Today, dollar for dollar, is the 318 faster than the 340 ???

Dave_J said
When you have a crank turned down say 0.010/0.010 and order a set of main bearings then using some 5W30 to oil the bearings and torque the main caps down you should be able to grab the 1 1/4 inch bolt and turn the crank. How easy it spins will tell you if you really need to have the Main web align honed.

When they align hone they can only go so far and if it will not clean up then a align bore will be needed. But an align bore and hone will mess up your timing chain spec as they take some metal off the block and the main caps and then bore them out to standard diameter. This little bit raises the crank up in the block 1/2 the over bore and the timing chain will be loose. NOT my choice of doing an engine and ONLY to be done on a 'Numbers Matching' block that is worth only what the car is worth with it.

My 1978 LRT has a warranty replacement block due to a chronic rear main leak. It has a huge W in the vin number area.
The original 360 was found to have a major defect in #5 main cap. The grove for the rope seal was too deep and the seal did not touch the crank.
To fix the block would have required a new cap and align bore then hone. They could have shimmed the rope seal up and it may have lasted till after the warranty expired.
I did not own the truck back then, I would have bought that block from the dealer then replaced the #5 cap.

I forgot to ask this question of you since you are toting the cheapskate banner as high as anyone. With your above example, was that crank turned to the high side? The low side? Maybe it’s in the middle? What about the main bores? Are they all the same size? On the high side of the tolerance? Low side? All over the place? It matters because if the crank is ground to the low side and the main bores are on the high side you can easily have .004 or so clearance. If the crank is on the high side and the mains are on the low side you can be under .0005 and the crank will still turn by hand easily. Again, like my cam timing example you method tells you nothing.