They said the same thing about my 352 in my galaxie. Get a 390 and stick 3k of work into that. The money wasn't there at the time for all that. I did have enough to deck the block .085 and mill the heads .020. Upgraded the camshaft and valve springs and now the car will do a burn out. It wouldn't even hint at that before.
So heads and a cam along with more compression is worth maybe 35hp in a 318? I really wonder why people even mess with these motors then. I bought a gm 6.0l with a 4l80e and all the accessories and wiring harness for $850. I'm pretty sure another $1000 would cover putting that into whatever I want to. 300+ hp all day long that I could cruise with overdrive. Why waste money on these old mopar engines if they don't perform?
I talked to a machine shop today in my area. He quoted me 3500 to 4000 for an assembled 392 short block. I'm sure this would perform better buy why stop there. We could source a smog era 440 for less than 1000 and with some minor upgrades that would probably be ahead of the 392.
