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

I don't know I don't see why it's not possible... Those people on this forum that do have the tooling... I would say with that taken care of it could be quite easy...
That's what I said in my post, The average Joe will not build a 400 HP 318 for 3000.
I bet you had more in your 318 and it wasn't making 400 HP