1970 Dodge Dart 318 upgrades

PikaPhantom said

Well right now the goal is just to make it daily driveable and keep it that way. I guess this is more of an engine refresh than a complete rebuild. I am not wanting to get out of hand with high end performance parts but in my head I figured it would be better to a camshaft replacement now with something that would make the car run better rather than go through the trouble of pulling the engine apart again in the future and replace it if it should come to that.

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OK, understood on the refresh only... and piston change does not make sense for you. If you could afford it, maybe you can consider milling the heads about .030" to bump compression a bit.

Since this seems more like a 'do it now' step but not so much to go all out in performance, I think I would for sure go with one step smaller on the cam for a daily driver. And if you are interested in fuel economy, then I for sure would find a cam with a 112 or 114 LSA number on it. Something like the Lunati 10200260 would be what I'd use; you can find it here: High Efficiency - Hydraulic Flat Tappet - Lunati Power

With the cam you show, new valve springs seem to be a good idea to me, just judging from the 48 degree difference in the advertised versus .050" lift numbers. But that can be done with some low cost, stronger-than-stock ones like the Melling VS-1120.

And the recommendations for the exhaust posted by RF360 are spot on... that is something that will help the car all across the board: fuel economy, low end torque and high RPM HP. It's a very good investment of time and $$.