AJ's Opinion; Just for you 318 streeters

To me there’s two main ways of looking at a combo you want build and reality it’s usually a combo of the two.

1st build to a certain powerband say a streetable 1000-5000 rpm with peak hp at 5000 rpm. Which if done right should be around 1 hp per cid. Obviously if you do a 273/318/340/360/408 the combos are gonna be vastly different from one another mainly head flow since 273 needs less head flow than a 408 to make 1:1 hp:cid. So obviously the bigger the engine the more power, this is how the factory muscle cars did it.
This way the combo and hp very but the powerband is basically the same.

2nd is to build to a certain performance level aka hp #. Say like 400 hp now the combos will be more similar like 200-220 cfm heads around 10:1 cr and 275-285 ish cam etc.. so combo and hp are now similar but powerband is veried same with gearing and stall which to me is the main problem since most only want to run 3.55 ish gears.

So yes a 360 in practically all cases should be the choice to build over 273/318, I could also easily make that argument for a 440 since it’s the largest readily available engine. Most are not looking to get every last hp et/mph out of there combo.

When helping people it’s not necessary what you would do but what you would do if you had their wants and skill money etc...

Most 318 peeps just want 4bbl duals maybe headers and a decent cam and lot on here make it near impossible to do so. Most are not looking to build a 500hp 318 monster. They just want to burn a little rubber and have a little rumble.