Whats your 318 performance recommendations?

[68fury]

Hi chaps, long time no see. My old Fury died and its taken a while to replace her.

Tomorrow I should be sorting that out with a '68 Fury Sport Coupe. (or '68 Sport Fury Coupe???) which is a California black plate car.

Anyways, its got a 318 2 barrel.

Now what I need is to pick up the pace some, so I'm not scared of the local Hondas in it, but retain/improve good gas mileage. I live in England where gas costs about US $6 a gallon, so dropping in a snortin' Hemi just ain't gonna happen! Not while shes my daily anyway.

Rumours say that the 318 will work well for what I want, but how best to build it. Oh yeah, I'm on a TIGHT budget too so I donlt want to waste cash on stuff that doesn't really work.

Bad combination of small motor, big car, but a 318 pulled well in a pickup I rode in a while back and the Fury can't be heavier so...

[ehostler]

You can build all sorts of performance into a 318, however it will want more and more of the expensive go juice...

[dave571]

A four barrel manifold and dual exhaust would seem to be the place to start.

then headers?

What gears are you running? A jump up to 3.91's will make a big difference in snort.

After that you're into internal engine mods. Cam, head work, more compression, more money, so on, so on, so on.

[Fast One]

Want some extra go but not a lot of dough, ha, ha..I think many of us have been or are still in that situation.

This is what I would do, get rid of that 2 bbl carby & manifold, swap in the E/Brock 318 4 bbl manifold, I'd prefer a Holley 600 cfm vacuum secondary carb but if fuel is that expensive maybe a 465 cfm will do.

If rebuilding the engine cast pistons will be fine for your use, forged are expensive & a waste for your application.

Knowing the factory 318's the compression is probably woeful, the deck height can vary quite a lot & some 318's have the piston a mile down the bore ( 8:5:1 or less in some ), you can pick up some valuable HP bumping up the compression, 9:5:1 would be nice.

Have the heads reconditioned properly, seats / guides / valves / 3 angle valve job etc, the stock 318 valves are ok but a little on the small side, the factory 360 valves are worth considering to install, with some porting & 360 valves in the 318 heads a flow rating of 180 cfm is easy, but if you don't have enough funds for that bit extra the fresh seats etc from the machine shop with 318 valves & some porting should help improve it's current performance.

For a cam a mild grind is best for your use perhaps if going for a Mopar grind P4452757 248/256 advertised duration .410/.425 lift, the next one up is 260/268 advertised duration .430/.450 lift, this cam will have some lope in the idle with the 318, fresh valve springs to suit the lbs loading needed for either of them profiles also.

Good quality machine work & attention to detail will also go a long way.

Attention to the ignition does wonders too, nice strong sparking electronic ignition ( Orange box ) & lighter advance springs etc

Quality double row timing chain recommended.

A good exhaust system is a must, headers mufflers etc.

[kdoghouse]

hey, whats the minimun wage in England?

[rumblefish360]

I like Fast Ones recomendations. The 2nd cam he listed and a 600 Holley on top of an Edelbrock performer. Headers are a big plus in power and mileage. Dave is dead on there.
So you know, the 360 valves are 1.88 intake and 1.60 exhaust. Measured in inchs.
I would use an MSD ignition if funds allow, the chrome box over the orange box.
Keep the cam small and gas consumption should stay light.

[68fury]

Originally posted by kdoghouse
hey, whats the minimun wage in England?

£4.15 per hour after age 18 IIRC. Thats about US $6.00

The "standard cost of living comparison" is the price of a big mac, which is £1.99 here, about US $2.75

Made me laugh, I read in an American magazine some comment about "if you can't pay $4.50 a gallon for race gas"... I wish!

We were in Las Vegas last fall and I filled the tank on a rental Mustang for less than it costs to fill the cost of filling the tank on my wife's Mini That thing holds about 5 gallons!

Now you know why we're big on cars that do 60 MPG here.

So I go buy a 18 foot 2 ton car with a V8 in it... For a daily ride... OK so I'm crazy. I'll have to use the delivery truck entrance at work as everythings designed for British/Euro/Oriental sized cars.

Seriously a Toyota Camry is called a "big" car here.

