318

I am planning on rebuilding a 318 to put in my 94 dodge dakota for a project car and i read the 318-400 hp bolt up in car craft and decieded those are the plans i would base my engine off of. I soon realized after research that the newer blocks 1979 and up wernt as hard as the older iron blocks. I heard one of the main problems with boring it out was that there is not enough clearance between the jackets and the sleeve and will not last much time. But the cost of the old blocks are quite high and im only 17 and not making the kind of money to buy the best of all. So i was figuring i would go with a steel crank and the softer block and maybe not bore it out just as much as Car Craft says. Any advise?
thanx guys

Tom

if you picked up the last issue of car craft. you may notice that there are no mopars in it. the tech articles can be related to all applications but I am seeing a trend of killing off the mopars  

The max you would want to bore over a 77 and up "thin walled" small block mopar engine is between .020 and .030...030 is pushing it, in a performance application. Honestly in this situation if you want more cubes and more power consider stroking the engine instead. It's more expensive, but the gains are stronger. If you are building a street engine this will be perfect as torque will be more pisitvely effected with stroking than as it would with and overbore job.

For some serious information pick up the book "How to HOt Rod Small Block Mopar" and an issue of Mopar muscle. If you're really hardcore Mopar stay away from Chevy Craft and check out www.moparmusclemagazine.com

If you have any other questions check out the message board there or just email me.

"Mopar or No Car"