360 or 440?

I had a 360 and a 440, both in the same year and model car... at the same time. The 360 was a screamer, would pull just as hard as the 440, maybe harder. It was the top end that the 360 couldnt keep up with.



I also had a 360 in my 2001 Ram, that truck got better MPG's than my 5.7 05' Ram and my 5.7 13' Ram....... I love the 360!!

I fully agree with this opinion. I have many 440 C bodies, both with the standard and HP versions. I would say, though, that around town, the 360 even in 2 bbl form performs admirably - with its great low end torque and somewhat high stall torque converter, it feels just like the 383-4 bbl when accelerating. The 440 relies on its great torque but uses a low stall converter, and just has a different feel off the line. It too is nice, but I enjoy my 360-2 bbl just as much. Typically my 440 standard C bodies with 2.7 axle ratios get 17 highway all day long, and the 360 is right there or maybe just a little better. I think for around town, I really prefer the 360-2 bbl just a tad more because it is more fun but the 440 overall is nicer on the highway for silent cruising and better passing power. You can't lose either way, really.
 
If you want to talk bang for the buck in your situation, keeping in mind you're about to spend 500 on shipping, do some performance mods to the 360 you already have.
 
I supposed it's an subjective thing but I've never been in any c body car with a stock 318/360 small block that could get out of its own way let along feel like anything more than what it was. Too much dead weight to get moving along...that's when it becomes a "real" boat.
 
I supposed it's an subjective thing but I've never been in any c body car with a stock 318/360 small block that could get out of its own way let along feel like anything more than what it was. Too much dead weight to get moving along...that's when it becomes a "real" boat.

I've never been in a Big Block powered car or small block very prepped so I can't compare if my boat is real slow, I just can tell that he needs between 9 to 10 seconds doing 0 - 60 at WOT.

If you want to talk bang for the buck in your situation, keeping in mind you're about to spend 500 on shipping, do some performance mods to the 360 you already have.


What do you think about the mods that I specify on my first post? That mods were the
initial plan to made the 360 a more performer engine.

I fully agree with this opinion. I have many 440 C bodies, both with the standard and HP versions. I would say, though, that around town, the 360 even in 2 bbl form performs admirably - with its great low end torque and somewhat high stall torque converter, it feels just like the 383-4 bbl when accelerating. The 440 relies on its great torque but uses a low stall converter, and just has a different feel off the line. It too is nice, but I enjoy my 360-2 bbl just as much. Typically my 440 standard C bodies with 2.7 axle ratios get 17 highway all day long, and the 360 is right there or maybe just a little better. I think for around town, I really prefer the 360-2 bbl just a tad more because it is more fun but the 440 overall is nicer on the highway for silent cruising and better passing power. You can't lose either way, really.

I don't like 2BBL carbs, usually them eats a lot of gas and the acceleration is worse than with a 4BBL. I don't drive on the highway/freeway often, most of my monthly miles are around town but when I've to drive on highway/freeway the passing power is elemental or I'll get a headache trying to pass trucks
 
I've never been in a Big Block powered car or small block very prepped so I can't compare if my boat is real slow, I just can tell that he needs between 9 to 10 seconds doing 0 - 60 at WOT.
I've rode in a 360 72 Fury, and and one summer a few years ago a 318 Polara. Both ran good and got reasonably decent gas mileage even with a/c on. That's about it.
 
I think it boils down to whether you prefer a turbo feel off the line or a diesel feel. The 360 is the former and the 440 is the latter. It also depends on which torque converter was used in each model year. My experience is primarily with a 1972 Dodge with the high stall converter.
 
I think it boils down to whether you prefer a turbo feel off the line or a diesel feel. The 360 is the former and the 440 is the latter. It also depends on which torque converter was used in each model year. My experience is primarily with a 1972 Dodge with the high stall converter.

I think I prefeer the Diesel feel with a 2500 (or less) rpm stall converter , the turbo feel will be great in an E or A body but in a C boat, I think will be better to have a smooth ride without using too much throttle
 
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I bought a '73 Chrysler with a nice running 440, so it would be a typical example for any lower compression '72-'78 440.

My cousin drove the car to my house and when we got out of town we lined up with my '74 Power Wagon, which at that time had a 360 with 3.91s, but had 35" tires on it which pretty well deletes any gear advantage. My pickup ate that thing for lunch... Bad, and I know my truck weighed 5100# and I would put the Chrysler at about 4500#.

The 360 was .030 over with stock height flat tops, planed heads with the overbore put the compression ratio at about 9.5:1.