[68fury]

Cheers guys, some good suggestions.

I was thinking about gearing. Not sure whats in it yet. Tall gearing will help me get good mileage, over here most people cruise about 85 mph on the freeway and I don't want to be thrashing at overtaking speeds (90-95 mph). But I'm not into that high speed pursuit cr*p, so I don;t need it to run much faster that 100 (the cops really bust you for 100+ anyway) but its all about keeping it relaxed so I can eat freeway miles with no stress at 85.

But numerically higher gearing will obviously imporve the take-off, and the town I live in is riddled with "import tunerz", and a buddy has recently bought a Saxo VTS (A little French hatchback 1.6 liter which does 0-60 in about 7.5 sec stock) yeah, and he's buying cams & a big port head right now. and I'm going to be soooo whacked if he can take me, no matter how much I say "its all about the cruising"

Hmmm... gearing....

Thoughts of a auto-overdrive from a late model, but smells like its too much work at the moment.

Are ignition system improvements worth real gains? Either in HP or MPG?

I'll be running the stock converter for the forseeable future I guess. I want her to be an easy drive.

[fastmopars .inc]

i think your going about this all wrong.

grab a smog 440, drop it in with the rad and the tranny from the donor car, and just run with it. put headers on it, whatever else you can afford, but a stock 440 will run just fine. it will make more power than a 318 ever could, but it will do it with a much more mild combination; so it can be driven all the time, it won't be as hard on gas as a warmed over 318 and plus it will never overheat or load up in traffic like a slightly more modified engine.

and, there is no way your gonna beat any import that's slightly fast in a c-body with a 318! you would need 12:1 compression and 4.56 gears just to get into the 14's with a car that size.

to get the car to cruise at 85 mph at around 3200 rpm (i wouldn't want to spend very much time cruising at a steady rpm higher than that) you need 3.23 gears with a low stall converter and 28 inch tires, if you have shorter tires you need 2.76 gears. these will not work at all in a heavy car with a small engine as far as off the line zip goes. another reason the money would be much better spent on a 440, because with all that torque, the car will be much faster even with very high gearing.


an msd would be a good idea after you have every other part that your gonna buy. depending on how much time you have spent with automobiles, its possible you could put an msd in place of the factory ignition and not feel even the slightest difference, the only advantages the msd would show would be slightly easier starting and a little better gas milage, but nothing that would justify the 300 dollar cost right away. they are mostly used when the compression and the duration of the camshaft require a lot of spark to fire the mixture.

my buddy has a 68 sport fury. with 3.23 gears, 2200 stall converter, stock 440 with 9:1 compression, 484 purple shaft cam and a stock 70 intake with a 750 edelbrock, on street tires through the exhaust, the car ran a 14.20 @97 mph. thats about 0-60 in 5.5 - 6 seconds. the car now makes over 500 hp and runs high 12's but i don't think your willing to sacrifice that much streetability =) the car costs about 20 dollars an hour to drive.

its always nice to see people paying attention to the more neglected mopar brethren (c-bodies) but they weren't designed for drag racing in any respect. they make excellent comfortable highway cruisers, they handle quite well, and they look downright tough. but it takes a lot, a LOT of power to make them move.

[68fury]

Thanks for the comments.

Went to see the car today. I can't get her on the road for about another 2 weeks, she's got to get all her UK paperwork through, plus the lights converted to UK spec (dip beam to the left, convert side markers into turn signals, that kind of stuff) and the importer has to replace the windshield which was cracked in the container or something. Can't get an inspection ticket with a cracked windshield so gotta wait for one coming through.

She feels good though. Even with a 2 barrel carb and 14" skimpy white walls. Goooood. Feels more lively than a 400 cube Bonneville I drove recently.

I think I'll be sticking with the 318 - although I hear what your saying about that 440. That 318 runs so sweet though, I'd need to buy something to drop it in 'cos it would be a shame to waste it.

Another thing about the 318 is the weight. A little weight off the nose will help my handling some. I think thats a whole nother topic!

Seriously, the car may evolve into a 440 powered car, but not for daily use, and not for a while. I'm going to enjoy her in a small block package for a while beofre I start messing with anything to much.