I am looking to upgrade to a magnum 5.2 for my 78 LeBaron. I want some more performance vs the smogger 318. I am not building a drag car. Just a mild street car. I know intakes must be swapped. Heads are prone to being cracked. Must use LA 360 car pan. What are my options for cams? I would like to retain the roller lifters. Trying to do this on a budget. Post up any info, tips, stuff to lookout for and most importantly your buildup combos. 78 LeBaron Coupe. 904. 8 1/4 2:94 sure grip.

Your gonna need a torque cam... low on duration..
to build any cyl pressure.. specially with that gear
and the weight... I'm sure others will chime in

Jeff Patterson (Rapid340) has some cams that would work great in that in stock ready to go and cheap. They will work great with the cheap GM V6 valve spring/retainer trick. Just a litttle bigger than stock and slightly tighter LSA and work awesome.

Don't pull the heads, they ARE cracked but they will most likely never cause a problem. If you pull them put em back with the thin Mr.Gasket head gaskets for a cheap compression bump.

Eddy air gap intake.

Long small tube headers.

It will suprise you, they have more compression than the 5.9 and in stock form hard to tell the difference on a test drive.

Bullet will regrind a stock hydraulic roller cam for $120 and they will give you good advice on the phone. The LA318 hydraulic roller cam has a single pattern with 110 LSA which is about the narrowest, the cam can go to around 209 @50 lift and with the 1.6 Mag rocker ratio the .316 lobe lift calculates to .505, except of course for the angular mismatch of the 59 degree lifter.

This is Patrick's suggesting for the motor, he seems to have had really good luck with the combo. Use Hughes 1110 springs and you need to cut down the valveguides a bit for retainer clearance. I'm guessing this is a 300hp engine with good manners.

R.

It will easily make 300hp with an intake and headers, no cam swap needed if thats all he wants. The 300 hp crate motors would make 325 with TTI headers a crappy dual plane m1 and lower compression and smaller cam. The 5.2 has more compression, bigger cam than the 5.9 and flat top pistons (better flame front).

I vote for the Hughes whiplash 5.2 magnum roller cam.

I have a Crane CompuCam roller if you are interested fairly cheap, with 1.7 rockers came out to 460 lift. Was enough to put my porky Duster with 318 manifolds in the low 14's. Too mellow for my taste and was replaced with something a touch rowdier.

Oh and I agree on the heads, don't worry about them. As a tech we never had any leak coolant or cause issues.

Explain about the fuel pump eccentric and what i have to do to run a mechanical fuel pump with stock magnum cam. It sounds like i could get into the power range im looking for with just bolt ons and non restrictive exhaust.

Hughes sells an adapter that allow you to use a mechanical pump

correct. Hughes has the adaptor that bolts onto the end of the short nose roller cams to run a mech pump. 25$ and works great.

Even just leaving the engine stock will net you over 100hp upgrade from your old LA318! It will be like night and day.

run the serpantine magnum set up and a cheap electric pump from auto zone.

gonna be doing the same to an 80 Volare, in place of a /6
(the 318 Magnum that is, not sure on the serpentine deal yet)

here is how my mild 318 Magnum did.

M1 2bbl intake manifold, cheap mid-length headers, 220/230 114LSA cam with just over .500 lift, stock TB, stock heads, and an SCT tune on the OBD-II Computer.

4,000lb truck, stick shift on street tires ran mid 14s, with MPH that indicated low 14s/high 13s possible with traction.