Rebuild or Replace 318

[nigelcharger]

Hello everyone.

So I am in a situation where my 73' Dodge Charger needs some motor help. I have a bone stock 318 that I just pulled from the car and is ready to get rebuilt. But I'm not sure if this is the way to go.

I can:
Muddle through and try to rebuild 318 myself - $?,000 - No warranty
Have 318 rebuilt to OEM specs - $1,500 - 6 month warranty
Buy re-manufactured 318 - $1,500 - 7 year 100,000 mile warranty
Buy re-manufactured 360 - $2,100 - 3 year warranty

Keep in mind that oil pan, intake, and carb are all getting replaced either way. Also, my flywheel has damage and needs to be replaced either way.

I would love to have a motor with about 300-350 hp. Is that something that is realistic from a 318? I'm not trying to break the bank, but at the same time, if I cannot get the 318 where I want it for a reasonable price, then I see no point in keeping it.

I'm looking for everyone's thoughts on what they would do, and why.

 

[Cranky]

Questions abound with what you want to do with the car but the teen would be a good learning experience if you're into learning how and are not too worried about tons of power. Sure, it's possible to wring out 350 hp from it but it's going to be a bit radical not to mention it'll need some decent drag race type gears for it to really shine. Anyways, just tearing one down helps you learn a lot. My first engine rebuild was a 289 and I bought a crank and ring kit after tearing it down. A locale shop where I used to sweep the floors as a kid helped me with vatting (cleaning), checking and found the cylinders to be in pretty good shape so they honed them true and I went back with stock pistons etc. The crank was turned down .010/.010 and they did a mild build on the heads....and it ran great after getting it back together. If you do not plan on doing the work yourself, you might look at going with a 360. Might cost a bit more but it'll make 350 hp much easier than the teen will and will have more torque in totally stock form if you go that way.

 

[Bruzilla]

Welcome to the forum. There are few things more seductive to most owners than horsepower increases. The desire for them rarely ever stops once the need for originality goes away, which I'm assuming since you're considering a 360 you aren't too concerned with originality points.

My advice to folks like you is always consider where you want to end up performance wise. If you're very confident that this car will be a daily driver and fuel efficiency is the primary motivator, then I would suggest the reman 318. Numbers matching means nothing on 318 cars, so go with the new engine and warranty.

Now if you think performance is a bigger issue than efficiency, then the decision gets a bit dicier. I've been in this hobby a long time, and I've seen a lot of guys sink a lot of money into building up small block engines only to get bit by the Big Block Bug within a short time and decide they want to upgrade. When they do, they find the money they dropped into the small block build is about 50-75% wasted and now they have to eat the loss on the small block and fund the big block effort. Yes... upgrading to a 360 will get you a nice performance increase, but not as much as going to a big block, and I've found it's better to spend money on an engine upgrade once, and you do that by going for a 440 first.

If you have money to burn, then the periodic upgrades will work fine. If you don't, it's better to invest in a 440 upgrade in my opinion.

 

[Nacho-RT74]

I think most of the guys around should get more respect for the eternal 318!

There is an article around about how to build a 400 hp 318 with parts out of the box

 

[Nacho-RT74]

http://www.hotrod.com/how-to/engine/mopp-0409-318-engine-build/

 

[Bb70charger500]

Another cheaper route I look on local c.L. for a mopar with a Fresh rebuild that the owner is giving away cheap . I've seen cars / truck's with new rebuilt motors 500 miles at best guy said screw it I want a new car and sells off-the-wall whole thing for $600-$700 I keep the motor and sell the remains usually for what I payed . Or look for a pull out ,someone around you must be doing a big block swap you might get lucky and get a nice motor . Then why you are driving your car you can pick up a block and build a big h.p. motor little by little.

 

[Bruzilla]

Gotta love the fallen project route. There's a guy up here with a nice .060 over 440 block he's looking to get out of. I've been thinking of buying it just to have it on hand.

 

[Bruzilla]

I think most of the guys around should get more respect for the eternal 318!

Sorry, but I had no respect for it in the 1970s and no respect for it now. It's like a boil that needs to be lanced. If I'm going to drop a ton of money into an engine, I just can't see doing it in order to get the lowest results.

 

[nigelcharger]

Gotta love the fallen project route. There's a guy up here with a nice .060 over 440 block he's looking to get out of. I've been thinking of buying it just to have it on hand.

I was actually just looking at that on craigslist. I live in Jacksonville, Fl.
http://jacksonville.craigslist.org/pts/5546267851.html

 

[nigelcharger]

I knew I was going to get varying responses with this question, and it’s great, because that’s what I wanted. I wanted to see why everyone thought the way they did.


It seems as though the basic response is:

Rebuild myself to learn more about the motor. (I think building it to the 400hp that Nacho talks about might cost the same as a 440 upgrade.)

