318 poly to LA camshaft question

[Rolling_Thunder]

Anyone know if the Poly uses the same or different cam than the later 318's ?  Never dealt with Poly's before and looking for some wisdom...   

[UFO]

Camshaft swap Nope.
I've got one of these engines,they are wider than a 440.
Some good info here,
http://www.geocities.com/polyman64/about.html

[Rolling_Thunder]

cool - had found that page but did not read it all...    My new Satellite has a 318 poly and I'm thinking of just keeping the engine pretty stock...    I do have a nice 512" stroker and a 4-speed sitting in my Garage though....     

[tatrick2me]

The A [Poly] and LA engine cams do interchange.  But Comp and Crane have some nice cams for the Poly. Wiand <spelling, has a 4V intake and TTI has headers, A set of LA eagle rods and 9:5 to ! TRW pistrons. The engine is a great platform to hot rod. In fact the canted valve heads breath better than the new so called hime which is also a true poly canted valve engine.

[Rolling_Thunder]

Weiand has stopped production of the 4bbl intake...    I can not find Comp or Crane cams for the Poly...   

Anyone have a guess on who makes a decent cam for these things ? I can not even find the specs for the stock cam, head flow, timing, compression...    anything...     This is the red-headed step-child of the Mopar brand it seems.

[Challenger340]

The later LA 318/340/360 engine camshafts, do NOT work in the old Poly 318"s.

They will physically FIT, but will NOT run the engine.

Stock, and Performance Camshafts/Pistons etc., for the 318 Poly's can also be found here;   http://www.egge.com/

I forget the company who actually grinds the Camshafts for Egge, but, I've used a few and they seem alright. Might want to get the number from Egge and speak to they directly.

The Poly's heads do have potential, but alas, it was never exploited much as far as I know, as they just weren't seen as a performance Platform.

[power wagon]

the A block also known as the Poly will not interchange cams with the LA or Light A block.  The A is a 90degree block and the LA a 60. This gives the A significantly more torque. The A has evenly spaced intake and exhaust ports. the LA has the 2 middle exhaust ports together. So if you put an LA cam in an A block the intakes would be running off the exhaust ports an visa versa. also contrary to popular belief the heads are not interchangable between them because the coolant and oil ports do not match. the poly and i've heard some hemi heads from the late 50s do interchange but im not sure. I have not tried these but the timing gears, bearings and cranks should interchange between LA and A but the truck A's all had forged cranks so they are better anyways. The exhaust on the polys was originally way to restrictive and youll gain a lot from opening it up, but don't open it to much because the ingine was originally built for torque and that is its stand out point, not RPM.