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

I’ll take torque over horsepower any day. It makes the car much more drivable, easier to tune, requires less RPM to do the same work and takes everything down. You can use different cam timing too. It’s just better unless you are building drag cars. Torque wins every time in my book. Even in a drag car, torque is what makes it move.

Your definitely not YR then LOL, YR and I think hp does every thing and hp is torque and rpm. What you call torque is just low end "rpm" hp.