Dartswinger70
Well-Known Member
there was on ewhere Ashton Kutcher rammed a Challenger through a barricade or sumtin...i think t was called "just married..." 
Poly Engine what was good/bad about it and why is the LA better?
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Professor Fate
Push the button, Max...
Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry; The Wraith, Duel, Blues Brothers, Phantasm, Joe Dirt, the F&F series, the horrible Dukes of Hazzard movies, Bullitt, Highwaymen, Tommy Boy, The Christmas Chronicles, ...
By the way, it's not a Mopar movie, but one of my favorite car movies is a documentary about Eric Bana and his Falcon XB called "Love the Beast"-HIGHLY recommended.
Touche, although arguably the star of Bullitt was the Mustang, not the Charger. Great, realistic appearing chase scene, except it's convinced a lot of people that a 390 Mustang was faster than a Charger R/T, when in reality even though the Bullitt Mustang's 390 was modified, it still couldn't hang with the Charger's stock 440.
Professor Fate
Push the button, Max...
But it could be argued that the Charger stole the show!
MopaR&D
Nerd Member
I like Christine because it's one of the few car-centric films that actually has decent acting, plot, character development etc. I like Bullitt for the same reasons. Movies like Vanishing Point are pretty pointless, there's no reason to watch it aside from the car action. I do love Two Lane Blacktop just for its sheer grittiness and extreme realism but again, zero plot, characters are "meh" along with the acting.
I've started appreciating car-oriented movies that aren't necessarily about Mopars, I was blown away when I watched the original Gone in 60 Seconds that movie is NUTS. Admittedly the plot and acting aren't great but what they did for the chase scenes... holy cow!
Post #28.
I bet that was fun for your friend. May he RIP.
Yes it was.
In the rock & roll era of the late 50s, early 60s we had an Aussie rock legend, Johnny O'Keefe. He had a 59 Belvedere & had a high speed head on crash with a truck. Everybody in the Bel survived, but O'Keefe had facial scars for life from the accident. They made a TV series of his life, & used Colin's 59 Bel for the filming.
In the rock & roll era of the late 50s, early 60s we had an Aussie rock legend, Johnny O'Keefe. He had a 59 Belvedere & had a high speed head on crash with a truck. Everybody in the Bel survived, but O'Keefe had facial scars for life from the accident. They made a TV series of his life, & used Colin's 59 Bel for the filming.
All of you saying the heads cannot flow seem to discount all of Gary Pavlovich's work. He's built some 4" stroke Poly beasts.
Building a Polyspherical (Poly or Polyhead) 318 Mopar Race Motor
Building a Polyspherical (Poly or Polyhead) 318 Mopar Race Motor
I'm a really big Dave Hole fan.
True. he heads are good design and can flow well. Gary and several others are great poly engine gurus.
The poly is for the guy that wants originality or be a little different.
Kinda like the guy that pays for a hemi over a 440.
dartfever
Well-Known Member
@RustyRatRod Oh I'm not discounting his work at all. Had a good chat with him on mine. He was baffled with my low exhaust port flow numbers. I have another set I might get tested, just to see if mine were a one off or not. My intake ports averaged 220 cfm with very little work done to them and stock valves. Did have a 3 angle valve job. My exhaust ports were bought up to 130 cfm. Gary regularly gets 160-180 cfm out of them. I think these heads would be amazing on a 360 size build. You would definitely get a serious TQ monster with the 4" stroke builds though.
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Little Richard came close, but The Killer is tough to beat.
Nice headers DART-FEVER!
Are they 'over the counter'?
Looking for some decent Poly headers if anyone has a set for a 64 truck.
(no its not a stocker lol, its a 360 Poly stroker with trick stuff)
Gary P. is the master of al things POLY!
He supplied all the parts for my mates 402ci Poly and it MENTAL.
Gary also got his friend at Schneider cams grind a special 0.525 for him too.
My mate was so happy, he flew over in person to pick it up!
TOO valuable for pigeon post lol...
EIGHT barrel Pollies, wow...
Are they 'over the counter'?
Looking for some decent Poly headers if anyone has a set for a 64 truck.
(no its not a stocker lol, its a 360 Poly stroker with trick stuff)
Gary P. is the master of al things POLY!
