318 build up

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forklifttechnj

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finally the weather is breaking, bought a buildable 318 w/ 904 mated to it, gonna pull out the #'s matching units out of the car and store.
ive read alot about build ups on the 318, seems decking the block to zero deck height is the most gain to get h.p. i dont want a pure strip engine, although i do want something that holds its own at red lights, im thinking a modest block/ head shave, maybe not quite to zero, i have an edelbrock 4 bbl. intake and headers at the ready, just trying to zero in on the correct piston, camshaft, carb. combo to make a streetable ride that can hold its own, im a ford guy, that finally got my first mopar, amen, any suggestions for a workable combo i would appreciate, thanks in advance
 
I'd look into the KB pistons that deliever a zero deck on the 318. I think the number is KB399. KB.com should help there.

The rest of the build.... what is the intended gear ratio/tire size?
What RPM band do you want to operate in? (2,000 - 6,000 for example)
How much stall do you want to use or is to much.
How fast is it you want to go?
Once I understand this, I can zero in better on a cam and combo to run with.

What intake do you have now?
 
He's a ford guy Rumble, maybe he should start out with a comp 260 and the little 2bbl........

We don't want to scare him too bad with a Mopar, right off of the bat...... LOL.


Yeah, ditto what the man says, that way we can argue, er, help you choose the right parts!
 
He's a ford guy Rumble, maybe he should start out with a comp 260 and the little 2bbl........
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That's OK, I thnk he can handle it. Not to many old school ford guys around here. Wish there were. The few that are here ethier build them very mello or dead out crazy.
 
thanks rumblefish, im looking to build something that could run 12's, maybe.... 11's at the quarter, every blue moon i could get to the track, yet still run on pump gas and be o.k. to take the wife and daughter out tooling around.
from my homework, i have an 8 1/4 rear, not the best from what ive read, looking for an 8 3/4, im not afraid of the 904, read alot of trash talking on it compared to the 727, then found many who use the 904 for race apps.
definately dont want some tuner retard smoking me at a red light too, im not against putting a FORD 9" in it (dodgetkboy78) lol !!!
just looking to build a fun car with a punch, but not in need of race gas, etc...
thanks, always loved mopars, i think they had a handle on the era more than anyone, just fell into fords back in the day, small blocks had the distributor straight and up-front, fender mounted starter soleniod unlike chevy, now w/ age and some more $$$ here and there i can start my mopar era, one day a 67-69 notchback cuda !!!!!!!!
 
Wiseco also makes a zero deck piston package for the 318.
 
I'll be keeping my eye on this thread as I am looking for good ways to pep up the 318 in my dart without going overboard. Really just building a street cruiser. Current plans only include a Performer intake, 650 4bbl, and custom dual exhaust, but may take note of what is being said here for some added zip...
 
You want 14.5 sec, or 12 sec?

make up your mind..........!

Performer, (bleah) 650 Holley, and dual exhaust is mid 14's............
 
12 second 318 huh?

I'd start with a zero deck piston. KB hyperu's or a forged Wesco, etc....
But the piston goal is zero deck.
Stock rods are more likely ebnt, Eagles are cheaper and stronger to use, food for thought only.

bowl ported and gasket matched 360 heads with a well done valve job and stainless steel valve also back cut @ 1.88 - 1.60

M-1 single plane intake or Edel. RPM for more street bound rides, 750 cfm carb, super comp headers or TTI's, windage tray, accleration baffle in oil pan, chrome box or MSD, build up that tranny nicely, stall with held for cam and weight considerations, 4.56 gears and 28 inch tires as fat as you cn gett'em under the car, (Do a thread search on this) Connect the frame, Pinion snubber with S/S springs or Cal-Tracs, 6 cyl. T-bars

Drop the cars weight as much as possible. The 318 lacks torque in a big way and could use a break.

CAM, Oh boy, time for the chime in's, heres my choice........ but first a note.

Mopars 12 sec tip recomends a 276 mechanical cam rated at 234 @ .050 and .490 lift (28/32 lash) Seems smallish to me, but if the weight break is there.....................
I would have said off the cuff MP's 284 mech. cam.

Mopar Muscle did a build up and used a Comp Cams 280 (230@050 ) with the above like build and Magnum heads and dyno'd the engine to 400 HP. That was a bit of dyno time to get it, 380 HP should be do-able.

I'd run a Comp Cams XE274H. This Hyd. cam with it's split duration should help the whole system breath better and perform better as a package.
 
I think if I was building a 318 and going to buy good pistons anyway I would spend the few extra bucks and buy a 4" crank for it.($400) Then its a 388 and no lack of torque. Otherwise I would build it just like rumnlefish360 suggested.
 
I like rumbles train of though. That 400 h.p was with STOCK magnums. 450 is easily doable with porting.

If you use the mags stick with a single pattern cam. Shoot for 10.5:1 comp.

Magnums have a 1.6 rocker ratio. This will increase your cam lift. Retainer to guide interference becomes an issue around .525 lift. Hughes has springs and retainers that will get around this with no machine work.

Just remember that the more radical the engine gets,the less friendly it will be on the street. Issues with overheating,idle quality,plug fouling and little bottom end torque are some of what might happen. You will also need deep gears and a hi stall tc.

I would say keep the lift under .500,the duration under 235 and hit it with a 150 shot.
 
Just remember that the more radical the engine gets,the less friendly it will be on the street. Issues with overheating,idle quality,plug fouling and little bottom end torque are some of what might happen. You will also need deep gears and a hi stall tc.
Click to expand...

Depends on what he wants to do........

And, properly tuned, the plug fouling, is moot.

He said 12, maybe 11's.........
 
