moparmat2000
Well-Known Member
I am planning on grabbing another set of #302s at my boneyard next week.
302 heads-Is it worth putting them on a stock 318
- Thread starter lee g
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65TerrorCuda
Well-Known Member
302's slightly modded (bowl smoothing, port match) are a great choice for a stock stall converter and rear gears in the 2.76 or lower range. Excellent off idle torque. Would make for a great tractor motor. Not what I'd call performance unless you're forcing the mixture in.
Or mow a few lawns and sell your Creedence 8 tracks before black friday and call up speedmaster. 302's are kind of overrated unless your name is Dulcich
Or mow a few lawns and sell your Creedence 8 tracks before black friday and call up speedmaster. 302's are kind of overrated unless your name is Dulcich
moparmat2000
Well-Known Member
Either speedmaster or do a hybrid with magnum heads
TTI recommended the X pipe.
H-pipe exhaust is more like factory mopar, but then you need the resonators at the rear bumper for the True Mopar sound.
Duals with H-pipe and the resonators at the rear bumper, just like Ma Mopar likes them.
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Grabbed these earlier this year at the Florida "Super Swap".
Great price, clean ready to assemble, came with roller lifters and lifter keepers, spider, roller pushrods, stock 318 long snout roller camshaft, valves with retainers and keepers and a .010/.010 crankshaft.
Great Deal could not pass it up. And the heads were previously Magnufluxed > checked for any cracks.
All Good
Was kind of slow at the swap as I was chatting with the guy selling.
Oh those are 302 heads...
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A 318 and piston is about 94% of a 340 and it's piston which means it needs a port around 94% of a 340's at similar rpms. Which is around 10cc smaller if trying to keep everything proportional.
MOPAROFFICIAL
If it has tits, it's a liabilititty.
Driving with 2 hands is hard for 302 head guys.. they always have their other hand in their pants thinking about their port holes enlarged.
moparmat2000
Well-Known Member
Hahaha
4eighteener
Well-Known Member
or their hand in their pocket looking for money to replace a cracked head
RAMM
Well-Known Member
The 2 reasons these heads have ANY kind of following are:
1. For decades Mopar employed that huge and ugly open combustion chamber in both SB's & BB's for the vast majority of production years. Mopar guys seeing and hearing the Chevy and Ford camps raving about their closed chamber heads and extolling their virtues lead the Mopar camp to seek out closed chamber offerings made by Mopar. Many of us Mopar guys were now believing that a closed chamber head was superior for (compression or flow or whatever) and sought them out.
2. HotRod published a magazine article written by no other than Steve Dulcich titled " Junkyard Jewel" that featured a bucks down 318 build that even I salivated over at the time 'cuz I had zero dollars and no real skills or experience. The junkyard jewel featured some magnificently ported '302 heads and the engine made I think a hair over 401 HP which at the time was pretty formidable. In one of our face to face meetings I asked him about that build and he smiled and told me that Bryce had ported them and pushed the S.S. so hard to get flow they didn't make it off the dyno. At the time Steve even expressed a little remorse that he had been responsible for the '302 following as they are extremely poor performing and aren't worth the time to get them to perform---unless your time is worth nothing.
Still years later I had the chance to play with a set on a personal project. They flowed an absolutely abysmal 153 cfm @ peak .430" lift AFTER installing a 8mm stem 1.92" Magnum valve. Still I used them on a 347 "stroker" 318/360 crank which I documented here on FABO. I tested it on the dyno and it was probably one of the worst engines I've ever built at least according to the dyno. I think it made about 350hp/350tq. I don't remember exactly but it was lame. In my mind it should have been
+30 at least. Anyways never again...I see a set of 302's and I'm tossing em back in the furnace for remelting into something more useful. J.Rob
HankRearden
Well-Known Member
Finally someone educated confirms my unqualified suspicion.
I played withso many 318's when I couldn't even afford a cheap gasket set that I lost count.
I always thought the 302 heads were too restrictive to be good despite the compression bump,and my amateur porting couldn't compensate.
My personal experience with these was using them on a bone stock late 70's 318 with pistons so far down in the hole I was shocked.
Even with the fresh valve job there was zero noticeable improvement.
Likewise the roller engine I pulled these off of had flat tops as close to the deck as I have ever seen on a 318.
This got a set of small valve j heads and a used racer brown flat tappet cam.
When the throttle stuck and I missed a shift the valves hit the pistons at 7200 rpm.
This was hardly an apples to apples comparison but one engine struggled to breathe by 5000 and I'd the other would have had good valve springs who knows how high it would have turned.
I grew up in an old school shop that was well regarded for Mopar stuff.
Many 318s went out the door with 360 heads milled .030,stock replacement 340 valve springs and a crane fireball cam.
I don't see the hype on these heads for performance.
Maybe fuel mileage.
moparmat2000
Well-Known Member
Measuring our ports like Chevy guys are always counting their bolts
michiganpat
Well-Known Member
yep.....no reason to play with them, go magnum and don't look back if you want a low buck high performing engine using factory heads. did that with an '85 roller cam 318 out of my 5th avenue 20 years ago, ditched the 302 heads, replaced with magnums and thin head gaskets, a reground roller cam, eddie RPM intake, 600 CFM edelbrock and headers, and that thing pushed a 5th avenue around with as much or more authority than the XE262 cammed 360 I had in it before....
PRH
Well-Known Member
Imo, a totally stock 318 is about the only place I’d use 302 heads.
HankRearden
Well-Known Member
Yeah but I wouldn't go looking for any
PRH
Well-Known Member
Agreed.
I’m talking about a basic re-ring type job for an application where “hi performance” isn’t even on the list of priorities.
And you happen to have a set of 302’s that aren’t cracked and need minimal work to make them usable.
Perfect place for them.
HankRearden
Well-Known Member
Yep. I actually had a lean burn roller cam 318 fifth ave that got over 20 mpg on the highway. Perfectly suited for that.
Exactly what they were designed for.
MOPAROFFICIAL
If it has tits, it's a liabilititty.
Probably should have got a little more than that, but it's no surprise if you get a little better mileage with the 302 head because they barely flow any air as cast
HankRearden
Well-Known Member
2.2 I'd I recall.
Gutless wonder but sipped fuel.
michiganpat
Well-Known Member
civilian M bodies for the most part had 2.24 rear gears unless they had some sort of a towing package. IIRC cop cars were 2.45 or so. mine with my warmed up mag headed roller cam 318 (stock bottom end, mild reground cam, headers, RPM air gap and eddie 600 carb) would get 20mpg on the highway with 3.55's and a 42 RH (.69 OD gave the equivalent of 2.45 rear gear with 1:1 transmission output) and move A LOT better than the stock, would keep up with a first gen 300C AWD with a 5.7
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