318 advice ???

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SleeperScamp

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I just sold my 84 Dodge truck to my father n law and he was wanting a little more pep... Its a stock 318 2bbl.. He has some cleaned up fresh 302 heads sitting in his shop... The truck needs valve guide seals anyway so I suggested putting the 302's on...My question is will he gain anything from these heads along with a factory 4 bbl. intake , 4bbl. carb, headers, and dual exhaust ???? Rest of the engine is bone stock 94k miles.....
 
Back in the early 90's, when Car Craft was into doing Big 3 shootouts, Dick Landy and Company built a 318 Duster and it wound up beating the 305 and 302 put up against it. They had tested the #302 head as well as the larger port 360 head, and it was determined that the #302 was the best production head for a 318 sized engine. At that time.
It's certainly no slouch for your application. If it's got some mileage on it, consider adding either a steel tooth single or double roller timing chain, the stock ones are usually plastic coated and fail at the worst possible time.
Adding a stock 340 windage tray to keep the oil away from the crank ($30-40) the timing chain tensioner originally found on the 318 derived 3.9 litre V6, now available from Mopar Performance, and a new stock type oil pump would be a good idea for a mid life 318.
If you are going to shop for an aluminum manifold, a standard Edelbrock Performer has the smaller ports for the 272-318 heads. But if you have a stock iron manifold already, you can't go wrong there either.
Use the search function on the forum to look up the 302 head, there is a lot of information posted on FABO about them. Hope this helps.
Here's one post to get you started...
http://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/showpost.php?p=707954&postcount=6

Alan
 
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