Stock 360 Upgrades for Crusher Cuda?

yellow rose said
I don’t know what the 051 head is, but if it’s an open chamber the piston needs to come out of the deck. I’m not a fan of milling a bunch off the heads. It makes gasket sealing tough.

Also, 10:1 compression ratio is a good starting point. Don’t buy an off the shelf cam. Don’t buy an off the shelf computer. Buy a Holley clone that is a double pumper and learn to tune it. You have enough gear to run a Strip Dominator or an M1. Do it

Your biggest issue will be headers. There ain’t a header worth a single crap out there for that chassis. Not one. I haven’t seen an off the shelf header that wasn’t 40 HP or more off a decent header.

My last race car was a 64 Barracuda. I made 2 sets of headers for it, and paid a guy to make the last set. Of course, I had a lift off fiberglass front end and no inner fenders so I had some room.

If you have the option of using a 67-75 or 76 A body, I’d use it just so I could buy headers.

And I love the early A’s. They just don’t have any room.

My understanding is the 051 360 head is a later LA head. Nothing special when it comes to flow or compression. They can be made better, but they will never be great. The heads that should have been on the engine would have been a little better, but I forget the casting number. As far as headers, I could run a stock V8 273 manifold, but I was going to contact Laysons to get a set of their headers. I have heard many bad things about TTI not fitting right and people beating them to fit. And Doug's is a bit expensive for my build. I really don't want to cut up the inner fenders. Just want to save an old wore out Mopar and have some weekend fun with it. I don't even need to win a race. I just want to finally have a V8 60's Mopar that makes me smile when I get in the gas. And maybe run 12.90 in the quarter.