He supplied all the parts for my mates 402ci Poly and it MENTAL.
Gary also got his friend at Schneider cams grind a special 0.525 for him too.
My mate was so happy, he flew over in person to pick it up!
TOO valuable for pigeon post lol...
EIGHT barrel Pollies, wow...
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Must have pressed the wrong button DOH!
Just doing the head MODS now for the Schnieder 0.525 camshaft.
Gonna go with the Crane dual springs.
Valves are 2.02 and 1.60 (Gary P's own design).
They are custom made with 11/32 stems, nice stuff indeed...
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James Clews
Well-Known Member
Bewdy I remember that and colin said he gave them a basket case plymouth that they ran a bulldozer into to simulate the crashed car. While the film crew had his car one lunch time they sent a young guy down to the shops in it to get lunch and he ran off the road and damaged it. The repiared it before he got it back but it was a sub standard repair and the chassis was still bent. He asked me could I straighten out the chassis but I said I did not have access to the correct pulling gear so I don't know what he did at the time. I talk to his son Colin jnr from time to time and he has a convertibale plymouth he is saving up to do the body work on.
dartfever
Well-Known Member
I had these custom made. I wanted them made to exit at the same point as the stock manifolds. In hindsight, I should have had the passenger side designed the same way as the drivers side is. Oh well still works!
I will stand by my "seat of the pants" experience that in stock form, a poly is torque-ier and possibly revs faster.
My stock 80,000 mile 66 poly 2 barrel never lost a street race to a car with a gm 350, including some fresh builds.
My stock 80,000 mile 66 poly 2 barrel never lost a street race to a car with a gm 350, including some fresh builds.
Torqueflite
Well-Known Member
Some good discussion about the A318 here. There's a lot of confusion and misinformation about them online and by word of mouth.
One fallacy is that they are drastically heavier than the LA. They really aren't. Someone on here a while ago actually weighed an LA318 block and heads and an A318 block and heads and determined the A318 is only 30 lbs heavier. The earlier 1957 - 1961 A318 would be a little heavier since they used iron timing covers, so maybe 15 lbs more? Weiand made aluminum 1x4 and 2x4 intakes for the A318, so the cast iron and aluminum intakes are comparable in weight to the LA options.
Another misconception and nickname the A318 got was the "wide-block," and some people even call them "big block 318s," which makes no sense to me since the blocks are nearly the same dimensions as an LA318. It's the A318 heads that add about 1" to the width. 30 lbs has branded them "heavy" and 1" has branded them "wide." If weight savings was the excuse to run an LA318 versus an A318, it would have been easier for the driver to go on a diet If 1" width made the difference, I'm not sure how the factory fit B-blocks in A-bodies.
There are two types of A318. Plymouth came out with the A318 in 1957 through 1958. As someone already pointed out, they offered a high-performance A318 called the V800 that had dual quads, hotter cam, and a rather accurate 290 HP. In 1959, Mopar offered the A318 in all divisions. In 1962, Mopar redesigned the A318, which stayed the same until they stopped production. The 1957 - 1961 A318 shares the same bellhousing pattern as the early hemis and don't have a lot of parts that interchange with LAs. 1962 - 1966 A318s share many parts with LAs including bellhousing bolt pattern, crank (except 360), balancer, rods, bearings, oil/fuel pump, oil pan (except 360), distributor, valve springs and hardware, timing set, rings. The timing covers can be made to interchange, although the timing marks are on opposite sides. Heads, intake, exhaust manifolds, and pistons won't interchange. There are tall tales of people supposedly retrofitting A318 heads onto LA360s back before 4" stroke cranks were economically available for the LA273/318/340, but I've never actually seen evidence and think it's likely hogwash. There are both oiling and cooling issues that would need addressing. Now it's far easier to simply stroke to 390.
As some have already mentioned, Gary Pavlovich is one of the prominent A-block builders and enthusiasts still around. He wrote some informative articles back in around 2000 or so that got me to reach out to him; he's been one of the most honest, genuinely helpful hot rodders I've ever met. I spoke with him a few months ago, and he finished his own 390 stroker making 600 HP twisting 7,000 rpm. Obviously quite the build, but it's pretty normal now in the right circles to see people build 450 HP A-block 390s. With those valve covers, I'd take that engine any day over a 450 HP LA.
