318 performance problems

Look at the '318 budget build' thread.  
age is no lock on brillance

need more facts on porting 302 heads .cant go on the junk out there cause these heads are full of potental dont want to make the misstake others have made .Help ME ! TELL ME YOUR STORIES  

FIRST THINGS FIRST. THERE IS A LOT OF TALK ABOUT THESE 302 HEADS AND NO REAL STUFF LIKE TEMPLATES TO BACK IT UP ,NO GOOD PICTURES ETHER,I PLAN TO DO THE BEST HOME PORT JOB I CAN DO./WHAT I HAVE GATHERED ,GASKET MATCHING ,SMOUTH OUT THE SHORT TURN RADIOUS, TULIP THE STEMS ,GO W/THE 1.88-1.60'S AND DON'T GO MORE THAN 010'S I DONT HAVE A FLOW BENCH .MAYBE I SHOULD MAKE A TAKE PICTURES AND TEMPLATES ON WHAT NOT TO DO .BUT WHAT IF IT WORKS? TEMPLATES FOR SALE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I HOPE I DIDN'T PISS ANYONE OFF.IS THERE ANY ONE WHO REALY KNOWS WHAT TO DO TO THESE 302'S AND CAN BACK IT UP? WILL THE REAL 302 HEAD PORT TECH.STEP !  

Ma Mopar didn't give the 318 a lot for performance.  It was their bread and butter engine.  Not the cheapest but less expensive parts were used.  This engine could be run very very hard and not hurt it because it didn't have enough power to tear its self up because most people don't know when to back out.  I dont care if its *** German, or U. S. made you can't just hold it to the floor.  A 273 318 340 and a 360 are all L. A. engines.  The 318 can give more people that wide eyed jaw droping look than the other la engines because it ( Ain't supposed to do dat ).  That ain't no 318.  If you don't want to get into the bottom end about the least expensive way to pep up a 318 is to get a set of 302 casting heads. These heads are small port but the combustion chamber is the reason for using them.  The other small block heads have a droped down area at the quinch area and will be very easy to have detonation problems.  302 castings have a very effeciant combustion chamber and will give a lot more power with out the problems with detonation.  The head gasket is another problem.  The blue permatex gasket, that every one uses, has a .039 crush.  The factory gasket is the steel shim gasket with a .015 crush. This raises the heads up .025 thousants which drops the compression down a good bit and tends to make some of the push rods too short and make the valves click.  Find a set of 302 castings with as low as possable miles on them. Use your aluminum intake and make sure the ports match. 273- 318 heads are small port and 340-360 heads are large ports and manifold to head port mis match will not work.  Order the shim gaskets, they are worth it.  Do the dual exhaust deal because it don't do any good to try to put it in if you can't get it out.  And use a comp cams 262-268 extreme energy k-kit.  This cam kit will be the most expensove item of the whole thing, arround 400 dollars, more if you want it nitrated.  There are cheeper cams out there but these are the only ones i've used that will hold up.  This is the bigest cam to use.  Any thing with more duration will make the low and mid range loose power and want be any fun to drive.  The next item is the distributer.  If you know how to calabrate the spark curve set the curve to have an initual 10 degrese plus 24 degrese mechanical in all the way by 2500 rpm and 6 degrees vacuum for a total of 38 to 42 total with a prefured 40 degrese total advance. Mopar performance has a distributer with a performance curve which is already set this way.  They don't cost that much and are good pieces but i've always did my own because I've always seem to always be broke.  "Lord I wish Hard Living didn't come so easy for me".  This is a good 4-barrel set up that will hold up and will be one you will enjoy driving.  I have some 318 builds that are cheap and will "haul buggy".  If you build any of these engines be prepared to fight.  These tree fitty chebaway boys will acuse you of cheating cause a ain't no way a318 will run like that!   Morrisb  

The 302 castings are a good set of heads if you are building a good 4-barrel 318.  Every thing fits and matches.  To go as far as porting and increasing the valve size they are the head for a 273.  More performance oreanted 318s will need the 308 castings.  These heads have the same combustion chamber as the 302s but have large ports, 1.88 intakes, which need to be inlarged te 2.020s, and factery 1.60 exhaust valves.  Smoth combustion chambers, no rough or sharp edges. Use a three angle cut on the seat areas then a pretty port job, smoothe flowing is much more power poten than gouging out the hole, this just causes turbulance and reduces flow which reduces power.  Gasket match and cut arround the push rod area not to get it no thinner than .060 thousants between inside of port and the inside of the pushrod hole.  Grind the valves with a 30 degree back cut, 45 degree face cut then simply round the margen area.  THis margen rounding is for longivity.  A 3 angle or 5 angle grinds are good if you are going for all out competion and pulling the heads after every race to freshen them up.  You will need pistons to bring up the compression to a 10-to-1.  On the aluminum intakes check the port size.  They are usally cast down at the head to fit the small port and will need to be gasket matched  to fit the large port.  302s for 273s 308s for 318s and just simpler and cheaper to use aluminum heads for 340 and 360s  morrisb  

Someone said earlier in this thread that if you were to put 1.88 1.60 valve 360 heads on that the bigger valves would let more air in therefore making up for the loss of compression from the bigger chambers.
Well, not exactly.....not at all really.

