Best Years for the 318 LA?

Garrett Ellison said
As far as a premium 318 that’s supposed to be a step above the others is the early 70s -3 318. Heavy duty truck, industrial, marine application. It’s supposed to be marked with a -3 on one of the VIN pads and has a premium forged steel shotpeened & flame hardened (maybe TuffRided, too?) crankshaft. I’m a little fuzzy on this next detail at the moment so hopefully someone will chime in if I’m wrong. It’s my understanding that you would need to check if it were a reverse rotation (counterclockwise) engine such as marine applications because the oil seal surface grooves on the #5 crank crank journal have to be recut in the opposite direction for it not to leak if converted to clockwise (viewed from the front) rotation.

"forged crank" sounds nice if you are going to run boost or NOS. But I've known racers to turn the cast cranks 7200 rpms again and again. Most common "street hopped up 318's" will never outgrow the cast crank. Actually, most bracket racing 318's won't either. In fact, I know stock eliminator racers that used cast cranks.