I'll quote myself just to launch into a memory from when I was fifteen years old. I had just moved to eastern Ontario and made friends with an older kid that had a Olds Cutlass with a 265. Yep an actual 265 V8. Sounded great but wouldn't spin the tires on wet grass. His father was a talented mechanic that helped out some local roundy racers and had a 305 SBC laying in his shop. We swapped it in one weekend and wow I though the 40 cubes plus the same stroke as the vaunted 350 would surely be an amazing power bump. Nope thing was pretty much the exact same--and we wanted what all kids want--to burn rubber. No rubber burning here. It sucked just as bad as that little 265. Actually I think the 265 sounded better at high rpm. About a year after that my buddy is offered a GM target master 350 out of his bosses Caprice because the car was going to scrap--the engine had maybe a year or two of small town running around. He decides to swap it at his fathers urging. Now I'm reading all the car mags/rags and I'm thinking OK the last time 40 cubes did absolutely nothing so this time with the same stroke as a 305--is a 45 cube jump on bore size alone going to amount to much? I figured this would be a repeat. Well after the swap we couldn't believe it. The Cutlass could burn the tires at will, get sideways, and the passing gear would burn the tires from a roll. The car was actually decently fast. I couldn't believe it. Now I've been a Mopar guy since I was born I guess so did I jump right to a 360 after the above experience? Nope, my first V8 car had a 318 and I dumped a 4bl intake/carb, electronic distr, screened gaskets (remember those) electronic dist, headers etc........ Did it wake it up? Barely. It sounded fierce but I dreaded meeting a 5.0L Mustang which there were seemingly dozens of them around. After farting around with that 318 'till it had a rod knock from revving the **** out of it everytime I drove it...Did I learn? Nope. Remember I'm 17 at the time and ZERO $$$ at the time the wreckers did not have any 360's and they charged 1$/cube so I scraped together $318.00 and went and comp checked a 318 in a Mirada (pumped 120psi) and off I went. Surely I thought the healthy 318 would be an improvement. Nope it was exactly the same as the first hunk of junk. After many a stoplight embarassment I realized I was going to need some machine shop intervention. Only problem was the 2 race shops in the area were mega $$$$ from where I was sitting. So I bought all the Mopar engine books I could and then entered an apprentice ship program and got my foot in the door of a machine shop. The rest is history but my first 360 build was an amazing performer for an investment of $749 for cam/lifters, t-chain, rings, bearings, gaskets, ARP rod bolts. Burned the tires at will and I turned it 6500-6700rpm many many times. I figure it made around 320hp/375tq. The rest as they say is history or His-Story. J.Rob