I am building a 318 for bracket racing and using the "302" casting 85-92 heads ported and the KB-845 piston which has a .140 dome. Should be good for 11.5 compression. To run 12's with a 318 you need compression and some gears for sure. Bobby at BJR has some excellent 318 ideas which I am putting into practice. I am shooting for 13's at my mile high altitude.
 
looking for a street machine, the 12 or 11 sec. was a notion i got from my mopar buddy , he has like 13 cars, told me to build up the 318 for street, then plumb it for a 50 to 100 n.o.s. shot for the track times, he said the 318's he used to run could handle small n.o.s. shots all day long at the track , and just run pure engine on the street, i want to keep it realistic, as i said, not afraid of testing the 904's capabilities, is there any way of beefing up an 8 1/4 rear, or are they fairly sturdy ? i just want a fun car that does have some bite behind its bark, i already enjoy the heck out of driving it now w/ a tired stock 2bbl. 318, thanks for all the help here , especially for a reformed ford addict !!!
 
The 8-1/4 will hold this power level fine. Theres better pumpkin on the market than a stock Sure Grip, but I wouldn't bother at this level. Better axles and a C-clip eliminator if you can find one would be all that I would do.

Forged slugs for the N02 shots!
The KB HyperU's can take it, but you must be percise or they will shatter/crack. Most likely in the crown area, but not allways.
 
thanks, gonna give it a go w/ the 318, wish i had a 340, why the torque issues w/ 318 ?!? 302 fords are nasty, 318 has more c.i.d. ?!? is it just that 318 was the BASE model v-8 that it gets the connotation of oh, its just a 318 ?!? dont know much about mopar, is the crank stroke too short on 318, or the weight of the flywheels on the crank not heavy enough ? where is the lack of torque from, i want to give this a go, just wondering if 318 bashing is a higher engine option deal, all ive heard otherwise is 318 is a bulletproof engine, capable of some good h.p. i want to keep what came in the car in the car, just nasty, and maybe a shot of laughing gas for the track, never raced, just dreaming, thanks
 
Due to the 5800' altitude of the local strip out here, compression is critical with any longer duration cams. I plan to use the comp XE-274S cam and and a rpm airgap with this 318 build. Probobly won't be a pump gas engine, but the car is street driven.
 
WEll,it does have a Ho-Humm rep mainly due to it was alllmost allways and only a 2bbl. Later years they did have a 4bbl. But it was a cheap easy adjustment from the fctory. LOL
They used what they had on hand to up the performance. They toped the 318 with 360 heads and intake. Not a great way of getting more performance, but a cheap one from the factory with what they had on hand.


For a comparo vs the 302, the 318's bore and stroke are 3.91 bore and 3.31 stroke.

If you bore this out alot, lets say, .060 overbore to 3.97, your only .032 shy of the 4 inch bore of the 302 right? You could somic check the cylinder walls and see if you can go to 4.00 inch. It is possible if the walls check out.

Stroke wise, 3.00 vs 3.31. So, in theroy, it should produce more torque than the Fords stroke.

The biggest trick on a teen vs the bigger MoPar engines is not to over cam it. It's easy to do on a smaller engine. Remember the 340 is 22 cubes larger and will handle large cams and head ports alot better tha a teen.

From the MoPar camp, when 340's were not to hard to get, everyone spent there time and money on a 340 and never looked at a 318.

Heck, 360's were given the bad rap of "Crap smog motor not worth spit."

Bore and stroke

273.....318.....340.....360..................302
3.61*..3.91....4.04....4.00....bore .......4.002
3.31....3.31....3.31....3.58...stroke .....3.00

By way of compare, the 318 lacks in bore size and is it's biggest hurdle.
 
The real hard engines from the MoPar camp to build are the really small ones. 273 S/B and the odd ones like the small big block, 350,361 Low deck engines or the 383 RB engine, not the Low Deck "B" version.

I don't think you'll have an issue with engine performance but I'm not sure how it'll compare to the Ford your used to dealing with.
I'm not trying to be a pentastar flag waver or Ford basher here, but I never really met a nasty 302. Apples to apples.

The late model stangs have everything we wish for. Roller cams, overdrive, for the time, a decent computer controled fuel injection. (OH, and the car itself is something the Mopars just didn't have at the time. A rear wheel drive ony car.)

Older stangs/Fords that have only 3 spd's and carbs are at a serious disadvantage next to an equally built more morden stang. Apples to apples and/or as close as you can get it.
 
I have built some real nasty 302's. It takes high copression, big cams, and tons of RPM's. The 302 SOUND nastier because of the short stroke too.
The 318 will make the same power a few hundred RPM lower. The 318 heads breath better, I think, common to common, mostly, to get apples to apples, you woul dhave to put a 318 in one mustang, and a 302 in the other. Whats a little 5.0 mustang weigh? 200 pounds? LOL When you put a 302 say, in a truck, you see nothing but 318 tailights.

As far as the small bore, one mans hold back, is another mans treasure. I like small bores, they run cleaner, get better MPG's, carbon up less, and are less prone to detonation.
 
The XE275 HI Lift cam is extremely close to the XE274 cam I recomended earlier. The big difference is in lift and the HP difference will be minor.

I remember this article, the build is good, streetable and should be very enjoyable without to much of a radical idle making street driving (Read, slowly through town) a bear but easy enuff for dear ol'ma to drive.

At this cam size, the 318 head would have to be fully ported while a 360 head can machined less. The best 318 hed wold be the last pair of casting available from MoPar.
MoPar did a test with these heads (576 I think were the casting numbers, not the 302's) and found 55 more HP over a360 head on one of there test engines. I don't think you'll find another 55 HP with this combo, but more power should be available.

OH, I read the KB piston number as 167, not the 399 which I think is a domed slug. Not needed in this build. The flat top will do great.
 
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