I've never been a really big fan of Popular Hot Rodding magazine. They had an occasional good article, but overall the editorial content and quality didn't measure up to the standards of Car Craft or Hot Rod. Lately though I've changed my mind. I've been reading this magazine over the past few months and it's like a whole new magazine. In the current issue, I found this nugget of wisdom:

My engine is done and it looks great. I thought the long block looked kind of stupid painted Hemi orange and was wishing I'd told the shop to paint it Chrysler red, but with the valve covers and intake on it actually looks pretty good. I bought a new tire Saturday because the one that was flat won't hold air, period. I'm kind of PO'd at Les Scwab because I paid $10 extra for a tire with a white stripe on the side wall to match the other three, so they mount it with the stripe on the inside. Didn't have time to wait for them to remount it so I'll just live with it for now.

The machine shop called this Tuesday and said my 318 is done. Whoo Hoo!!!!! I just need to drop off the intake manifold and valve covers, pay for it, and I can pick it up as soon as my dad gets back in town so I can borrow his truck. Total cost intake to oil pan was about $6500 - more than a "stock" type rebuild but less than the 408 stroker engine I'd been thinking about. Some of my friends think I spent too much for "just" a 318, especially a fairly mild one. However, I knew what I was spending on and I'm not unhappy with the total.

I was looking around the Clifford Performance web site and noticed they're taking orders for the Slant Six Hyper Pak intake manifold. This is a pre-order deal and you won't be charged until the units are produced by the foundry. This is a reproduction and is available in a 2-bbl or 4-bbl version. I wouldn't waste time on the 2-bbl, but the 4-bbl is sweet. At $469 they're a little pricey but the Hyper Pak is definitely the ultimate intake for a Slant Six powered car.

I took my family to a couple of Hot August Nights cruises this past week. It's a lot of fun for our kids to look at the old cars. It gets my wife worked up about them too, and then she lets me spend more money on my Barracuda. This year was a double score. She told me that after I finish the Barracuda she wants me to fix up the Valiant. (Ha!!! If only she knew what the plan$ for the Valiant are).

I'm pretty stubborn. When I decided to build a 318 instead of a stroked 360, I had certain ideas I didn't want to deviate from. The biggest issue to me are the cylinder heads - I want to run heads that are optimized for 318 cubic inches. A lot of people building a 318 just throw away the stock heads and run 340/360 heads complete with 2.02" intake valves. There is nothing wrong with this approach, and a 318 with 340/360 heads can make really good power. There are a few things I don't like about this approach though. First is the idea of throwing away a perfectly good set of cylinder heads.

I think the best Intake manifold available for a 340 or 360 is the Edebrock Performer RPM. The ports on this manifold are too big for 318 heads though, so the obvious choice for a 318 would be an Edebrock Performer. Well, not so fast... That's what I thought, but after talking to Ryan at Shady Dell Speed Shop I think there's a better choice. He recommended the Weiand Action Plus manifold as being "quite a bit better" than the Performer. I talked it over with my machinist and he agreed, so I went ahead and purchased one.

Small block Mopar cylinder heads can be divided into 2 broad categories (I'm ignoring the later Magnum heads) - small port (for the 273 and 318) and large port (for the 340 and 360). The small port heads also come with small valves (1.78" intake and 1.50" exhaust) and only flow about 135 cfm on the intake side. Compared to the even the worst large port heads (which flow around 190 cfm in stock form), this is quite a performance hit. Because of that, most people building a 318 for high performance just throw away the stock heads and substitute the larger 340/360 heads.

Back in the good old days, there were 2 types of pistons available - cast and forged. Cast pistons are inexpensive, quiet, and offer excellent oil control due to tight piston to wall clearances. They are also weak compared to forgings, and the quality of some brands was (is) fair at best. Forgings are strong, but expensive (especially for non-popular engines like the 318). They also require more piston to wall clearance, so they're noisy (at least until the engine warmed up) and oil control isn't as good as with cast pistons.

I'm breathing a huge sigh of relief right now. I finally found an engine core and made most of the final decisions on how it's going to be built. All I have left to do is pick out a cam shaft. Good machine shops are hard to find, so they're busy, but in about 5 weeks I should have one really sweet running..... 318 Mopar. Yep, after much thought and soul searching, I decided to go with a 318 instead of a stroked 360. This really isn't a change of heart though, it's more of a triumph of rational planning over "golly-gee-whiz-ism."