building a mild Daily driver 318

AJ/FormS said
Totally agree on this.
Guys with teeners and lwb cars should concentrate on making torque, and forget about the hp number. Sure you can make 340 power, but you will give away low speed performance every time, unless you throw gears and converter at it and then it has moved from the realm of DD to weekend warrior, or beyond. And what good is the car if you can't drive it, when-ever/where-ever?

No I don't think so. If you're concerned about torque, rebuild the motor to stock specs. Torque could be a strong consideration but torque and compression being the first things you consider for a motor is a setup for disappointment. A 340 cam wouldn't require much converter and wouldn't require more gear than most people advocate as almost requirement. Many people would say the gears are more of an upgrade than the cam or intake/carb and recommend gears first.

AJ/FormS said
My 70 Swinger340-4spd-3.55s pure stock on the E-70s it was born with,ran [email protected] with mega tirespin;(Those belted Goodyears were good for nothing, except laying 3gear blackies) so I get that. And I'm aware of the under-rated 340.
But there was a guy in hi-school with a 71 Demon340A/T, totally stock,who ran 115.

'71s had heads that flowed almost as good as '70s, 10:1 still, and a bigger carb than '70s. Even if '71s were the most power, that sounds like an extreme gain over the X head cars- like not so stock.

AJ/FormS said
And my 73 LC Swinger teener, with all the 340 stuff bolted on, and no headers, was a total turd, as was my 74 Duster teener.
I did have one peppy teener, in a 71 Demon318-2bbl/904/unknown rear, that went 79@ high 15s. Ima thinkin it was 15.79.

Now the 70 weighed in at 3330/me in it, while the 73 was a topline model-no A/C,so a couple of hundred pounds heavier. It was a 904/2400stall&3.23s. And the 74 was a stripper model; 904-2.76s
My 70 was on it's second motor, which was not nearly as powerful as the first one. The guys I had been stomping all over, I was now barely able to keep up with. I had been the guy to beat, with the first engine. I sold that slowmobile.

I find it hard to believe the '73 with everything from a 340 would be exceptional disappointing unless it didn't have the 340 cam. 904/3.23s, even if it was 3600 it should've been a stronger car than a 2bbl Demon, even if the Demon had 3.91s.

AJ/FormS said
The point is; performance on just these few combos is all over the map.
I may be off base here, but I think it would be misleading to think every LC teener out there can be made to perform like yours did/does.

Very subtle differences can make a tremendous change, that's part of why the whole combination is important. Put the wrong cam in a high compression motor with low flow and it'll be an unpleasant dog. Low compression with a good cam can make for a healthy runner that's soft on the bottom. Obviously there's a middle ground there that's ideal.

Sure seems like the biggest difference between the E58s and the dogs that were the truck LD engines is the cam. Sure- the heads are different and the dogs sometimes have more compression but they don't run much hotter than a well-tuned 4bbl 318 with a small cam. I think that really carries over with most of the rest of this too. Unless you gain the flow and reasonable compression at the same time it's unlikely you're going to do any significant waking it up from that alone. The 4bbl thing I'm not sure on- on one hand, even if there's not a large power difference the drivability alone is worth it however it does seem like a healthy change in the engine.