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In my opinion, there's not enough to gain unless you keep the fuel injection and computer management. Otherwise, simple hop-up stuff to the 318 you already have will suffice.

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Better heads and roller cam...will perform as well or better than a simple hopped-up LA engine while the magnum is mostly stock.

I ran a stock 360 magnum (aside from intake), with stock 1979 manifolds and ran 15.1 @ 91 mph in the little red truck. Using a hughes roller cam (mild one at that) and headers and it felt like a completely different truck...low 14's probable. A similarly hopped up LA probably would have been only a little quicker than the stock-ish magnum was...

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I don't think 15.1 is that much better than stock for an LRT, but I could be mistaken. I'd throw an LA 360 in place of a 318 before I'd go for the same cubes in a swap. I've done a 318 Magnum swap, but it was all the way with the injection and overdrive auto AND it didn't cost me anything. I'd do that again if given the chance, but not without the injection.

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Well, the "stock" engine in an LRT though isn't quite what we consider "stock bread n' butter" LA engine per se.

Don't forget that the stock 360's used a hotter cam of which approximated a "340 cam" (~212-218 @ .050) to get to the 225 net HP. While the cam in the magnum was indeed the stock roller cam that is sub 190 @ .050 in size....the cam I upgraded to was not even as large at .050 than the stock cam typically found in the e58 engine in lrt's...

But for the record, most of the stock lrt's I've seen for 79's were typically in the mid 15's....but in effect, the stock e58 represents you're typical mildly hopped up 360 w/o headers...I think an e58 w/ headers would have been a close match, but mine w/ the same headers and equivalent sized cam at .050, it'd be no contest.

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