Breathing new life into the 318 in the Scamp!

Super clean!

Yeah, I'm at a point with this car, where I really don't care too much about how blindingly fast it is. I just want something that runs nicer than the POS BBD on top of it now that will not meter fuel correctly, no matter what I do and carbon up everything. I'm cleaning the plugs every 500 miles in the car now and I'm sick of it.

I figure for the length of performance that I'm going with in this car, a 318 is plenty. I have 3 360 engines, one has a .040 over with new pistons that is ready to assemble whenever. I have a set of 318 open chambers with 360 valves for a boost setup that are new if I want to go that route, but I decided to just leave it be for now and go NA.

If I ever decide to do anything else to this car, I may supercharge it and go to the open chamber 360 valve 318 heads later on if I want to squeeze it more, but I may leave that setup for another car.

I'm sort of getting old, in a sense that I want to use the minimal C.I.D. that I can for what I use my cars for. I'm not terribly concerned with fuel economy, so much as just overall drivability these days. I enjoy driving my cars, so I've made it my goal to make them as reliable and practical as I can.

The next modification the car is going to undergo is a 5 speed stick, 8 3/4 and a fresh suspension rebuild. I put a shifter hump in when I did the interior and paint, with 4 speed carpetting and capped the hole with a piece of metal that was seam sealed to it. I have the pedal set and most of the other parts, but I'm debating on which trans.

It's on a 6 year old suspension rebuild with stock spec parts now and I have a second K member and disc brake stuff that I'm going to prep, to do the swap. The disc brakes and drums are a year old on the car now, it had big bolt and discs from the factory. I just want urethane up there and a sway bar, so I'm going to assemble another K member and do it the easy way.

The rear axle is a frankenstein. I'll be using the current brakes, a 59 Dodge housing with new mounts, cut housing, new flanges, cut and splined truck axles and I'm not sure what gears I want yet. It depends on the O.D. I end up with, but I'll likely go 3.73 or 3.91 open. I don't want a sure grip.

I don't think I'll have time to put the clutch fan in yet, but I'm going to swap it out when I put the homemade heat stove on, maybe next weekend after I finish it. I have the parts, but I ran out of time this week to blast the fan and clean stuff up, so I need to focus on getting the heads assembled.

The castings are cleaned and painted now. I'll post pics tomorrow.

All that is left is lapping and installing the springs. I'm also prepping another timing cover for a double roller timing chain, which I feel is cheap insurance on those stainless valves. Alegedly, this car has had a timing chain replaced in it. The timing doesn't jump around on a light, but I haven't seen what's inside it yet, so I'm not going to put blind faith on new valves, after tearing the engine down this far, on a used chain.

I'll be sure to take lots of pics.