318 performance

Congrats on your purchase and welcome aboard!

Since you seem willing to "tear into it" yourself, you should, but before you do I would suggest you document some basics and take pics - always good to do and WE WANT TO SEE PICS!

Then start getting dirty, first go through the suspension, drivetrain and brakes and make sure the car is safe. Check/change oil and filter, noting condition. Check your trans fluid level and condition. Check your coolant level and condition. Get a compression gauge and do a cranking compression test on all cylinders, note values. Check spark plug gaps and note what plugs are installed. Inspect spark plug wires, dist cap and rotor condition; note warn parts to replace.

Do a few runs and document your times. These will be your baseline measurements of the car's performance. Note any instances of pinging or detonation and at what RPM/conditions they occur. You may want to drive a range of terrain like hills and flats at both high and low speeds, power and cruise modes looking for pinging. I would also consider recording gas mileage from a full tank, but this is usually more subjective based on your driving style than just tuning or setup but good to know how far a tank will take you and what your MPG is.

Take a tach and timing light and vacuum gauge and plot your advance curve through the RPM range; document the initial, mechanical, vac and total timing. If it is and Eddy/Carter carb, get the model number, and check what needles, jets and springs are installed - fairly easy to do. Now you can work your way downwards.

Ultimately you will be pulling the intake and heads, this way you can measure the combustion chamber volume of the heads and measure the deck height of the pistons. These two measurements will answer the question of compression. Note what head gasket is used, or at least try to measure the thickness. If you are not going to change the cam don't touch the lifters, but do check all the pushrods for straightness, fix or replace any bent ones.

Obviously before you reassemble you are at the point of making some decisions. Since you don't know what cam is installed you can either replace it, leave it or tear the front case off and throw a degree wheel on it and plot the cam events with a dial caliper.

There are so many things you can and should do before making any decisions or asking for any advice, IMO, cause you don't know what you have. Plus you will get more qualified advice once you supply more details.

If any of the stuff I mentioned seems out of line, I apologize. If you need direction or further instructions, just ask. In the meantime here is a nice article on 400HP budget 318 build from Hot Rod magazine, you might recognize it.

Again, welcome aboard and good luck!