Best Top 10 Bolt Ons For a 318

volaredon said

not the ones I have had
the worst thing Mopar did for the 360 was the dished pistons on every damn one of them.... why did they have to castrate them like that?

Ive had a handful of gutless gas sucking pigs of 360s over the years. sometimes in same vehicles that later got 318s...

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Dished pistons in a WORK HORSE engine are great if the Compression Height is set correctly for quench. Over 90% of all 360's were made as work horse vehicles. But they also were made to meet EPA requirements so no 10.5:1 compression ratios.

My cousin was a sheetrock installer. He had a 1973 W200 4X4 as his work truck. It was a 318 2bbl and had the truck 4 speed and 4.10:1 gears. Got 5-6 MPG loaded with 40+ sheets of rock. He tried headers, a 260 RV cam, 4bbl carb and a MSD ignition but still got 5-6 MPG.
I had a 78 360 laying in the garage. We took 0.040" off the decks to square them up. Put a 340 'Resto' cam in and a set of ported 273 closed chamber heads and all of the above bolt ons. This made his take off torque so much more and his gas mileage went up to 9-10 MPG loaded. The biggest bang for the bucks was the POWER added at take off and cruise. +3 MPG was not a big change but it was not a -3. Unloaded he gained from 14 MPG to 18 MPG.