360/408 or ????

[Mustardbucket]

Looking for an engine combo. Car currently has a 318 with 4 speed. Looking to stay small block, but I'm not familiar with mopars so please help guide me in the right direction. Looking 400-500hp, street car with the occasional couple hundred mile trips. What's the best way crate 408 or build one from a junkyard. Looking to do this somewhat cheap, by that I mean not $10k engine. I'm not against BB, just figured a strong small block is a lot more fun. Let me know what your thoughts are.

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[dfrazz]

360, stroker kit, RHS/Airwolf heads. Should be around $7000-8000

[go-fish]

If I were doing it again I would build another small block. Before you do anything go and buy How To Build Big-Inch Mopar Small Blocks by Jim Szilagyi.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwi5s5zMi_TQAhVN2GMKHUgxABMQFghCMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FBuild-Big-Inch-Mopar-Small-Blocks%2Fdp%2F193249457X&usg=AFQjCNHuYzoye9N3URPEYZCQ5TwrTqkQWA&sig2=RL9rQ1Z-CJNhQOSnynzt1Q

Hope the link works. Anyway, investigate using a 360 Magnum due to the roller valvetrain (hyd. roller lifters, roller cam) and improves heads. Speaking of heads: Horsepower lives in the valvetrain. Invest in the stroker but spend money on your heads abd valvetrain. For your application I would go with the Edelbrock RPM Air Gap manifold and a cam suited for lower end powerband of adual plane manifold.

There are some more economical EFI options out there that will cost you about as much as a carb in the long run ( http://fitechefi.com/ ). An EFI system an be added on later but I would do it up front if I had to buy a new carb. A little more investment and you wont have fuel issues, rebuilds down the road, tuning headaches, and you will have more performance. You may be able to go EFI and still make your budget. FITech also offers Edelbrock intake manifolds with their throttlebodies so there may be a little cost offset there if you were having to buy a new manifold too.

If you blow your budget blow it on the heads though. There are a lot of choices for small block, iron ported, aluminum, traditional porting, CNC ported heads ... I wouldn't hesitate to buy heads fro Hughes Engines again. They have a CNC porting service and can install bigger vavles for you.

[moper]

I don't like crate engines but I'm a builder so my perspective is not the same as someone who doesn't do that line of work. Having built more than a few of them it's really easy to reach those levels with a stroker package. Cost depends on what you have and what you locate. The lower price point iron heads will work but RHS heads need expensive rockers and EQ Magnums can't take enough lift. So I prefer LA based valvetrain so I'd use RPMs, or have a good porter rework the factory iron heads. You only need 240-250cfm which isn't too difficult to achieve. As far as the lower end I only use forged pistons on the 4" packages and steer clear of the cheapest price point cast cranks. Good parts, great machining, and a mild static compression ration will give you high 400s in hp and mid 500s in torque with a hydraulic cam in the 245* @ .050 area.

[73restomod]

If your gonna do a stroker get the best heads you can buy to feed it or you'll have 360 power with worse gas mileage for your efforts... they do have RHS indy head with the regular shaft mount rockers and you can reuse the factory rockers. With a 2.02 1.60 setup and a bowl blend your looking at 1500 ready to roll, a good stroker kit is around 2k, and  that gets you mostly there depending on intake/carb/headers that you have available now?? Machine work prices vary to much to quote, but if the block is solid than it shouldn't need more than deck, bore, and hone.