Any Dodge 360 parts hoarders?

[Lee Beaittie]

I have ran many 2 barrel engines that were ridiculous in the power department.
I had one friend with his 1987 chevy truck that had a 2 barrel on it get a 4v intake off of me a Q jet iron intake and then he topped it with a Q jet carb.
Zero power gains anywhere.

If you do get an intake look for a Mopar 360 cast iron 4 barrel intake or a 340 4 barrel intake.
DO NOT get an edelbrock performer intake.
You will not make the power with it that the Mopar intake will make.

Here is one read you may really like.
Study it and notice at the bottom the test #2 was with Thermoquad and stock 4V intake.
These fools spent bad money on that edelbrock intake and a Q jet carb and lost power.

Only thing that made power come way up was a cam change.

They would have been more power ahead with the stock cam and porting of the heads.

I have done the cam swap on stock heads deal and it never panned out. always lost low end TQ and gained HP in the last 500 rpm of the curve.

When I began porting heads things came alive.

Read this.

Dyno-Test 360 Smog Motor - Mopar Muscle Magazine

Check out how to dyno-test a 360 smog motor as well as inspecting each part in the motor. More details along with photos only in Mopar Muscle Magazine

www.motortrend.com

My quickest 2 barrel engine was a 1970 Buick 350 and it had a stupid cam in it would not idle under 1200rpm.
3500 stall converter and I put it in a 72 Nova.
115 lbs lighter than the SBC and I had gutted that car to reduce weight.
I put wrinkle wall drag slicks on it and had them on for 1 launch in front of mother-in-laws house.
Just about hit the rear bumper on the pavement. Broke the rear shock mounts off.

I did not run slicks for 15 years after that.
I would shift that engine at 7200 rpm with the GM 2 barrel and with an adapter plate for a 4 barrel and a Mopar AFB 750
It would go 7600rpm and kept pulling I got scared it would blow up and I shifted it.

Those old rods were cast and I am surprised they never failed.

I will keep my eyes peeled for a Mopar iron 4 barrel intake.

Here is another read and this guy swapped a factory 4v intake for the Air Gap Edelbrock RPM.
Not much gained there either.

Modifying And Testing A Dodge 360-Cube LA Small-Block On The Dyno

I have ran that Air gap on a SBC and it may make more HP on a dyno but driving around in our state it was terrible.

I had to add a lot of fuel to the carb to make it work.
2 friends with different engines had the same issue.
Lots of stumbling and dead spot when you get in it.

More pump shot and quicker fuel curve with as much as 10 thousandths more jet on all 4 corners.
Just horrible.

I put the regular RPM Non air gap back on and things smoothed right out no more stumbling and I pulled a bunch of jet out.

MPG came way up.

Good luck.

I'm just looking for reliability and better operation, not big numbers. It had a cam swap done idk how long ago, it was solely used for towing a tandem axel 20ft travel trailer, had a camper shell on the bed its whole life, no bed usage at all.

 

[Lee Beaittie]

And a big no to Shady Crook, father-in-law use to know the owners 20 plus yrs ago.

 

[swampratt]

I built a 302 Ford .030 Over and ported the weeak heads circa 1982.
Stuck a 260H comp cam in it .
Ported the 2V intake and ported the exhaust manifolds.
This was the new family wagon.

Full size E150 ford van at 6000 lbs with 9" rearend and 3.50 gears.
My goal was 20 MPG and it needed to last.
It did last me 13 years and got in the 19 MPG area but never got 20.
Normally it got 17.6 in town or highway and got that 17.6 pulling my 15 foot Bayliner.

I tried many carbs as I owned over 60 carbs at that time.
Down to 1/3 that in decent ones now.
Did not matter what carb I stuck on it after I tuned it for best MPG they were all within 1/2MPG of each other.
750 QJet , 750 AFB, 625 and 465 AFB, 600 Edelbrock, Holley 390 economaster (POS for power).
a few different sizes of Motorcraft 2 barrels.
I tried hot air fed air cleaner assemblies and cold air open element.
No difference there.

I stuck with the Motorcraft 2 Barrel.
That has got to be the most reliable simplest carb on the planet.
You do not even need the top air horn on one to make it run.

Better operation is a must have and you can get that with an edelbrock or AFB style carb and you do not need to have the secondaries hooked up on them either.
My vote is a motorcraft 2 barrel or the above.
Port the intake you have if you never find a good iron 4V intake.

Now watch the runner sizes on the 318 intake they are much smaller than the 340-360 runners.
Not an issue if you are not looking for utmost power.

That smaller intake runner deal may add velocity and actually help in the low end TQ department.
I have not been there to try that.

One big power maker and MPG maker is a quick timing curve.
I usually set my engines up at 18-22 initial timing and I want all my total in by cruise RPM.

Total will be different for different engines.
My ford liked 35 total..anymore and I would get pinging any less and MPG fell off a tick.

Raced a buddies 1991 350" chevy 4x4 Truck he had Throttle body injection electric fans headers and throttle body spacer and stage 2 chip.
His ran 18.2 in the 1/4 and My smaller engine Van ran 18.0.
I had a tank full of 91 octane and told him if he beat me I would flip the switch and run on that tank (dual tanks) add some
timing and we would race again.

Never had to flip to the 91 octane tank.

Yea 18's in the 1/4 seems slow but these are heavy and not built for racing.
Fun though going down the track with a van with curtains in the windows.