The "Throw Away 318"

I want your little virgin ! So here's the deal with old verses newer. I left the world of SB's in the mid 80's and grew my inches to 440. The 68 engines used the same rods they put in the 273's which are good, nothing wrong here. Sometime around late 71 or early 72 the rods in the 18ers grew some muscle so for those of you that are familiar with LY rods in 440s and 6 pack rods, it's about the same thing comparing the 2 SB rods. I had the big boy SB's and I've had LY's, 6 packs and hemi rods. My last build of a 440 I was working a set of hemi rods over to fit in the W. The early 18ers had higher compression then the late 71 up builds. I eventually wound up with an older 18er after I had already assembled my later 18er. If I had been more am motivated, I would have taken the build back down and started over to use the higher CR pistons from the older block with the later rods. This would have entailed a lot more work rebalancing everything which would not have settled with Grandpa since he was helping with most of the machine work at that time. I could've managed on my own, but it was his tooling and his shop. Anyway, early 18ers were around 230 HP with a 2 bbl. and later they were de rated to less then 200 with reduced compression. The earlier engines would have been ok with low octane but barely. Timing and fuel control at that time were simply not up to the task as they are now with electronic systems. I've learned that bigger rods can be a hinderance with RPM's just take SBC as and example. Obviously they aren't going to live for ever but big rods slow things down and can abuse cranks. Big rods need bigger bolts! That why 6packs blew up, the bolts just weren't up to the task like the hemi bolts were. Everyone knows 7/16 bolts are better then 3/8's. Chevy and ford all learned eventually by going from 11/32 to 3/8. There were 3 crank options offered over the life of the 318 from the beginning to the end from memory. And as far as I can remember they would all interchange with proper balancing, might need some working on the clutch pilot part. 273 and 318 both have the same stroke, 340 was so slightly different, barely worth considering. Old racers used de stroked cranks in 340's to build the TA's at 305 C.I.D.. Those engines were totally good to 10k RPM. They used longer rods to get the piston up where it belonged I think, it's been too long since I was there. The 18er did well enough in trucks all the way up in the 1 ton and over and in small motorhomes but the 60 did better for sure. As far as guzzlers. don't say 60's were guzzlers any more than any other, it all depended on how heavily loaded they were. Emissions hurt mileage for sure until Detroit learned how to do it right. Transmissions needed lots of help with more gears and better axle ratios to go with the better gears. One thing never changes, it take a specific A/R and displacement is what it is, bigger will take more, no way around that. Even a little 2.3L turbo will make as much power as a 5.8 or even bigger but to do it you MUST put more A/F in there which means it will guzzle under high boost. It also won't last as long as a bigger plant if you demand power all the time. Aircraft engines are a perfect example as are boat motors. 360's are meant for higher torque and lower RPM. I have known a few guys pushing 360's to 8k+ but they don't last long even with forged cranks and aluminum rods, of course alloy rods are limited to begin with. That rule is never going to change, there's no replacement for displacement but don't confuse engine displacement for air displacement. We all should know how it works by now. OEM's have know for a long time now, which is why they did modular displacement back then and are doing it now.