Today, dollar for dollar, is the 318 faster than the 340 ???

would you agree ?

  • yep, the 318 wins if buying and building for under 3k

    Votes: 48 41.7%
  • Nope, the 340 always has and always will beat the 318

    Votes: 57 49.6%
  • Actually, never thought about it like this... Good Point !

    Votes: 10 8.7%

  • Total voters
    115
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I will never build a NHRA Class race car so a 700 HP 528 is not going to happen. Rich boy racer above can have at it.

My desires are to build a cheap go fast car/truck. Will it make 300 HP? I don't care.
For my Little Red truck I almost bought a Lunati 'Thumper' cam just for the lope but its the wife's truck and she would not be happy.
My son has a 5.2 long block that I may build just for the Loppy idle and put it in my 1984 Rampage.
Lunati rollor cams run $259. Rock Auto has stock 5.2 hyd roller lifters for less than $6 each X 16. Need some 6.950" hollow pushrods, Trick Flow are about $100.
Never heard of a 700 hp 528 NHRA Class car, or is that a generalization statement?
 
I wonder if a 340 LA would benefit from the roller lifter cam etc. how many HP? at least 10 I would hope.
 
Who said anything about discouraging some make believe 17 year old from building a 318? No one. You made that up to fit your narrative. I wouldn’t try and talk anyone out of a 318 build. What I would talk them out of is a stupid, unrealistic budget. And that was the point of this entire thread. How to shoestring a build together using a 1985 budget and claim one engine is a better starting point than another to fluff an ego.
again! not my post,....not my rules!!!! 100s of post on here telling newbies to boat anchor the 318 for 340/360! just go to SB section and type 318 into the search bar!!!!
 
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.
 
its easy to get to ten grand in a build or at leas the high side of five anyway why stop when you get to 7500 bucks? that isn't the time to start being cheap...I guess my point is and as was said 3 grand isn't much of a budget. However say you
scored a running 340, put a roller cam in, and say the 340 would already hit 340 HP. The roller cam hopefully would add another ant least 30 HP or more.
 
its easy to get to ten grand in a build or at leas the high side of five anyway why stop when you get to 7500 bucks? that isn't the time to start being cheap...I guess my point is and as was said 3 grand isn't much of a budget.

True. 3k isn't much of a budget unless you don't need much of an engine. It can be done and be better than the stocker. Just don't expect to win any match races and realize the most you could probably do on 3k is have a decent street engine to tow or cruise with.
True performance engine? Not on a 3k budget. That's the budget for cylinder heads.
 
Okay you win I will use my 340's for boat anchors and build 318's from now on
 
The Magnum's have a taller lifter bore. And the lifters are taller and a pain to get out with the heads on the block. And they use a dog bisket anti spin device that is held down with a spider spring bracket.

To put rollers in a LA requires different lifters ($$$) and a anti spin lever.
 
Ima thinkin of roller cammin' one of my 340s...:)

why it really does not add much

A little less drag.

But with rollers you can go with a much faster ramp ratio.
Go with the HUGE wheel rollers and even faster ramp ratio. A 0.904" slider lifter cam can only be so fast ratio before the lifter edge digs into the cams lobe.

This is where 'Mushroom' lifters were made for.
Fast ramp Roller cam spec's with the required NHRA Class Flat Tappet Slider lifter.
 
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Most everyone gets to caught up in cubic inches kinda funny actually.

At our local track a few years back a 1952 chevy pickup was there. He was running a straight 6 with some kind of mechanical Hilborn injection. Running 7.5-7.8 1/8 times all motor no nos. Now granted he had more than 3000 just into the injection setup I would suspect. He was flat out embarrassing alot of v-8 cars with $10,000 motors. Pulling the wheels of the ground a few inches when it left like it was shot out of a cannon. Any guesses o. What he was making for horse power? I can tell you his chassis efficiency was excellent!!
 
Most of us are not shopping for cams by the old 'Advertised' duration anymore.
But if you look at say a 284 Adv slider cams @ 0.050" lift and compare it to a race Roller 284 Adv @ 0.050 you will see the @ 0,050 is closer to a 305 Adv slider cam.
 
43 pages LOLOLOL
ryilo.gif
 
Most everyone gets to caught up in cubic inches kinda funny actually.

At our local track a few years back a 1952 chevy pickup was there. He was running a straight 6 with some kind of mechanical Hilborn injection. Running 7.5-7.8 1/8 times all motor no nos. Now granted he had more than 3000 just into the injection setup I would suspect. He was flat out embarrassing alot of v-8 cars with $10,000 motors. Pulling the wheels of the ground a few inches when it left like it was shot out of a cannon. Any guesses o. What he was making for horse power? I can tell you his chassis efficiency was excellent!!
A friend had a Maverick with the I-6. He was running a stroked crank and over bored for a net 328 CI. With a turbo and intercooler he was pushing about 475 HP and would carry both wheels up almost past the 60 foot. Maverick, the Ba$tard Fox body nobody wanted.
 
The Mustang 2 with a V 8 was fun on the street, the wheels would spin like it was a pickup truck no weight out back.
 
this thread straying to Fords? the falcon was a good platform. I knew a guy from high school raced a 66 Falcon. I almost bought one once it was a 67. had that "Mini Fairlane " look to it.
 
My points above of the Maverick with the 300 bored and stroked is loosly about the way he was SLAMMED by the 351 guys on the Dorf forums. They said his 300 was a pig truck engine and would not get out of its own shadow. But when he showed the Dyno sheets running over 20 PSI and 520ish HP they still hammered him, just a bit less. He ran around 12 PSI only to keep the head glued down.

I'm almost sure a stock junkyard 318 with a Turbo pushing 14.5 PSI would kick out 460 Crank HP for a short time. SHORT is the key word there. It would fail when the top ring ends butted and cracks the ring land off and a Grenade goes off in the Dyno room.
 
A true encounter with the Ford inline 6 truck engine on the mid 90s trucks. I used to work as a Ford line tech, and I'd work on these trucks. One day i was in one test driving it and thought"wow this thing is a dog must be a six cylinder...' pull it in the shop ,open the hood ,it was a 5.0 automatic...next time I am in one with a manual trans,its pulling hard running good, i am like "wow this thing pulls for a 5.0.."open the hood and its the 300 inline 6 with the manual trans. To this day I'd take a 96 Ford F150 with a 6 cylinder manual.
 
A true encounter with the Ford inline 6 truck engine on the mid 90s trucks. I used to work as a Ford line tech, and I'd work on these trucks. One day i was in one test driving it and thought"wow this thing is a dog must be a six cylinder...' pull it in the shop ,open the hood ,it was a 5.0 automatic...next time I am in one with a manual trans,its pulling hard running good, i am like "wow this thing pulls for a 5.0..open the hood and its the 300 inline 6 with the manual trans. To this day I'd take a 96 Ford F150 with a 6 cylinder manual.
The old Bumper sticker "Id rather tow my Dodge behind a Ford than drive a Chevy". Our tow truck was a F350 5th wheel and would pull a trailer with two Mopars to the tracks.
 
Well I'm pretty sure a junkyard 340 would take 14.5psi for a SHORT time also.
Now take a running junkyard 5.2 magnum get the rods and crank rebuilt probably hone the cylinders depending on core shift and a few other factors. Freshen up the heads . Then they run 14.5psi and live KRC back in the day done that along with a lot of other places. And the stayed together.

You don't have to spend money on a bunch of money on exotic parts to make a solid engine. But the stock parts need to be approved and within spec. You can make a 400hp 318 with stock rotating assembly that actually has a long life span.
 
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