rebuilding a 318 for added torque and fuel economy (if possible)

Depends on how much power you want out of it...you can't really have both though... I redid a 352 engine way back when.... putting on an aluminum high rise intake manifold and a holley 4 barrel....those two alone made a huge difference...for power.... fuel economy .. .well for those old engines without all the crap on them.. it was pretty good....you might get away with

2 two barrels, or even 3 two barrels....depending on the cfm size you get... With todays announcement of higher gas prices.... gas maybe getting up over the 3.50 a gallon mark...(eventually) you may just want to rebuild the 318 as stock and run with it that way..Those were good engines in the day...maybe take off some of the pollution crap... I guess it depends on how much you are towing (boat weight) and how often (your location) Up north, our boats get put away around early oct....that engine just might last you til you decide to get a new truck.

Fwed

Back in the day, one of cam manufactures (I think Crower) made a RV cam for the Small block (318,340,360)series. It was a replacement for the stock cam so nothing special needed to be done to the engine....Believe it or not these engines were used for the frame mounted RV's (small 25' with the van nose stuck on it) The cams may still be manufactured today by someone, seeing how these engines are still popular. These cams offered more low-end torque than stock. Back in 1975 a friend of mine had a Dodge Tradesman van (long)that he pulled a Powerboat with and he added the RV cam, Dual plane manfold (Eldelbrock I think) and a small Holly four barrel (450 or 500 CFM) I know your saying FOUR BARREL! Really the two primarys are smaller than the stock two barrel. Oh and a RV torque convertor (around 1200 RPM stall) Before he did this when we would go through the mountain passes here in Calif. we had to get behind the big Rigs...it had no guts!!! And after we could keep up with the regular traffic.

HTH, Rick

My advice... FWIW... forget the idea. If you live anywhere that has smog inspections you will need to stick with at least 2001 engine specs; easier to rebuild the engine in the truck than to try to sneak a

1974 engine past the smog inspector.

I can easily see why you'd want to try what you suggest, but maybe getting a similar year core engine from a junkyard would be a better plan; save the old 318 for an old car project (maybe a Dart/Valiant?)

nate

Much better idea would be to rebuild the engine in that truck. The 74 will not have all the provisions for sensors and accessories that the current engine has. The blocks are different enough that the new parts will not bolt on. If you live in an area with inspections it won't pass that either since most areas like that have rules about what you can swap, every rule I have seen says that if you use a different engine in a modern vehicle it must be the same year or newer than what is there already, UNLESS you take it to a place and have it certified to meet current standards.

I wish they get a clue here in Calif. and quit the inspections, the air is the same as when I was a kid!! And they charge way too much at 50$ The state is still run buy Nazi-hippie-Demos. I guess they think the air stops at the border of the state. Till the whole world gets on the same page with car emissions were just pissing in the wind! Sorry about the rant...

Rick

There were far fewer cars on the road when you were a kid, and actually the air in LA is cleaner now than it was when I was there in the 1970s. If it wasn't for CARB or EPA standards, you'd have a Third World pollution problem, the kind that causes Chinese traffic cops to usually die in their 40s.

Is that every 2 years? I hope your inspections aren't run by Envirotest, a company so bad that even their home state rejected them.

But state power ends at the border. The state right across the Colorado River has had a very similar program since the 1970s yet is politically opposite, ruled by Nazi-scientologist-Repubes.

Actually the whole world is moving in that direction, and even China will impose standards very similar to ours in 2009.

The best way to get more power out of a 1974 318 is to put Magnum heads and a modern engine management computer on it.

In other words, rebuild the 318 in the 2001 Ram when it gets tired (which it *might* do in about 400,000 miles, if you abuse it) rather than dump money into the 74. Yes, you COULD rebuild the 74 short block and drop it under all the Magnum goodies, but you'd have to adapt it with AMC lifters to actuate the Magnum valvetrain (the 74 can't accept a roller cam without modification) and a dozen other little details.

Take the 74 engine, find a set of the good "xxxx302" casting heads from a mid-80s 318, put them on it, put a 4-barrel carb on it, and stick it in a nice Duster or Dart and have a really fun car.