One fallacy is that they are drastically heavier than the LA. They really aren't. Someone on here a while ago actually weighed an LA318 block and heads and an A318 block and heads and determined the A318 is only 30 lbs heavier. The earlier 1957 - 1961 A318 would be a little heavier since they used iron timing covers, so maybe 15 lbs more? Weiand made aluminum 1x4 and 2x4 intakes for the A318, so the cast iron and aluminum intakes are comparable in weight to the LA options.
Another misconception and nickname the A318 got was the "wide-block," and some people even call them "big block 318s," which makes no sense to me since the blocks are nearly the same dimensions as an LA318. It's the A318 heads that add about 1" to the width. 30 lbs has branded them "heavy" and 1" has branded them "wide." If weight savings was the excuse to run an LA318 versus an A318, it would have been easier for the driver to go on a diet
If 1" width made the difference, I'm not sure how the factory fit B-blocks in A-bodies.There are two types of A318. Plymouth came out with the A318 in 1957 through 1958. As someone already pointed out, they offered a high-performance A318 called the V800 that had dual quads, hotter cam, and a rather accurate 290 HP. In 1959, Mopar offered the A318 in all divisions. In 1962, Mopar redesigned the A318, which stayed the same until they stopped production. The 1957 - 1961 A318 shares the same bellhousing pattern as the early hemis and don't have a lot of parts that interchange with LAs. 1962 - 1966 A318s share many parts with LAs including bellhousing bolt pattern, crank (except 360), balancer, rods, bearings, oil/fuel pump, oil pan (except 360), distributor, valve springs and hardware, timing set, rings. The timing covers can be made to interchange, although the timing marks are on opposite sides. Heads, intake, exhaust manifolds, and pistons won't interchange. There are tall tales of people supposedly retrofitting A318 heads onto LA360s back before 4" stroke cranks were economically available for the LA273/318/340, but I've never actually seen evidence and think it's likely hogwash. There are both oiling and cooling issues that would need addressing. Now it's far easier to simply stroke to 390.
As some have already mentioned, Gary Pavlovich is one of the prominent A-block builders and enthusiasts still around. He wrote some informative articles back in around 2000 or so that got me to reach out to him; he's been one of the most honest, genuinely helpful hot rodders I've ever met. I spoke with him a few months ago, and he finished his own 390 stroker making 600 HP twisting 7,000 rpm. Obviously quite the build, but it's pretty normal now in the right circles to see people build 450 HP A-block 390s. With those valve covers, I'd take that engine any day over a 450 HP LA.
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An LA block with poly heads was built for the AMSOIL 2016 engine challenge by Buck and Clark Hinkle. From an online article:
Torqueflite
Well-Known Member
Before a bunch of people jump on the poly-headed LA train like running LA heads on a magnum (without the head oil galleries), the Hinkle engine really isn't a good example, and the descriptions online and in magazines about this engine are b.s. That engine had to only survive a few pulls up to 6,500 rpm on a dyno, and the builders had plenty of money and equipment necessary to compete in an AMSOIL challenge regardless of if the engine survived or not. Here's a photo of this engine bursting into flames during that test (supposedly an oil gasket leak, but the engine's condition afterwards isn't verified):
The description you quoted and that are in the competition results says installing oil drain-backs and pushrod clearancing is all that's needed to fit A318 heads on an LA. B.s. How about the four large cooling ports in the A318 heads that dump into the LA valley? The LA head gasket sticks up past the deck and covers these, and rumor has it the gasket will allow the engine to run for a very short time before the gasket bulges and coolant dumps into the valley. If all the Hinkles did were oil drain-backs and pushrod clearancing, they built a milkshake oil machine that lasted long enough for a few dyno pulls before the thing caught fire. Run that engine for more than 30 minutes and the crankcase would have filled with coolant.
The proof is in the pudding: if all it takes is oil drain-backs and pushrod clearancing, we'd have poly-headed LAs all over the place just like we have LA-headed magnums (without the head oil galleries). This was the Hinkle's first build of an A318. There's a reason why even Gary Pavlovich hasn't retrofitted A318 heads on an LA block, and he's been building A318s since the 60's.
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