72 Dodge torsion bars - upgrade needed from a 360 to a 400 ?

[marko]

we are looking at swapping a 400 into a car that originally was a 360. should the torsion bars be upgraded or are we ok with the original ?
project hasnt started yet, just gathering info & parts at this stage
thanks,
mark

 

[Davea Lux]

we are looking at swapping a 400 into a car that originally was a 360. should the torsion bars be upgraded or are we ok with the original ?
project hasnt started yet, just gathering info & parts at this stage
thanks,
mark

You should be fine with factory torsion bars for normal driving, you might need to jack the car up and add a turn or two to the torsion bar tension bolt to get the car level as the 400 is a heavier engine. Dry engine, 360 is about 560lbs vs 400 at about 620lbs. Not a lot of difference.

Dave

 

[marko]

thanks Dave, thats exactly what we needed to know

 

[CBODY67]

If you put an aluminum intake on the 400, the weight will be closer to that of a normal 360, too. Moreso if you replace the cast iron exhaust manifolds with headers, or even full-tilt aluminum cyl heads.

Enjoy!
CBODY67

 

[saforwardlook]

If the 360 is in good running condition I would keep it instead of replacing it with a 400. The 360s just felt more responsive, peppy around town compared to the factory 400 setups assuming both are 2 bbl carburetor versions. The 360s had higher stall torque converters and the 400s had the lower stall converters for smooth but unresponsive performance down low. Thus the 360s wouldn't excel in the fuel consumption aspect but the tradeoff was worth it in my opinion. The 400s were better at high speed cruising and passing power on the highway.
I enjoyed driving the 360-2 engines around town while the 400-2s were unresponsive and a dull experience by comparison.

 

[marko]

i'd also prefer the 360 in this case, but unfortunately the original 360 is gone, it was replaced with a 318 in the early 1990s.
the car has been in storage since 1996.
it hasnt been started since then, but we hope to retrieve it from storage in may.
we want to have the 400 as a back up if the 318 is a dud.
the 400 is a 2v but has 70 383HP exh manifolds
it runs very smoothly and quietly, it was in this car :

saved from the crusher

got a call last weekend, saying if we wanted a rough 70 chrysler, we'd better get to the scrapper right away because it was going to be crushed in an hour... so we headed over in my buddy's flatdeck. its a 70 Newport convertible with buckets, console shift, pw, tilt & tele, an AM 8 track, auto...

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