I Want To Beef Up My 340 Motor (help Please)

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Joe A

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Hi All,
I wanting to pull the engine out of my car this winter and have it rebuilt. The car is a 1969 Dart 340 Swinger. The motor and transmission are numbers matching to the car. The previous owner rebuilt the motor and it was not a professional job. What I am wanting to know is what would be the best street set up for this motor. I had the transmission rebuilt (727) and have a kit put in it. I just got a fresh rebuilt Dana power Lock with 3.23 gears. I just feel that need for more speed and power. Do not get me wrong the car gets up and go’s now, but I feel that the motor has more to give. I would appreciate any suggestions.

Thanks
Joe
 
You need to tell us what you have now. Is is stock looking under the hood (stock intake and exhaust manifolds, Carter carb)? If it is do you want to stay with the stock look but have more power? Or are you open to change.
 
yes, more info..Things like do you drive it often? What kind of driving/trips? ever want to race it? Power brakes? Fuel type? With the new trans, did you get a new convertor, if so, what kind?

Almost forgot..BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF!!
 
yes, and whats the set up now...I had a guy say he had a mostly stock 340.....to me mostly stock means just that...his 340 had the 284/.484 cam, headers, pocket ported heads,holley 750 carb etc...to me thats no where near stock to me near stock is a aluminum intake and headers so I guess what im saying some peoples idea of more power is 50 HP more and some peoples idea of a little extra will put you to close to unstreetable.
 
I will sit down with my brother later, because he knows alot more about engines than i do. I thank everyone so far for the quick replies.

Joe
 
If you want more performance the 4 most important things you need are:

A. More Cam.
B. More (deeper) gear.
C. Freer flowing exhaust.
D. Stall convertor on an automatic.

Exhaust that flows well is as critical as a higher rate cam and gears are the most critical part, choose the wrong ones and performance suffers, likewise with a torque convertor.

I know that 3.23 gears won't work too well with much of a cam, especially with an automatic and a stock stall convertor.

In all honesty, deciding HOW fast you want to go and choosing a balanced package (Cam, convertor, exhaust and gears) for your purpose is always best.
All that being said, don't use too big of a carb, a 700 vacuum secondary carb is as big as a street-run 340 will need.
Avoid Holley Double-Pumpers, as all the tuning in the world, on a small cube engine, will not make them work correctly.

Mark.
 
How old are you Joe? Brothers age? Just curious.
Some of the things you'll need to decided is if you want to install headers, aluminum intake, do a carb change, spend money on porting heads etc...
Also consider how much HP you want or how fast in the 1/4 you want to go or just a simple kick in the pants feel description for a nice power increase.
 
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