Big horsepower 318 builds

PRH said
Some on this thread feel the air flow is the only thing that matters in making power.
If that’s the case, then a 318 should be able to do it with bowl blended J heads.
My 383 made 504hp on the dyno with unported 906’s that flowed 235cfm.

The Wallace calculator seems to agree it was 500hp.

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It's not the only thing but makes it easier, why modern LS, Hemi even Magnum and 340 used way more head flow than needed to make more streetable power than camming up and super high CR to squeeze hp from a lesser head.

PRH said
Air flow is everything....... like the 220cfm heads(and the .420 net lift at the valve cam) on the motor powering this car......

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Oh yeh, stock iron intake and a Q-Jet too.

Yes more than one way to skin a cat, awesome engineering.

PRH said
Nor do I....... it’s just not going to be something you can throw together like you could with a 408 that had several of the components being far from optimized, and still end up making the 500hp.

PRH said
This is a cast crank, flat top piston 416(12:1) with an easy on parts flat tappet cam and bowl ported RPM heads.
Knock the CR down to a pump gas friendly 10.5:1, take some duration out of the cam, but crank up the ramp speed a bit...... still would be very solidly over 500hp.

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The thread is Big power 318's not is 318 the best way to make big power.
I wouldn't do a 500 hp NA 318 or any small block for that matter, Big Block would be the way I'd go, But If someone wants to build a /6 273 318 or whatever and they know the short coming of that decision then I'm all for it and want to help them to reach their goal even if it's not the way I'd go.