engin...
Stefano:
Thank you for the complement. In the case of the engine for sale, the
only attractive part is he price. If you want my opinion on a proper power
plant for your 409?, I would look at one of the high performance 340 cubic
inch small block wedge head engines. The "King" of these engines was the 340
"Six Pack" which came with a hot cam and three two barrel carburetors. I
think they were Rochesters, but could have been Carters.
These engines were supplied in the AAR Cuda and were made to be eligible in
Trans Am racing. The 1972 318 was "Normally" a low performance engine
made for the bottom of the line. However, it looks, from the picture that it
may have a four barrel carburetor manifold. This was either not common,
or not even available on a 318 in 1972.
These engines were dogs, at least as specified in the USA. For example,
the 1970 Mopar 318 two barrel carburetor engine was rated at 230 HP and 320
pounds/feet of torque @ 3000RPM. The peak horsepower was listed at 4400
RPM. There were no four barrel carburetor options listed because the 318 was
considered the bottom of the line, other than a couple of inline six
cylinders.
In 1972, the same engine was rated at 150 HP at 4000 RPM and 260
pounds/feet of torque at 1600 RPM. The compression had been lowered from 8.8 to one
to 8.6 to one.
One caveat is that they changed the way power was rated and the later
engines were as installed in the chassis, vs strapped to a dynometer.
The high point for the small block Mopar was probably 1971, where the 340
cubic inch AAR engine had three carburetors, a 10.2 compression ratio,
hotter cam, and produced a conservative 290HP at 5000 RPM and peak torque of 340
@ 3200.
The differences between the potent 273 Cubic inch high performance engine
which produced 235 HP at 5200 RPM and the 318, which was never equipped with
a four barrel carburetor in the states, (at least, I can't find one
listed) was bore size. The same goes for the more potent 340, which all came
with a four barrel carburetor. The 360 was a slightly smaller bore, but
longer stroke engine, and again, it was never considered a performance engine
here and only came with a two barrel carburetor.
The 400 was introduced to help make up for the serious loss in performance
in the 383 after the federally mandated smog rules that took full effect in
1972 and got worse in 1975. Most police cruisers and high performance
Dodge and Plymouth cars, such as the Road Runner came with a 325 HP 383. After
de-smoging, the same car came with a 400 cubic inch engine rated at 260
HP. At that time, we switched to the 440 cubic inch engine, which were rated
at 280 HP with dual exhaust. The single exhaust models were true dogs and
were prone to setting brush on fire if driven through high dry grass.
If you want to keep up on the German freeway, you can always order a 408
cubic inch stroked LA 360 engine with a hot cam, Edelbrock air gap manifold,
and good cast iron heads. The base price is$4000 US Peso's. Up grades
can add $1500 to that. These engines are rated at 375 HP and 460 pounds of
torque.
I am sure there are better places to get Mopar engines, as Summit sticks
with high volume stuff, which means big and small block Chevy engines and
some Fords. I don't know what shipping would be, and I doubt I could manage
to get into my "carry on" luggage.
Dream on.
Jim.
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