Buy a reman 318 if I don’t care about power.

Buy a reman 360 if I don’t care about originality and have no desire for a big block.


It looks like it is easily obtainable to get 400 hp ratings from a built up 360. I don’t see needing/wanting any more than that in the next 10 years for this car. It’s not going to the track, and is more of a weekend street car. So reman 360 sounds like the reasonable choice.

 

[Nacho-RT74]

Any basic engine rebuild job will cost about the same no matter the displacement, is mainly about what you have handy, what you wish and the final useage... Not everyone wants, needs or care about full power, and just some touchs, not everything is race, but just enjoy the car on any form.

Sometimes if you have the 318, just want to play with it, and there are ways to make it!

Specially if you don't want to deal with tranny change, radiator, wiring, exhaust, driveshaft, etc...

But is amazing how Moparians sometimes show some "disrespect" about the enternal and faithfull 318 while Phords guys ( for example ) are proud about their 302s!

Just my 0.02

 

[dla4567]

I rebuilt a 318 last year. Cost me around $3000 and is around 300 hp. Could have done it cheaper but I replaced everything including carb, headers, rockers and shafts, etc. Also pistons were a bit pricey as I had to buy forged pistons to get the compression I wanted with 360 heads. I've always had big blocks, it was nice doing something different. I love driving it, good power and gas mileage.

 

[1778ppr]

There’s nothing wrong with sticking to your 318. They are great engines. Doing a bunch of machine work to it may not be the best choice, but sticking with a small block in a small block car is a lot easier and a whole lot less expensive. Sticking with a small block will reduce your head aches and get you on the road faster. Once on the road you’ll probably not break stuff as easily also. 1 HP per cube is not an unreasonable goal for any engine and fairly easy to obtain. 318HP is very reputable. Just my 0.02

 

[Ron H]

I have the poly 318 and planning to rebuild in fall. For quite awhile my focus was on a 360 to avoid the extra hassles moving to a big block. I've done a ton of research on these motors once thought of as boat anchors and how this motor has evolved to a preferable performance rebuild having some appealing characteristics of the Hemi motor (poly). The buzzword "semi-hemi". I can't say what the logic might be for the later 318 motor; but after reading about some great poly 318 re-do's I set my sights on it and keeping the original motor in the car. I'm not looking to burn up the streets anyway at my age so 400HP is about 50 more than I want anyway; but some 318 rebuilds have garnered pert near 500HP.

 

[HEMI-ITIS]

If you don't want to bebuld YOUR 318,the buy a hot 360!

 

[chargerrt340]

Another generalized 318 swap question? No specific questions about the specific swap, balancers, k members, efi, gears, transmission, heads....

lol what are your rear end gears, 2.73? What do you want 300-350 for? Like Cranky said, experience would be good for DIY but you have to tell us/these guys a little more.

Do a search in forbbodies for small block low budget builds and you will find a lot of information about cheap horsepower increases. There is one specifically that has 4 different recipes for small block power on a budget and discusses cheap junk yard parts that bolt up for solid increases.

Just a heads up, not knowing your experience because you have 3 posts and no signature, I believe your 318 is different than the poly 318.

 

[Bruzilla]

I knew I was going to get varying responses with this question, and it’s great, because that’s what I wanted. I wanted to see why everyone thought the way they did.


It seems as though the basic response is:

Rebuild myself to learn more about the motor. (I think building it to the 400hp that Nacho talks about might cost the same as a 440 upgrade.)

Buy a reman 318 if I don’t care about power.

Buy a reman 360 if I don’t care about originality and have no desire for a big block.


It looks like it is easily obtainable to get 400 hp ratings from a built up 360. I don’t see needing/wanting any more than that in the next 10 years for this car. It’s not going to the track, and is more of a weekend street car. So reman 360 sounds like the reasonable choice.

Reminds me of when my son was asking me how big a TV he should buy for his man cave. I told him but the biggest you can afford, and if that's 60" or 73", get it! His response was to quote me all this gobbldygook from various sources about optimum viewing distances, viewing area, fit for a room, etc, and he went and bought a 50" TV.

He calls me up a couple months later and says "you were right! I should have gotten the bigger set. This one looked awesome at first, but it seems to keep getting smaller and smaller." Yep... so now he has a TV he wants to get rid of, but he'll lose a ton of money doing it because there's no market for used TVs like that. Always get the biggest you can get... engines or TVs.

 

[jprather]

hey, get in touch with rooster1911 ( member here ) he is central fl, he has a 72 318 with 727 auto.. $700.00, it is still in the car you can listen to it, drive it, i believe it was recently rebuilt. , motor sounds really good, i was by his place last weekend, and heard it running

pm me i can send you his phone # if you want