cam choice

[keithcar72]

last year I ran a 318 in a c body (72 fury) small q-jet and stock 318 exaust. car weighed 3800 min weight is 3400 . automatic thru 2nd with a 3.55 rear. turned 5200 track is 1/2 mile with long straights and tight turns (dirt). elgin 904 cam but dont know the specs. car also has stock bars in front. I could keep up with the cars running 302 fords but not the chevys or 351 c's. this year I have bought a 73 360 to build for next year. the track is going to allow headers next year but 360 is biggest motor allowed. any hyd cam flat tops stock intake stock carb. I have a late 360 4bbl intake and a bigger g-jet and plan to get a set of hedders. I am going to try to get the car down to 3400lbs if possable. I need help chooseing a cam. and i need some way to stiffen front end (bigger bars?). I am the only mopar here and can find no help locally to awnser questions. this class has a $700 claim on motor and trans. and will not ckeck anything other than to look at the carb and intake from the outside and weight.

[DYNO360]

I got a situation similar to yours, and want to move up to a 360 from a stock 318. First as far as the weight goes, you should be able to take off most of the 400 lbs. without too much trouble. As far as building the motor, and with no internal inspection of the engine, the answer is "How badly do you want to win and how deep are your pockets?" Without any inspection, somebody is going to build a killer small block.
A half mile track would normally call for more cam, but you said that the track had tight corners. With a heavy stocker it looks like you need a cam with good torque. Figure the rpm that you are coming off the corners and build power there, the top end of 5200 rpm can be reached with any grind. Although you will probably go faster and turn more rpm.
If you want a starting point, look at Mopar's Purple Shaft, hydralic P4529961. It has 292 duration and .508 lift and is recommended for a 3/8 flat track. Again, the 1/2 mile cam would probably be too much.
As far as stiffening the front end, that is one of my Winter projects too. If you can run a front hoop at your track, I would recommend you put one in and tie it into the front frame with triangles on either side of the upper control arm. If you don't have to run the shock absorber in the stock location, put a heavy duty racing shock up front. I have heard that the bigger diameter torsion bar helps. Does your car have bars that run straight back along side the transmission, like a B body? Those kind of torsion bars you can get in a bigger diameter from Mopar.
Attached find a picture of a good example of a Mopar front hoop. Good Luck.

[Rich33]

Dyno, that picture looks good, but you might want to consider tying your upper shock mounts into the hoop structure. I built a car once and skipped doing that only to bend the upper shock/A arm mount in a light accident on the car's second race. Put a bind in the suspension that forced me to cut out the whole upper A/shock mount and patch in a new one. They bend easy.

Keith, a '72 Fury's a pretty big car. Are you limited in your rules to a certain wheelbase? If it's legal, consider switching to a smaller car like a Duster or a Dart. They're well under that 3400 lb weight limit and you can get up to that minimum weight by putting the ballast where you want it. Plus, MP makes stiffer T-bars for them, which you'll need.

Just some thoughts....

[David D]

That's my work that Dyno is using as an example. Look again at the the shock tower, there's a tube that goes from the tower to point where the upright tubes converge. On KeithCars Fury, his shock mounts are in the front sub frame. C-body cars use a front subframe like a Camaro. Regardless, a front hoop will make the car stiffer and more importantly, safer, so if you are allowed toin the rules, do so. As far as T-bars are concerned, I haven't seen anyone who makes them for C-body cars, so your left with trying to dig up some used ones from a cop car. I looked to see if I could even find some wheel rates for the factory T-bars but all my info doesn't even list C-body bars. BTW: thanks for the compliment on the work though!

[Rich33]

Ah, I missed that. Sorry. If you stick with the big car and cant find torsion bars, you could use a really big sway bar up front. I think it was 340King that suggested that a while back for a similiar application. I'd think about a smaller car, though.

[cageman]

Ahh but if the big car would work think of the intimidation factor with the size of it, and I would put like 4 inch exhaust on it to make it noticabaly loud too. C bodys have really good suspension geometry too. I know of a few guys who have switched there front ends in favor of the c body front clip and had success. I f the car weighs 3400 and a majority of it is to the rear, so what if it is long, long cars are far easier to drive than a short wheelbase car is.

[Rich33]

I dunno...I'm not sold. We had a guy who ran an old Fury in our Bomber class for a year or so. He didn't do bad with it. The car was as solid as a rock and definitely hard to get around. But, that's a lot of mass to push with a small block. And, short wheelbases drive just fine with power steering and plenty of caster.

We had an open street stock show a month or so back. My car didn't make it (it got too beat up this year), but my firend's Duster with my back-up 360 gave 20 Chevies some school'n. And, the engine is nothing special. It's got the KB zero decks, but nothing's milled so it's a 9 to 1 engine with a hydraulic MP 284 cam. Heads are 1970 "O's" with 2.02's and a little bit of a pocket job. Cast intake, cast exhaust. He came in second in the 21 car main on a tight quarter mile track.

I'll bet that engine stuggles to make 320 horsepower. But, he whupped up on some big stuff. My point is that Duster beat them through the corners. And, it's got stock geometry and a 108 wheelbase. Build the car, add the ballast and driver, and you're still just at 3,000 or so lbs. I'd much rather build a car and sneak up to a weight limit than have to trim down to get there.

Oh, and he didn't get beat by a Chevy in that show. It was a damn Mustang owned and raced by a guy who has been doing late models for many, many years.

[David D]

Hey! My first racecar was a C-body barge that had won two track championships by the time I got my hands on it, oh, but wait, that was, uh, oh about, well, let's just say it wasn't last year. One guy around here was running a '70 300 coupe till year before last. I got to go with Rich on this though, go for the smallest car that will be legal for the class.