I have to disagree on that claim, I have seen a stock and when I say stock, I mean stock 69-1/2 340 powered Duster 4 speed with 3.55 gears, right down to the factory exhaust all the way back, burn a LT1 4 speed NOT stock. Repeatedly, the guy just could not accept it. He insisted on running over and over every time using a different excuses for loosing. That very same day I watched that Duster smoke a built Ford 460, same deal over and over along with a list of other cars from all the makers try to shut that 340 down or blown it up, just didn't happenn. That Duster even had stock steel rally rims, with radials on them in 1978. The 340 even had the factory valve covers, NO ONE had ever done any thing to that 340 not even give it a bath. Factory air filter housing which I later purchased from the guy after the little 340 basically died a few yrs later, from the notorious front bulkhead splitting along with the rings finally giving out. We were high school friends and I tried desperately to convince him to bring the 340 back to life somehow, even if it had a cracked block, there are ways to fix cracks that work if doe right. The filter housing had the vacuum trap door in the rear and I have NEVER seen another housing same as that one from MOPAR again. I used it on a 72 318 I built with ported heads and used a 69 hyd. 340 camshaft, then found a single plane cast iron 273 Commando intake which I removed the center portion of the carb flange(4 round ports) to increase the plenum, I did a list of other things to that 318 which had all forged parts from the factory, except forged pistons, the rods it turned out were the same part number used in the 360's of that yr. twice the weight of the earlier 318 rods. I put that engine in a 70 barracuda I had and proceeded to beat 1 W30, several 351 W's, there was 1 351 C I could never beat though, it was put into an old 51 Ford PU, that thing was just flat *** bad to the bone. I later replaced my 318 with a 440 and still couldn't out run that CPU. Anyway, my 318 smoked a LT 3 times one night and that guy called a liar insisting my 18 was a 60 until I jacked the car up so he could crawl under to look at the casting in the block, he wouldn't accept the stamping on the front saying I could have changed that. Funny thing is, I have seen roundy pounders change those too in an attempt to get around rules. I've kick myself for 40 years now for giving up that 18r to someone else along with all the other MOPAR stuff I have had since I was 16. Turns out MOPAR stuff is just so much more expensive than what any of the other stuff is and getting so hard to find anymore. You get what you pay for though. I've been bending wrenches for people over the western half of this country for over 40 yrs and been a MOPAR or NO PAR guy most of it until it just got nearly impossible to get my hands on quality bodies to play with.
