Making Power 318

dylantman8 said
Hello, I recently just purchased a 1973 Plymouth Duster and it has a 318/727 combo. From what i could tell it's an 87 motor. At the moment it's unbearably slow and I'm looking into modifications to make it faster. I've read about aluminum heads and a cam. The motor already has an Edelbrock performer intake with a 600 cfm carb and from what I can tell just by the sound of the car is a mild cam. I want a way to make more power out of the motor in a cheap way without tearing into rotating assembly. Furthermore, what power could I make simply with heads and no cam? Any help is appreciated, I just want to make the car faster for relatively cheap. Also another random thing about the car is it has a Ford 9" rear end.

If you don't want to tear into the short block, I'd call Hughes Engines and ask about their Whiplash cam. I don't have any experience with it, but supposedly it's designed to build cylinder pressure in a stock, low compression 318 which should help your performance. Also, what gears are you running? There's a channel on YouTube called 318WillRun that has lots of good info on getting mostly stock 318's to run good, he's also a fairly regular contributor on this forum.
With the rest of your combo, I'm not sure just throwing a set of heads on will help much. First thing before buying any parts would be to do compression and leak down tests to make sure there's nothing going on with the rings or valve job, then check timing.