Combo critique 2

-
S

stroker mike

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 21, 2007
Messages
336
Reaction score
0
Location
San Jose, CA
So, I have revised my setup, looking for gaps in my plan that I may have missed...If y'all don't mind I'll run it to you from the ground up. It's a saturday night and I have to sit thru a 4pm-2am shift and have nothing but time...
So it's the 68 cuda fastback I have pictures of in the gallery. I got the police 318 ELE bottom end with K-member and disc conversion. Got J heads, solid cam 220/228 on a 112 w/498/488 lift, roller rockers, edelbrock torker 340, holley 600 vacuum secondary, 4 hole spacer, 2000-2200 stall factory torque converter from the police car, wide ratio A999 tranny, 5 disc clutches and steel planetaries, long tube headers 1 5/8 thru duals with turbos and turn downs at the muffler, and I intend to upgrade the rear next to a 3.70-3.91 as soon as I can find the right one for the right price. I have a 75 shot of NO2 that I will apply later but I want to tighten up the basics first. I know I will need a shift kit of some kind as well, but I haven't chosen one yet. Any thing anyone could see in my build that screams error? Thanks, guys.
 
Can you tell me a little more about your police 318?

Thanks
 
It's a 318 ELE model from a mid 80's police car, had the large 75cc heads originally, now has J heads. Original crank, rods and pistons.
 
Your compresion is a bit low for the build.
 
How can I get an idea of what my real compression ratio is without taking down the whole top end of my engine? Is there a range of psi I should/could measure for? I don't really want to have to tear the heads off and cc to get an accurate mechanical, is there a way I can estimate on an installed head if there has been milling done to the heads?
 
Are you anticipating a major traction problem? I'm afraid you will hardly have enough low end torque to spin the original 195/75-14's. Two problems: Compression will be pretty darn low. Intake system is gonna hurt you as well. On a 318, those larger ports don't help you until about 3500 RPM, and will take a lot of the "crisp" out of your throttle response below that. Ditto for a single plane intake with a 4-hole spacer. Now if this was a track only car with a 9" converter and 4.56 gears, you might get away with it (but that little 600 carb and soda-straw headers will hurt you above about 4500 RPM). On the street, a /6 will beat you stoplight to stoplight.

If you already have the heads and intake run them, but do yourself a favor and put at least KB167 pistons in it to boost compression and get some low end back. That 75 shot should be fine with the KB's (you were gonna do it to the worn out cast pistons), but 100-150 is tops.
 
Moparfreak77, nice link and info.
 
So I did some research last night, went to allpar and chrysler files, and looked up the actual engine I have. It was good to learn that the piston pin height was greater in the police engines, with a flattop hyperutecetic piston that had no valve reliefs. Original compression was 8.6:1. Some people said the police engine had larger chambers and improved water passages, but I learned that wasn't until 85. Mine was just before that, and now has J heads which one guy said had come factory on these engines, but I know mine had 596's because it was a california car, i.e. smog! So, I deduced that the ELE package's large chamber heads and subsequent change in pin height are a definite benifit here. Since these J heads of mine are an earlier casting, and were given at least a clean up deck job, even if they only took .020 off with a thin gasket I am at about 9.1:1. That is enough for a 220 cam, I think. So, to make sure I was in the ball park I did a psi reading and it hit 135+ psi!! How about that!! By the way, this engine was a low mile engine, as well, from a dippy that was crashed.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
-

Back
Top