Goals and advice needed
If your flexable about the performance and the 318 is in the car running, do a basic 4bbl cam and headers, maybe even a head swap down the road, after a while pick up one of those 408's swap the top end over, everything doesn't need to be done at once.
I am.. on the street, if you’re in the ball park of high 12s - low 13s…it won’t be a huge difference in feel since it’ll be a ball of tire smoke with our crappy roads. Since we live in a world now that flat tappet cam failures are more and more common.. while expensive, converting to a roller cam has its appeal. With its not so great compression in stock form.. I dunno if I wanna spend an easy 1000-1200 for minimal improvement.
I have to keep tellin myself it doesn’t all need to be done at once.. just tough to overlook doing things twice. I have a edelbrock performer 318/360 low rise intake for it.. also picked up a Holley 670 from a close friend for cheap that’s barely been used. I think that with some Doug’s or TTI headers will give some decent “seat of the pants” gains. May just do those things and reevaluate.
I might just pick up that mag 5.9 for $350 and store in reserve.. that way I’ll have something I can work on slowly for the future. Rings, bearings, and pistons.. we’ll see.
I tell ya, as a kid, my circle of friends and I used to think mid 13s was fast lol… I still think it’s pretty quick.. if ya read old car magazine tests of the hay day of muscle cars.. all of the big guns we’re 13s-14s. Of course that was old tire technology and they didn’t typically use professional drivers.
Anyhow, appreciate all the advice.. progress on the car has been pretty good.. swapped to a 4spd last year. Most recent project was swapping to a 8 3/4 axle with SS leafs and new shocks. Next project is to put new front shoes, cylinders, hoses, and bearings. My plan was to have a good base to start on before diving into the engine. Still needs front bushings, tie rods, and all that jazz.
This 318 does rattle for a couple of seconds upon start up.. it’s a concern but, if it sits long enough, it’ll turn over enough before actually starting that the oil pressure is up and it doesn’t rattle. It’s valve train rattle.