THEJMAN, 302 heads ported max out [240's cfm] well before 360 heads do [270-285cfm].

Look at shadydell's web site, I'm not impressed.
The best thing about 302's is the chamber, if they ain't cracked.
If you mill 360 heads down to 62cc or so and leave the 1.88-1.60, bowl blend, leave the pinch and don't enlarge the cross section you will have around 210cfm , good compression, and still decent volocity and of corse lots of power.

Back to 302 heads
raise the roof .030 up to the guide, then blend the bowl to the raised portion and profile the guide long and skinny pointing it to the center of the port window/intake.
Lay/blend the short turn back to the highest point then stop!
Remove the push rod pinch but don't get thinner than .055 and don't gasket match the pinch side! just the roof and between the intake ports, grind the pinch out straight in like the center wall.
Lastly, the straight wall into the bowl is critical to do right or you will have the majority of the flow break up.  
On the exhaust raise the roof .030 and remove as much of the roof kink as possible with out making it too thin or hitting water, from the exhaust seat grind it straight up 'inline with the valve stem'
Then polish the crap out of the exhaust port and gasket match to header gasket.  
age is no lock on brillance

Thanks for the responce. shure is nice to know the real gear heads cant spell and dont use good gramer now I feel at home please exscuse me.Lets talk 302 language. Yes without even putting a guage on the head gasket it looked thin.I need p/n #'s Yes I can tell I dont want to use the new one I have. Now the heads,Someone said whatever done to one port do it to the other seven. Yea right! they have never seen a 302 upside down.I spent eight hours on the first head yesterday.It's just a daly driver so no real serious porting needed is what went through this feble mind,Did smouth out the sharpness on the short turns, And cleaned up casting,and did clean up the int.valve guide tang used the same slope in the boul to smouth out that machinened round attempted to do a tulip center of slope ,Didnt realy feel comforttable changing any thing just a clean up.Now I did gasket match int.with main focus on top side, left the bottom alone.the work around the push rod was only done at the top meaning the int.port is now more like retangular than like a triangle.The exaust port is like three stares it ain't rocket sience to know water is under that hump just isnt mutch you can do there, just cleaned up for a polish.Some surface didnt get nothing more than casting cleaning on both int/ex .A couple more hours spent on the other head than drop off at the machine shop for  1.88/1.60 valves.I do need help finding the right head gasket.Yes thanks for the help .May have to shave the head?  

NOW after the heads come back with the 1.88/1,60 installed, the shop milled .010 for resurfacing reasons .I now have  I now have valve to piston clearance problems. After talking to felpro an avg.crush of .005 leaves me belive head gasket crushed thickness is.052.made some hard plastic shims stacked and taped on several points to mock head gasket checked by feeler blades under the head to establish .052 .Did the clay trick several times and pinched through every time oh yes weak springs holding the valves up .so I hooked up a dial indicator ,Yep! no PVC piston valve clearance .Another problem is the hyd.lifter makes it hard to guage PVC. Looks like .To fly cut pistions I'll still need to know how much ,and how much can factory pistons  take ? .Now got me thinking I do have a spair 360 head take some old valves cut slots with a wiz wheel to make my own fly cutters using a lock collar to set the depth or mabe even take some valves and have some cutting tips welded on them .020 bigger put them in the 360 heads check locations then cut what I need? Is it possible to do the math ? Like add .050 for extra valve size .010 for milled head .001 OAL on one valve and .002 on the other than consider .019 thicker head gasket to come up with a starting point? The scarry thing is how the hyd lifter throws me off on measuring. I dont think the lifter pumps all the way to zero lash? Does the valve spring overide the lifter slightly? Yep need help!! You can call me Dipstick I dont care , just would like to see this combo work.  

A mechanical lifter, push rod and rocker would be nice.

OR simpler, a dial indicator on the retainer along with a lobe measurement to really know what the hell the lift is supposed to be and actually is with a 'MOPAR' factory ratio.....  
age is no lock on brillance

You cannot check v/p clearance with a hydraulic lifter. You need a solid lifter and either an adjustable rocker, or adjustable push rod to set 0 lash when the lifter is on the cam's base circle. Then you can actually check the v/p clearance. There are other ways to do it, but they're a lot more complicated.