Today, dollar for dollar, is the 318 faster than the 340 ???
I wonder if a 340 LA would benefit from the roller lifter cam etc. how many HP? at least 10 I would hope.
Get back to me in a couple weeks/month. I'm having a 340/422 built and originally went with hyd. flat tappet. It was finished and on the dyno. Had a couple of pulls and it later had a cam failure.
Backstory: I have a 408 (early 360) Procharged engine with bushed lifter bores and hyd. rollers. The engine runs great and I initially wanted to put hyd. roller in the 422 but cost prohibited it. The budget had changed and coupled with the failure of the HFT cam I decided to have the builder do the extra work to hyd. roller lifters in. It was a $1,200 added cost but it was what I wanted in the beginning. I'll post up the number's when I get them.
On the topic of 318 vs 340. Now you know I'm not afraid of putting down 12 racks for a 340 build you should know that I also have a freshly built $3000 318.
While the 422 pulled +500 hp (will do more when it's appetite for cam lobes subsides and expecting 550 hp) and the 408 Procharged engine put up 650 hp / 600 ft/lbs they were/are high dollar builds.
I needed a replacement for my D100's tired 318. If I had more time I would have assembled it myself but I also don't have a shop or any special tools. It also needs to replace a semi daily driver so expedience was key. It won't be going on a dyno but it I would estimate it a 350 hp/ 350 ft/lbs.
It is a .060"+ 318, Speedmaster heads with a competition valve job and work on the SSR, gasket matched with the Speedmaster intake, 340 restoration cam, KB 167's, Eagle SIR rods, and Competition Camshafts adj. rochers. All the other parts I already had stockpiled that I bought from forums in anticipation of building another LA. All in all, it's going to come in at a little over $3000 for the new parts and labor.
Two different needs for two different builds I have going on right now. Someone said something like a guy that is going to do a high dollar build isn't going to start with a 318. That's exactly right. If you are going to put 10K into an engine build a guy is probably looking for a 340 or 360 core.
If the D100 was my focus and I was trying to make it into more than a daily/Home Depot gopher I would probably have used my 1972 360 core and built it with a 4" crank and Trick Flows. Instead it's getting an old cast 340 crank I had in a corner and chinese heads and intake. It'll still have respectable power but the application is completely different than the road race car the 422" is going in.