It had J heads with stock valves, no porting, an LD 340 aluminum intake, 625 Carter, and headers.

The cam was .443/.465 lift, 288/295 duration with a 12 degree centerline. Nice lope, good torque and 10" of vacuum at an idle. I delivered a '55 Plymouth to Richmond Virginia from South Dakota and got a best of 13.6 loaded and 14.5 with the empty trailer on the way home.

I later changed to a 440 and brought an Excalibur back from Santa Anna California and the milage was 10 and 12, but the torque through the mountains was nice. The 440 was 10:1 and had a mild Crower cam with a stock iron intake and headers which was enough to secure 2 1st place trophies at a truck pull, but also bent 2 8.75 rear differentials into pretzels and tore the side and spider gears out of the front Dana 44 twice. I then put 1 ton differentials (Dana 60s) in with 4.10s with '37 inch tires and get no better than 10mpg. I would prefer to go back to the 360 and the less weight and height due to the diff swap. The 440 was bad *** at the time but wouldn't be impressive lined up with a Cummins.

My vote would be to upgrade your 360 add some 3.23/3.55s with the bolt in overdrive 518 transmission... :dontknow:

74 Power Wagon.jpg

74 Power Wagon.jpg
 
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I bought a '73 Chrysler with a nice running 440, so it would be a typical example for any lower compression '72-'78 440.

My cousin drove the car to my house and when we got out of town we lined up with my '74 Power Wagon, which at that time had a 360 with 3.91s, but had 35" tires on it which pretty well deletes any gear advantage. My pickup ate that thing for lunch... Bad, and I know my truck weighed 5100# and I would put the Chrysler at about 4500#.

The 360 was .030 over with stock height flat tops, planed heads with the overbore put the compression ratio at about 9.5:1.

It had J heads with stock valves, no porting, an LD 340 aluminum intake, 625 Carter, and headers.

The cam was .443/.465 lift, 288/295 duration with a 12 degree centerline. Nice lope, good torque and 10" of vacuum at an idle. I delivered a '55 Plymouth to Richmond Virginia from South Dakota and got a best of 13.6 loaded and 14.5 with the empty trailer on the way home.

I later changed to a 440 and brought an Excalibur back from Santa Anna California and the milage was 10 and 12, but the torque through the mountains was nice. The 440 was 10:1 and had a mild Crower cam with a stock iron intake and headers which was enough to secure 2 1st place trophies at a truck pull, but also bent 2 8.75 rear differentials into pretzels and tore the side and spider gears out of the front Dana 44 twice. I then put 1 ton differentials (Dana 60s) in with 4.10s with '37 inch tires and get no better than 10mpg. I would prefer to go back to the 360 and the less weight and height due to the diff swap. The 440 was bad *** at the time but wouldn't be impressive lined up with a Cummins.

My vote would be to upgrade your 360 add some 3.23/3.55s with the bolt in overdrive 518 transmission... :dontknow:

I think my fury has a 2.73 rear gear, I'm going to confirm it this weekend. Now you're talking about 10MPG at highway on a truck and towing a car with high gear ratio and big wheels, it seems to be that the 440 can do a good milleage if is build properly and that good torque in mountain is that what I want to have because I live in a city with hills and most if the nearest highways/freeways has hills . Yes, I sound like if I'm doing everything possible to justify the 440 swap :sFun_doh2:. This weekend I'm going to talk with the guy that is selling the 440 to negotiate the shipping costs, so If he he accepts, I'm going to try with the 440 but I think will be a good option talk about a build config for the 440 and the 360 (to build it in case that the guy don't accept my offer)

I think a good mpg improvement with the 440 will be reduce engine weight using aluminum heads, headers, aluminum intake, aluminum water pump. Maybe the weight will be closer to a 360 weight with iron heads and aluminum intake.

This is the 440 setup that I have in mind:
-Thermoquad 800 cfm
-Edelbrock RPM performer aluminum intake
-HEI ignition system, mallory 58.000 V ignition coil, MSD spark plug wires
-Stock camshaft (I don't know if maybe an upgraded camshaft can give me better results in power and mpg)
-High compression KB pistons (I was thinking to have 10.6:1 compression with iron heads on the 360 but I've read that with aluminum heads the compression must be raised one point to equals the compression with iron, so 11.6:1 compression will be correct but it sounds excessive, or, am I wrong?)
-Indy non-ported EZ aluminum heads
-Torque converter with lockup and 2000 RPM stall
-Headers

This is the 360 setup that I had in mind:
-Carter AFB 625 cfm
-Square bore dual plane aluminum intake
-HEI ignition system, mallory 58.000 V ignition coil, MSD spark plug wires
-Stock camshaft (I don't know if maybe an upgraded camshaft can give me better results in power and mpg)
-High compression KB pistons (10.6:1 compression ratio)
-Indy X iron heads
-Torque converter with lockup and 2500 RPM stall
-Headers
 
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I think a good mpg improvement with the 440 will be reduce engine weight using aluminum heads, headers, aluminum intake, aluminum water pump. Maybe the weight will be closer to a 360 weight with iron heads and aluminum intake.

