360 engine hop up.

[trevor74]

So Id like some opinions on what to do next, I have a 1980 360 that is okay but I am looking at some upgrades soon, the engine currently has a lunati cam 0.494 int./0.513 exh. lift, duration at 50 226 int./234 exh. a dual plane intake, holley 650 double pumper, mopar electronic ignition that came with the car, hooker comp headers, 2 1/2 inch exhaust all the way back, 9 to 1 compression pistions and stock heads. the motor is in a 74 charger i just finished and am looking to have some fun, the car cant hook up as it is but I am currently looking at some suspension and rearend upgrades now. Any advice would be great. I dont exactly have alot of money laying around to do college tuition coming up but when it comes to engine work i hate cutting corners.

thanks,
trevor

[trevor74]

I forgot to add its got a 2,300 stall converter, and exhaust cutouts

[aifilaw]

9 to 1 compression pistions and stock heads.

That's your biggest issue right there if you are looking for more power.

[Foreman72]

9 to 1 compression pistions and stock heads.

That's your biggest issue right there if you are looking for more power.

zero deck the block, throw in some KB slugs and port them heads...the 360 heads aren't bad...i'm gonna have a set on my 318, something like this (taken from an article on moparmusclemag.com)

normally a really trick set of heads can work wonders, but here we just used a boneyard set of plain old 360 Mopar smog heads. All of those '70s-80s 360 heads essentially carry the same port layout of the high performance 340, and as far as run-of-the-mill production iron of the era, they are about as good as it gets. In fact, these old-school heads have a big advantage over the later castings. The pushrod constriction is much less intrusive than that found on engines spawned in the hydraulic roller era. All of the 360 Mopar heads came from the factory with 1.88-inch intake valves, 1.600-inch valves at the exhaust, and big open chambers, at 72cc. To step things up, we started by having the heads machined for 2.02-inch intake valves. After the seat machining, the heads received a little porting, consisting of a basic bowl blend, and some work at the pushrod area. To reduce the chamber volume for our small displacement engine, the heads were milled fairly heavily to 60cc.

[craig]

one of the biggest perfformance issues with the 74 is the rear end setup....most small block 74's came with a small rear end..(if you have the 8 3/4" rear, that's a good start...but if you have the wimpy rear like most had, not only is it not likely a posi, not only kinda weak, but almost always has a 2.71-3.23 ratio....and changing it over would best be accomplished by going to a complete 8 3/4 inch axle setup, as in the 71-72's...