AJ's Opinion; Just for you 318 streeters

318willrun said

I'll throw on this quote "heads too". For whatever reason, folks don't like to put flowing heads on a 318. It's assumed the larger runners will kill velocity which will kill low end torque. I don't know of anyone that's bolted X heads on their 318 and lost performance.

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I'll give you that, but the big port heads don't do much for you either until the rpm gets up, and then the stock cam chokes up.
So then to take advantage of those heads, you gotta jump the cam up. If you choose the 268/276/114, 340 cam, with no other changes, that is an instant recipe for a weak bottom end. With no rear gear change either, the power LOSS at low rpms will offset the subtle power increase over the top, and with a speed limit of 65mph, I lost performance every time I did it, cuz when she hit second gear the engine was way off the cam; hopelessly drowning in sucked out territory.
But yeah with 4.30s and a 2800, things picked up some. But 4.30s were lousy on the hiway.

I got way more performance by bolting all the 318 stuff including the cam, onto a 340.