-High compression KB pistons (I was thinking to have 10.6:1 compression with iron heads on the 360 but I've read that with aluminum heads the compression must be raised one point to equals the compression with iron, so 11.6:1 compression will be correct but it sounds excessive, or, am I wrong?)
-Indy non-ported EZ aluminum heads
-Torque converter with lockup and 2000 RPM stall
-Headers

This is the 360 setup that I had in mind:
-Carter AFB 625 cfm
-Square bore dual plane aluminum intake
-HEI ignition system, mallory 58.000 V ignition coil, MSD spark plug wires
-Stock camshaft (I don't know if maybe an upgraded camshaft can give me better results in power and mpg)
-High compression KB pistons (10.6:1 compression ratio)
-Indy X iron heads
-Torque converter with lockup and 2500 RPM stall
-Headers

The weight savings you stated will still leave you a chunk heavier with the big block and seems redundant when your car is built like a tank. You would save about 70 pounds for the pair of heads, 10 intake and 7 with an aluminum water pump and housing, and from personal experience buy Mopar only for the housing.

You are talking daily driver which is using pump gas...

The highest compression that you should run with iron heads is 9.5 and with aluminum heads 10.5:1. The 440 in my pickup is running .040 qwench with 10:1 and I can't run the timing where it belongs with pump gas.

A stock cam with high flowing heads is really shooting yourself in the foot. A much better choice would be to upgrade the cam and run stock heads and if you are going to run more high RPM you could do some bowl work to the heads. Big ports will kill your low end torque.

Also the Mopar electronic distributor is the best one that you can run for a street/strip car in my opinion. You have an adjustable vacuum advance and the mechanical advance can easily be changed with just changing the springs.
 
The weight savings you stated will still leave you a chunk heavier with the big block and seems redundant when your car is built like a tank. You would save about 70 pounds for the pair of heads, 10 intake and 7 with an aluminum water pump and housing, and from personal experience buy Mopar only for the housing.

You are talking daily driver which is using pump gas...

The highest compression that you should run with iron heads is 9.5 and with aluminum heads 10.5:1. The 440 in my pickup is running .040 qwench with 10:1 and I can't run the timing where it belongs with pump gas.

A stock cam with high flowing heads is really shooting yourself in the foot. A much better choice would be to upgrade the cam and run stock heads and if you are going to run more high RPM you could do some bowl work to the heads. Big ports will kill your low end torque.

Also the Mopar electronic distributor is the best one that you can run for a street/strip car in my opinion. You have an adjustable vacuum advance and the mechanical advance can easily be changed with just changing the springs.

Are you sure about that weight savings? When I change the iron intake on my 360, I can swear that it was maybe 2 or 3 times heavier than the aluminum intake

A stock cam with high flowing heads is really shooting yourself in the foot. A much better choice would be to upgrade the cam and run stock heads and if you are going to run more high RPM you could do some bowl work to the heads. Big ports will kill your low end torque.

I do not want to run at higher RPM, I want the opposite, more power in low RPM, that's why I choose that heads. I read a few times that those are a good heads to improve power at low rpm but maybe them were wrong, so, what heads would be better? maybe a pair of stock heads with "small" combustion chamber?

Also the Mopar electronic distributor is the best one that you can run for a street/strip car in my opinion. You have an adjustable vacuum advance and the mechanical advance can easily be changed with just changing the springs.

From my personal experience: I was fine with the stock mopar ignition control and stock distributor but when I change to a HEI and 58000V coil, I started to feel the car a lot better! easiest cold start, smoothest idle and better throttle response

About camshaft upgrade, I don't know what to think: Does a camshaft can be upgraded without having rough idle and without affecting mpg?
 
Are you sure about that weight savings? When I change the iron intake on my 360, I can swear that it was maybe 2 or 3 times heavier than the aluminum intake

I do not want to run at higher RPM, I want the opposite, more power in low RPM, that's why I choose that heads. I read a few times that those are a good heads to improve power at low rpm but maybe them were wrong, so, what heads would be better? maybe a pair of stock heads with "small" combustion chamber?

