Another engine swap question from a newbie....

Well not exactly a newb I been a member here for a couple of years. I used to have a 73 Dodge Charger (Hence the username) but I sold it 5 years ago. Time/Money and a move to a new stat.

Anyway

But I just could not keep away, I just picked up a 73 Roadrunner Lemon Twist in January and I am itching to get it out on the road in the nice weather.

My question for those who continued to read after my preface is this. I want to put in a newer 360 Engine, the 318 in it is showing its age, its not the original and its just a weak motor. And I want to do a swap with something from the later models from a truck or something that has Fuel Injection and better performance.

Is there a topic thread here or maybe a book or some resource that I can use as reference in what I need to do to make this swap?

Is this a wise choice? Should I find a older 70s - 80s 360 instead and avoid all the newer technology?

What's your advice?

I did search threads here but I did not really find much or was not looking in the right places.

Thanks

so it depends.

a 5.9 will bolt in, except 1 of the motor mounts is different. you can add spacers and be fine, or order the correct one from that conversion mount place, and a 360 oil pan and pick up for a car.

If you are trying to do it on the cheap, ordering up a carb intake and keeping everything else the same would probably be easiest and cheapest.

Keeping the factory efi will be the most expensive or labor intensive depending on your budget and time constraints.
you will also either need to take the transmisson as it is part of the computer control/wiring harness, or find a manual truck to get the computer and harness off of.
you can buy an already trimmed harness and computer as well. obviously more expensive than trimming one yourself.
There is more to the transmission part with the factory efi depending on which route you take.

next is to convert to mega squirt. less expensive, but probably as much labor.
but you could reuse your old transmission. you will need parts off a donor truck to mate the factory kick down and throttle cable to the throttle body on the motor.

you could also go with something like fastefi that would run the original injectors like the factory efi, but you would need a high dollar distributor or some other timing thing for that to work.

finally you could put a carb intake on it and go with one of the carb replacement efi setups and a new distributor since it won't be computer controled.

for the most part expect to spend another 1 to 2k on top of whatever you paid for the motor.

Also truck motors push the power steering pump under the battery tray.
van pumps tuck it in a little closer, but the a/c and alt mouting is different between the two as well. you just need to know that for replacement parts.

There was a guy here that swapped a complete 360 Magnum motor, MPFI and all into some 60's iron. The hardest part is retrofitting the fuel system, but it doesn't need to be expensive. Be sure to get Magnum motor and computer from somewhere between 90 and 95. The transmissions were still hydraulically controlled, so the computer doesn't car what transmission is behind it. The VSS should swap over too.

If you wanted simplicity I would bet someone makes an EFI retrofit tank for your car already.

Thank You,

I am thinking of just getting the engine and using an aftermarket EFI. Trying to stay away from complication with electronics but not afraid to spend some change for it. Nothing like 10 or 20k but more like the 4-5k range for a strong reliable motor

so I did mine for around 2k with the motor being around 850 of that when I did it.
I used my original transmission and the original efi parts, but an aftermarket computer.

I would say 3k is really doable, and I would probably have done it like this, if I hadn't done it my way earlier than these parts existed.

I would pull the motor, swap to a carb intake and then pick either ez efi from fast or fi tech and swap. Then pick the standard spark control for the 74 and up mopar to drive the distributor.

for the fuel system, fi tech offers that command unit or some surge tank that someone advertised here.

We did a 5.2 Magnum swap into an '84 Ramcharger. We made money doing the swap. The trick is to buy a complete donor vehicle (in our case a '96 Dakota). We made the swap easy by using every bit of wiring from the '96. We had to extend some wires and wire the heat/AC and wipers separately. We never did get the cruise control hooked up (both vehicles had factory cruise). We paid $750 for the wrecked Dak, sold the wheels (Centerlines) for $450, the trailer I made from the bed for $400. Sold other parts for another couple hundred. We also sold the '84 318 and trans for $150...

Great ideas, thanks for all your suggestions