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318 magnums will make ALMOST as much power as a 360 magnum. The 318 had a better cam, more compression, and a flat top piston for better flame travel.

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True. You can get a carb to be within a percent or two of an EFI, and at WOT they do tend to make mroe power than acomparable street injection. However, the big advantage of the efi is its learn on the fly adaptability over a wider range of conditions.

With that said though, I've never wanted to put one on my truck beause the payback over the carb I have tweaked within an inch of its life, is so long it would never really pay for its self in fuel savings.

BTW, the new Street Demon carbs are a bit of a hybrid AFB, Thermoquad design. You can get them with a polymer body, they use AFB rods and jets, they have small primaries with a 3 bbl design for the secondaries. Of course they will cost you some dough over swap meet stuff.

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I got 25mpg in the valiant's first version...1-2 mpg better than the original 318 did.

Basic stuff too...basic 360, basic heads w/ 1.88 valves and 3 angle valve job, MP 268 .455 cam, eddy performer, holley 600, MP ignition, headers through 833 OD manual trans and 2.94 gears. Ran 14.2 in the 1/4 and when driven easily (60-65mph) would pull down terrific mileage.

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I'd do an updated version of dave's super duper mileage 318.

1) start with a mag 318. I'd pull the heads, measure how down in the bore the pistons are. should be ~.055 or so.

tear down to bare block, have the block decked ~0.035 to 0.040" and then run the Mr. Gasket .028" thick head gaskets

get the cam reground by bullet, using bullet's HR259/316 lobe for intake and exhaust. more economy, drop to the HR252/320 lobe on the intake

do a little home porting on the magnum heads following dulcich's may 2005 mopar muscle article-- get the heads redone, opening up the valve job to take advantage of the 1.92/1.625 valves. use hughes #1110 springs and retainers. redrill for LA intake

intake, I'd look for an LD340 or LD4B, open up to accept a t-quad, run a small tquad

I'd run headers.

tranny, I'd keep it simple and run an iron case A833OD if I could find one. aisin R154 would be second choice.

rear gear, 3.23's with the A833OD is a nice combo with 25-27" tall tires. if running 27-28" tall tires, you could go to a 3.55.

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318 magnums will make ALMOST as much power as a 360 magnum. The 318 had a better cam, more compression, and a flat top piston for better flame travel.

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and stock for stock in a mid-late 90's ram, a 318 magnum can get ~19-20 or so highway MPG, while a 360 struggles to get 16.

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Funny how pretty much every aftermarket 5-speed option hovers around the 4-5K mark. Its definitely a conspiracy.

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Funny how pretty much every aftermarket 5-speed option hovers around the 4-5K mark. Its definitely a conspiracy.

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In economics they call this a market correction. One vendor took the risk and proved out that people are willing to pay that much for it, so everyone else inches up to the mark and suddenly the whole market is hanging within a few percentage points of each other.

Same thing happens with tubular upper control arms. You'd be hard pressed to put much more than $15 worth of material in to a basic bushing end tubular control arm, yet mopar versions routinly sell for $200+. Because that is where the market it at. At that price, I've figured out how to adapt the $50 chevy units to my car, plus correct the geometry that normally comes with the $600 price tag.

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