heads and intake manifold set up for 318. j heads available.

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rabius75

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im almost gauranteed a set of J heads from a 360 in the junkyard. i know i need to have them machined to reduce the combustion chamber size. what kind of intake manifold should i get for it? single plane or dual plane? i know ill probably go with a mild cam, for driveability on the street, since it will be my daily driver. should i replace the valve springs and/or valves since the heads have been in the trunk of an imperial for some time now (still on the motor though).

how should i work this whole situation out? im kind of limited on cash, but, i can save it up for the RIGHT items the first time, not whats cheap now and what replaces broken parts later...
 
Since you're on a serious budget, I think you should pass on the 360 heads. Even if you put a cam in your engine, it would probably run better on the street with the 318 heads. You need to sit down and realistically think about how you'll be using your car and what you can afford. You shouldn't worry about heads until you have a bottom end that can make use of it. Look for an old Edelbrock LD4B manifold. Its basically a LD340 with 318 size ports. Use a 500 cfm Edelbrock carb or a Holley 600 Vacuum secondary and it should wake your engine up a little.
 
I agree with the above. A good 318 intake is the LD4B or a performer.
Thiers nothing wrong with building the 318 id your just looking for a nice driver. Heck ford guys build 302s all the time. The J heads could work but if you plan on sticking with the 318 Id look for some Magnum heads off of a newer truck.
 
Since we are on the subject of 318's and heads I have a question also. I have a 73 318 and 85 318 police heads. Can I put these later model heads on that early of engine? Would there be much of a performance gain? Since the 85 police heads are casted as 360 heads can I run a 360 intake on it?
 
hmm.. so, even though the j heads are available to me, i shouldnt get them? even if i had the compression to match them? i thought the stock 318 heads were restrictive at a certain point..

i guess ill hunt down a trade for an entire 360 (as trade for my buick), and just buy a towing cam, intake manifold and carb for my 318.
i could slowly build the 360 and mate it to my 904 later on..
 
For your budget that would be the best route. Intake, carb, and a good ignition since you already did your exhaust. And don't go crazy on the intake and carb. A good dual plane manifold and a 600 vacuum secondary should be fine.
 
I had a 318 in my Duster for a while, it was running high 13s at almost 100 MPH. That was a tired 318, to boot. There's a lot of power to be had with the small blocks.

For the street - you should probably skip the 360 heads. The bigger valves & port sizes may hurt your low end, which is really what you want for driving on the street. You should look for a set of "swirl-port" 318 heads - 302 castings, I think - a decent dual-plane intake (like the LD48 or Performer - not the Performer RPM, that has 340/360 sized ports), a 600 or 650 cfm vacuum secondary carb and a mid-sized cam.

Check out this page from Edelbrock's web site:

http://www.edelbrock.com/automotive/man_chrysler.html

They have a whole "power package" that includes intake, carb, cam, lifters, springs, retainers and timing chain. Not terribly expensive, and well balanced for a street 318.

Or, you could get yourself a set of Magnum heads & a Magnum intake and go that route. I think they have to be modified to fit the LA block, though, I can't remember. But the Magnum heads signifigantly out-flow the earlier heads, even the 302 heads.
 
fastbackcuda said:
Just differant pushrods to run the magnums.
Click to expand...
Wasn't there something about the bolt holes? Or was that only used Magnum heads with an LA intake?
 
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