318 Head Opinions

Im going with magnums.I'll tell you why.

Drop them on your stock 318 short block and you have roughly 9.1:1 compressionUse an .028 head gasket and you have roughly 9.3:1.

Offset grind the crankshaft(Im doing this) and you could bring the pistons up say another .015 to .020 .Compression is now around 9.7 to 9.9:1.And have a few extra cubes as well.

The 302's need a lot of porting to even come close to a magnum.And then when the mag is ported,they leave the 302 behind.

Have the mags drilled and tapped for an la intake or buy a mag specific intake.Either way,no big deal.

As for cracked heads,well all heads crack.The lean burn year heads were prone to this too.It's not a mag specific thing.Chev heads of that era had cracking problems too.Dont know about the fords.Everyone makes a big deal about this cracking thing.I dont know why.It's very easily repaired to better than new status.Ask your engine guy about a process called pinning.That will fix it.