. Clean it all up and Enjoy.
 
Agree with what was said above, get her involved in building the car so she knows what's in it and how to at least do basic maintenance and emergency fixes. Then you don't have to be concerned with building the car to never have issues; it's a classic, it's always going to have at least some tiny little thing going wonky unless you do a nut-and-bolt restoration.

On that note I think it's critical to teach HOW to detect problems... like what funny noises coming from under the hood mean or why it's important to keep an eye on the oil pressure and temp gauges. Also doing routine checks on things like tire pressure, brakes, battery etc.

With regards to the engine I'd go with a 318 mainly for the gas mileage. I haven't owned a slant-6 car but from what I've read on here and some FB Mopar groups it seems like a 225 /6 only gets marginally better mileage than a 318 even though it's almost 100 cubes smaller. Also more than a few stories of otherwise healthy slants throwing a rod out the side of the block for no apparent reason... never heard of a 318 doing that. They just slowly wear out to the point where they're burning as much oil as gasoline and have no power, but they still run! LOL

A built 318 with "only" a TRUE 250 HP is quick in a little 3300-lb A-body especially if you have an overdrive trans and decent gears like 3.55s. I think I would do an AX-15 5-speed swap on something like that; they're rated to handle about as much power as a mildly-warmed 318 puts out and the ratios are set up so it works well with taller rear gears like 3.23 or 2.94 (1st-4th are pretty steep, 5th is only .79:1 overdrive). I believe @75slant6 has an AX-15 in his Duster behind a 5.9 Magnum, they are all over the place and came in a lot of mid-size trucks and SUV's from the 1990s. I have one in the Jeep in my sig btw, almost 250k miles on it and it shifts like new since I've changed the fluid a couple times.
 
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mrhinsjc said:
So let's say you are going to build a small block and the most important goal is reliability. Say your daughter will be driving it. I have a 70 Duster and 69 Dart and both are pretty much blank slates. Both are 318s/ Here are a few of my thoughts.

mini-starter
Toyota alternator
MSD ignition and distributor
fuel injection? Not sure of type
bypass alternator gauge, continuous high-current wire thru bulkhead fitting.

What would you do? Say expense is no object.
Click to expand...
Does your daughter want to drive around in a 50yr old car?
 
IQ52 said:
Does your daughter want to drive around in a 50yr old car?
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Mine does!

My opinion. Keep it close to stock and keep it simple with as many OEM parts as you can find.

Electronic ignition - mostly all cheap Chinese junk. I have Pertronix in my ‘68 but the points worked fine for the first 10k miles.

EFI - it takes thousands of hours on a dyno to get fuel maps that work well over all operating conditions. Oh and the electronics and fuel pumps, see “Electronic Ignition”. I will be taking the EFI off my Coronet someday and the daughters Duster is getting a Demon carb off the bat

Cooling - I opted for GlenRay radiator and aluminum heads for her 318. My 318 is a bit dicey with AC and 110 desert temps the aluminum heads should help a lot and end spark Knock with reasonable advance.

Water Pump - I finally bought a NOS water pump for my 68 318. Problem solved on leaking seals and dropped temperature 3 degrees.

- Brakes got a 73 donor with disks for her 72.
 
Jim Kueneman said:
EFI - it takes thousands of hours on a dyno to get fuel maps that work well over all operating conditions. Oh and the electronics and fuel pumps, see “Electronic Ignition”. I will be taking the EFI off my Coronet someday and the daughters Duster is getting a Demon carb off the bat
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There are many on the market that are self learning so no need for thousands of dyno hours.

That said I’d probably pass on the $2500 or so needed for a full system at the start. That’s something that can be added down the road
 
abodyjoe said:
There are many on the market that are self learning so no need for thousands of dyno hours.

That said I’d probably pass on the $2500 or so needed for a full system at the start. That’s something that can be added down the road
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Self learning is a marketing ploy. All OEM systems are “self learning” but only for steady state operation. All the transients, cold starts, hot starts, accelerations are not self learning and are what the dyno hours are for.
 
MoparMike1974 said:
A good upgrade for reliability is a deep trans pan and extra capacity oil pan. The stock pans are marginal in capacity, especially the engine.
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for a while there Jegs drop the price of their Derale deep transmission pans and filter extensions. Great product with cooling tubes across the bottom. I put one on my new 518 in my truck.
 
Jim Kueneman said:
Self learning is a marketing ploy. All OEM systems are “self learning” but only for steady state operation. All the transients, cold starts, hot starts, accelerations are not self learning and are what the dyno hours are for.
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I have a buddy with a self learning FAST set up. Runs starts awesome and was never tuned in a dyno. Took some driving but it learned pretty quickly.

Another friend has a fitech unit and same thing. Runs damn nice with no dyno tune. He just installed a Holley sniper kit but don’t think he has driven it yet so I don’t know how that one works.
 
The 318 is still in my 69 Dart, not the original engine but it's a pretty old 318. It has the big spark plugs..big ends I mean. It smokes a bit and I'm guessing it has a huge amount of miles on it but it runs like a like a top. Starts no problem after sitting for years. I should probably krrp it after the 340 goes in. A rebuild and install in an old 60s Dodge pickup. Found this awesome old Fargo. Was going nuts over it but didn't buy it because I didn't want to get side tracked.

35721680856_2f4c1106d3_b.jpg
 
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Rebuild everything stock.
It has lasted 40 years now, it will run another 40 years freshened up.
One thing I would improve on is brakes, modern cars stop fast, so anything you can do to make it stop faster, spend the money, not stupid money but better factory parts.
Brake parts are cheaper than sheet metal and a higher insurance bill, and good brakes are a must have for a younger driver.
 
Remember the cars we drove back in the day? I remember after her divorce, my mom was determined to show us seven kids she could take us on a vacation. We packed up the ‘69 Ford Galaxie wagon, drove from San Jose to Guaymas in Mexico, then back again without a problem. It held up perfectly fine.
 
318 stock rebuild.
340cam
Performer intake.
600CFM Edelbrock or whatever carb you feel comfortable with.
Dougs headers and some nice duals.
81/4 rear with some 3.21:1 gears.
Stock electronic ignition system,just keep a spare ballast resistor in the glovebox.
A stock rebuilt 904


Thats pretty much the drivetrain in my Duster during the first summer i owned it except i had worse headers but it was dead reliable,ran very nice and pretty darn fuelefficient all at once.
 
abodyjoe said:
keep a spare ecu n the glove box too.. :)

that would be a nice cruiser.
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Didnt think of that,never heard about the ECU being a problem,had an ancient orangebox in the car at that time,but wouldnt surprise me if newer replecements are of alitle worse quality than they used to be.

It was absolutly wonderfull,was such a smoothrunning engine,and ran so darn sweet everywhere,regardless if it was out on a open highway,around town or just out there on a small country road,the thing just ran so nice.
Then i got greedy and went for a 340 set on absolute kill, it was fun but far from as versatile as that 318 was..
Ohh and that kind of engine doesnt care what kind of fuel is in the tank either,if its flamable in some way it will burn it without ever detonating its brains out.
 
how old are these kids and will they be driving with their friends?
Maybe something newer with air bags until they've got a couple of years under their seat belts!
if they are seasoned then something not too fast or finicky.Maybe brakes and suspension first.
 
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