From my personal experience: I was fine with the stock mopar ignition control and stock distributor but when I change to a HEI and 58000V coil, I started to feel the car a lot better! easiest cold start, smoothest idle and better throttle response

About camshaft upgrade, I don't know what to think: Does a camshaft can be upgraded without having rough idle and without affecting mpg?

A smallblock intake is larger/heavier than a big block. There will be more weight savings with the 360 when switching to aluminum.


Note the intake port CC volume when doing your head research. The larger volume will hurt your low end torque and your velocity at low RPM cruising speeds, which would likely hurt your economy as well. I do like Indy heads and the higher compression with aluminum is nice, but they are designed for higher flow/higher RPM and yes the torque will be increased, but at a much higher RPM than stock heads.

Yes a mild to moderate cam is what you want. Something with a power range from about 1500-5000 or 1800-5500 RPM.

Look at your duration @ .050" valve lift... something in the range of 218-225 degrees will work well.

Here's a set of small block Mopar aluminum heads that I have done several hours of work to for my boat. I increased the chamber volume when deshrouding the valves and sparkplugs to further reduce the compression and it will be 10.4:1. The polished chambers will also help aviod detonation.

IMG_0697.jpg




IMG_0697.jpg
 
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A smallblock intake is larger/heavier than a big block. There will be more weight savings with the 360 when switching to aluminum.


Note the intake port CC volume when doing your head research. The larger volume will hurt your low end torque and your velocity at low RPM cruising speeds, which would likely hurt your economy as well. I do like Indy heads and the higher compression with aluminum is nice, but they are designed for higher flow/higher RPM and yes the torque will be increased, but at a much higher RPM than stock heads.

Yes a mild to moderate cam is what you want. Something with a power range from about 1500-5000 or 1800-5500 RPM.

Look at your duration @ .050" valve lift... something in the range of 218-225 degrees will work well.

Here's a set of small block Mopar aluminum heads that I have done several hours of work to for my boat. I increased the chamber volume when deshrouding the valves and sparkplugs to further reduce the compression and it will be 10.4:1. The polished chambers will also help aviod detonation.

View attachment 23965



Beautiful heads and awesome job, but I have a question: I assumed that the raspy surface will help to create turbulence in the incoming fuel/air mixture so due to this turbulence the mixture will be better. Is it real or not?

About the camshaft, what do you think about this? what kinds of lifters and valve springs will work better with this camshaft? With this kind of camshaft the idle speed can continue being between 700 - 800 RPM or must be faster?

Postscript: why some people hates eddy non-ported heads on street applications? I've never understood this
 
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I've rode in a 360 72 Fury, and and one summer a few years ago a 318 Polara. Both ran good and got reasonably decent gas mileage even with a/c on. That's about it.


The 318 while proven for an economy engine is no 360. Every car I talk about here in my experiences is a 70 or 71 Polara so the variable is engine size and rear.( with the exception of my 440 69 sport fury rag with 3:73's) The 360-2 pulled well with the 2.76's, woke it up a bit with the 3'23's...... wish I knew you when I had the brown polara, I'd teach you about the 360.
 
Beautiful heads and awesome job, but I have a question: I assumed that the raspy surface will help to create turbulence in the incoming fuel/air mixture so due to this turbulence the mixture will be better. Is it real or not?

About the camshaft, what do you think about this? what kinds of lifters and valve springs will work better with this camshaft? With this kind of camshaft the idle speed can continue being between 700 - 800 RPM or must be faster?

Postscript: why some people hates eddy non-ported heads on street applications? I've never understood this


The rough or slightly rough surface should be reserved for the intake ports. The combustion chambers and the exhaust ports optimally should be smooth or polished.

I have used the Comp Xtreme energy cam in a 440 but it was the 230/236 duration @ .050" and it has excessive valve train noise. It pulls really hard, but I personally am very dissapointed in the noise, and if you do some searching, people are complaining about premature wear on their valvetrain.

The 1st Crower cam is the one that I have in my Power Wagon and it would smoke the 35" tires at ease and it ran 15.5 in the 1/4 mile with very poor 60' times because it was spinning badly. Slight lope, no valve train noise and 14" of vacuum at an idle. This would work well with your project although the 2nd link may be more in line with what you are looking for.

http://www.crower.com/index.php/camshafts/mopar-350-440-b-compu-pro-hydraulic-cam-271-hdp.html

http://www.crower.com/index.php/camshafts/mopar-350-440-b-compu-pro-hydraulic-cam-267-hdp.html

I have not heard of that dislike on the Edelbrock heads. I have a gripe about the Edelbrock smallblock heads that I originally ordered due to a core shift on the exhaust ports and they refused to acknowledge it as a problem, so I sent them back to Summit and ordered a set of Mopar heads that I am pleased with. Same engineering, but better casting and quality control though Mopar.

