Best year to pull 360 from?

[NMmoparfan]

I'm new to this and was hoping someone could help me out. I might be picking up a 71 Duster this weekend to start my project. It has no motor or trans so I will need to locate one.

I was wondering if there is a better generation to pull a 360 from? There are a couple 360's from early 90 Dodge vans on craigslist and also a AMC 360 that was in a 83 Jeep. Is it best to try and get a motor from a car as close to a 71 as possible?

 

[Prine]

IMO, the debate is really....do you want a LA 360, or a Magnum 360.

If you take my advice, you'll find a 89-91 LA Roller Cam 360.....for the benefits of the Roller Cam, 308 swirl port heads and simple parts interchangeability.

From the factory, the 89-91 360's have 8.5:1 Compression, and good flowing cylinder heads....untouched internals and the addition of a Edelbrock Air Gap 340-360, Holley 750 Double Pumper, Headers, and you'll be looking at about 280 horsepower to the ground.....add in there a custom grind Roller Cam (in the neighborhood of 264*-280* duration and less and .500 lift), some port work, and tuning and you could get over 350 to the ground pretty easily and run on pump gas.

The Magnum followers will be in here shortly to tell you the advantages of Magnum 360's.....I just dislike the special intake manifolds, and the special head hardware...otherwise they are very similar engines.

Good Luck!

 

[needsaresto]

The 360 dodge engine came in several different transformations.

Heres a good read about the la series. Late 80 early 90's 360's may have the 308 casting la head,which is the predecessor to the magnum and really the best breathing lla head.

http://www.allpar.com/mopar/318.html

92 and later is likely a magnum series engine. Will be a roller cam block with closed chamber swirl port heads. It will be fuel injected and have 10 bolt valve covers.

The Jeep engine might be an AMC 360,which has the distributor up front on the left side of the block. I wouldn't bother with it.

Im not sure at what point the Jeep line started using Dodge motors.

Early 360's from the late 60's to mid 80's will really be much the same. There was a 4 bbl 360 option, as well as an E-58 code police engine.Smog era engines will have air injections ports in the heads which need plugging for headers.

4bbl 360's will have a 1.88 intake valve,just like the 2 bbl 360.

Compression ration is somewhere in the low 8:1 range. The magnums have a 9:1 range due to the smaller combustion chamber.

 

[Prine]

Just to clarify...360's came out in 71-72'...as truck/van torquey small v-eights...not a single 360 existed in the 60's...thats all 273-340 territory.

Thanks for posting the link to allpar...thats a good read for someone trying to decide this debacle.

 

[dingo77]

i opted with a 93 magnum 360 wich was based off of the build and and aftermarket heads i wanted to use.