Why the 318 is a phenomenal engine...

nckennyb said
Back when I was just out of high school, my Duster 340 engine blew a freeze plug up front one cold night about two miles from home and I drove it on home. The block cracked so I got a 318 two barrel out of a 1967 Satellite and put in it. Right away, I was amazed by the torque the thing had. I had headers on the Duster but the engine was completely stock. I was talking to a friend one day who had a 1972 Demon 340. He says to me, "you would have to put $2000 into that 318 to make it run with this 340." I told him to bring it out and we would see. He pulled me by about a fender on takeoff (he had an automatic where I had a four speed) but when I shifted to second we were even again and the same through fourth but when I hit fourth, the 318 started to pull away from him and then he just let off on it when he saw he wasn't going to reel me back in. I like my 340s but I was really impressed with that little 318.

The manual trans was a factor here. You didn’t say what you had for a carb or exhaust, camshaft change from 318-2bbl? I doubt is was a stock 2bbl carb doing that. Plus just because he had a 340 doesn’t mean it was in good shape or tuned properly. And did one have 410’s and the other 2.76? Too many unknowns to make any conclusions other than it happened, but why?

There is a reason Chrysler sold thousands of 340 cars and the slogan was 6000 RPM for under $3000

we’re all these buyers silly because the 318 was just as fast?