The bowls in the exhaust ports also all had a sharp step to the left.

IMG_0692.jpg

IMG_0692.jpg
 
The rough or slightly rough surface should be reserved for the intake ports. The combustion chambers and the exhaust ports optimally should be smooth or polished.

I have used the Comp Xtreme energy cam in a 440 but it was the 230/236 duration @ .050" and it has excessive valve train noise. It pulls really hard, but I personally am very dissapointed in the noise, and if you do some searching, people are complaining about premature wear on their valvetrain.

The 1st Crower cam is the one that I have in my Power Wagon and it would smoke the 35" tires at ease and it ran 15.5 in the 1/4 mile with very poor 60' times because it was spinning badly. Slight lope, no valve train noise and 14" of vacuum at an idle. This would work well with your project although the 2nd link may be more in line with what you are looking for.

http://www.crower.com/index.php/camshafts/mopar-350-440-b-compu-pro-hydraulic-cam-271-hdp.html

http://www.crower.com/index.php/camshafts/mopar-350-440-b-compu-pro-hydraulic-cam-267-hdp.html

I have not heard of that dislike on the Edelbrock heads. I have a gripe about the Edelbrock smallblock heads that I originally ordered due to a core shift on the exhaust ports and they refused to acknowledge it as a problem, so I sent them back to Summit and ordered a set of Mopar heads that I am pleased with. Same engineering, but better casting and quality control though Mopar.

The bowls in the exhaust ports also all had a sharp step to the left.

I like the first cam that you posted, I want to try with it and If I don't like the results I'll consider a change for the second camshaft. I was inspecting the camshaft specs but it only talks about 383 and 413 engine, what happens with 440? and what lifters and springs should I use with that camshaft to get better results?

A moment ago I was reading about BB cylinder heads and some web pages said that the most common heads has 84CC combustion chamber but in some web sites, I read about a head with 72CC combustion chamber and was similarly to the fast burn heads of small blocks. What can you tell me about this and what would be better?
 
Stick with 360 I am definatley a BB guy mainly because SB heads suck from about 72 till late eighties. If your not building for max power the heads will not hurt to bad. If you had a BB right there and trans and all the extras sure what the hell, but you will be way ahead to work what you have 4 bbl and a good intake, SB in c body put some headers on if still not enough change heads, cam, trans
 
I like the first cam that you posted, I want to try with it and If I don't like the results I'll consider a change for the second camshaft. I was inspecting the camshaft specs but it only talks about 383 and 413 engine, what happens with 440? and what lifters and springs should I use with that camshaft to get better results?

A moment ago I was reading about BB cylinder heads and some web pages said that the most common heads has 84CC combustion chamber but in some web sites, I read about a head with 72CC combustion chamber and was similarly to the fast burn heads of small blocks. What can you tell me about this and what would be better?

I noticed the 440 was missing from the list also, likely just an editing mistake.

All the B/RB cams will be the same, other than they could be a single bolt cam gear or a 3 bolt and the timing sets will also interchange.

The different big blocks are broken down to show the characteristics of that particular cam in a certain engine, as a more agressive cam will be milder in the larger 440 retaining a better idle and low end reponce than the same cam in a 383 or 361.

Either on the Crower site or hopefully a Summit/Jegs etc. sales tech could tell you of a recommended valve spring. They will likely be a single spring with a dampener. The Comp # that comes to mind is a 911, but I'm not certain, so I would double check if Crower doesn't have something reasonable. I would try to stick with Crower lifters and springs if possible, and don't let anyone talk you into the bleed down type lifters. My cousin has a set in his Ramcharger and they are inconsistent and noisy. It makes the engine sound like a POS at times.

The main open chamber heads (84+/-CC) will be the 906, 346, and the 452 all being quite similar, but the 906 was an earlier head and will not originally have hardened valve seats for unleaded fuel as would be the case for any of the smaller chambered, closed chamber heads. For pump gas on a daily driver I would stay with any of the open chamber heads with hardened seats and with piston choice, get your compression ratio around 9.5:1.

Also note if your C Body is '74 or newer you will need to get special motor mounts when you currently have a smallblock sub frame, and Schumacher is the only source that I know of that should have something. Monaco75/Zack may be of assistance, as he has been considering the switch to a bigblock also.
 
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