fellow mopar fans i am a 23 year old with a 79 dodge magnum and im tired of these ricers around here! I have a 360 on a engine stand right now which i would like to go in place of my 318. couple questions i need some expertise on. my 360 has the stock "dished" pistons in it which i know arent friendly in the compression department. what pistons should i go with that will give me the highest compression for 93 octane? im assuming speed pro or kb flat tops? which ones? also i will be running ported j heads. which heAd gaskets as well? Would there be any cam recommendations you guys would suggest? probably looking for high lift low duration for torque? also what valve springs would you guys recommend? im also assuming a dual plane intake instead of a single? will prob run something in the 700 cfm range. i will also be buying a stall speed and be running about 391-410 gears. 2500, 3000 stall? lots of questions i know just hard to get help around my area with all the mustang and camaro guys running around. the pistons are probably my biggest question. thank you all very much!

KB107 is a popular piston option, make sure the piston to wall clearance is correct.
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/uem-kb107-030

Thinnest affordable head gasket you can find
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/mrg-1121g/overview/make/dodge

Cam will depend on if you want to stay hydraulic flat tappet or if mechanical is an option. For a basic street/ strip ride something around 230-240@.050 duration and .500 lift is good. If you're staying stock rockers i'd pick a hyd flat tappet cam around 230/230@.050 and .480 lift

Dual plane, edelbrock RPM or equivalent.

3.91 or 4.10 is fine.

Opt for more stall rather than less. I'd try for 4000 stall. I daily drove my dart for years with a 4700 stall 9.5" PTC converter behind the 340, dont be scared, it only stalls that high with your foot to the floor.

You will need to know the combustion chamber volume to get an accurate number on the compression. Of course the piston to deck will play into it also, a piston at zero deck will make more compression than a piston that's .020" in the hole using the same head.

My advise would be to call Dave Hughes at Hughes Engines and explain what you have and what you're wanting to do and let him recommend a combo that will work with your heavy car.

Here are two 360 combos that i have run. Very similar cast piston short blocks but different hydraulic cam and different converters. The bigger cam as expected needed a looser converter. If I was going to do the 360 in the Duster over I would stick to a 224@.050 cam with a 108 or less lobe separation like I had used in the Valiant but with a looser converter then the Valiant.The other difference is transmissions (727 Duster) (904 Valiant). Below I copied and pasted 2 of my previous post.

This is my Duster,
Finally got the Duster into the 11's. After I lost first round cause I sucked driving the finish line I decided to take some weight out of the car and see if I could get into the 11's. I weighed the car before the 1st time shot 3,495lbs. with me in the car. 1st. t/s the car went a 12.182/109.57 2nd. t/s 12.180/109.79. 1st. round 12.137 on the brakes was going a 12.12 something going off the 1000' so I didn't kill much. As I mentioned I sucked driving the finish line cause I was .004 on the tree. Anyhow since I had lots of time to kill I took out the spare tire and the 50lb. plate that I had under the tire along with all the hold down hardware and went up and made a t/s the car went 12.022/110.81 with a so far best 60' of 1.640 I weighed the car after the pass 3,390lbs. Next I took out the pump spray bottle from behind the seat and a small toolbox and I cooled the car down to 105 degrees go in the water at 125* and the line at 135* the car went 11.943/111.80 and 1.634 60' weight after that pass was 3,370. It's not bad for a cast flat top 360, 9.9 compression, 232/237@.050 hyd., mild pocket ported 2.02/1.60 J heads, LD340 vac.750, heddman 1-5/8" header, 3" summit exhaust with dynomax ultraflows, point's dist. with a super coil, 3.91 gears, 255/60/15 M/T drag radials, 727 trans.. It gets driven on the street but not to far because I have a water pump drive on it and an 8" converter right now. Any suggestions on making it go faster without spending money are welcome.

This was my Valiant,
My 360 started as a .040 over Napa rebuilt short block. I took it apart to check everything. I had the block decked (deck .015 head 63cc., gasket .028, compression 10.51)reversed the cast dished pistons on the rods and put in good rod bolts and had the rods resized. I put in an old Manley cam that I had. 443 lift 224@.050 I don't remember the lobe seperation but I think it was around 108. I used J heads pocket ported with 2.02 int. valves and 273 adj. rockers an LD340 intake with a 1" 4 hole spacer and a Vac. 750. For exhaust I used heddmen 1 5/8" headers, 3" exhaust with ultra flows ending at the axel. I used a 904 with a Dayco 2,400 stall converter and an 8 3/4 with 3.91's the slicks were 8"x 26"x 14". Suspension consisted of 6yl. bars and comp. eng. adj. shocks in the front and 002/003 superstock springs with Mopar perf. 50/50 xtra long shock in the rear. The car was a 70 Valiant 4 door it weighed 3,320 with me in it. With an electric water pump drive, 5/16" fuel line with holley mech. fuel pump and a homemade fresh air intake (dryer hose and a dual snorkle air cleaner)the best run was 11.96/113 but it typically went 0's and teen's in decent air at Atco and E-Town. Typical 60'was low 1.70's. With a looser converter maybe around 3,500 stall it probably would have gone 11.70's or 80's.

If you have some extra cash you can consider stroking it.

Stock size valves or 2.02" intake valve?

Might want to check Hughes Engines, they have the 4.00" cast stroker cranks on sale for $189.95

http://www.hughesengines.com/Index/products.php?browse=category&level0=WC0gQ2xlYXJhbmNlIEl0ZW1z

There's a reason why those cast Eagle stroker cranks are on clearance. Just sayin'

Buy one, get two.

The cast cranks are not as strong as the forged ones, and I have seen two break, but those were in low 11 second, high 10 second cars. I don't think the crank is likely to break running under 400 HP?

Cheap 360 for heavy car recipe:
KB107 or KB190 pistons, w/.030 top ring gap
Scat SCA-26123 rods
Stock crank turned .011, .021, or .031 U.S. as needed, and balanced
Rebuilt factory heads w/$500-$600 port job-- avoid 308 castings as pushrod hole is huge and limits pushrod pinch porting.
Racer brown ST-21 Camshaft--254* at .050 and .520" lift
273 Rocker arms
Comp 7822-16 push rods
Comp 995-16 springs
performer rpm air gap intake
Holley 750 vac sec. carb
Cometic C5633-027 head gaskets if pistons are below deck, .040 if zero deck, expensive but re-usable and wont blow. Use ARP head bolts
9 1/2" or 10" tq conveter-Dynamic or Turbo-Action
4.10 gears-- you may want to find a 9-1/4 rear-end from a magnum gt or 79 "300". 8 1/4 will hold up for a while.
Would be enough engine for mid 12s 1/4 mile in 4200lb car or truck-- It will think it's a big block.

79 "300"--360/442 c.i. sm block--587 production heads--full exhaust to the rear bumper with 4 mufflers--4150 lbs. on the scale at LORP in Indy--11.40s at 117mph 1/4 mile--7.20s at 94mph 1/8th--1.57 60ft--13 mpg on highway during Dragweek 2015--There is more in the 442 c.i. engine--had no time to tune as it got started for first time 3 days before dragweek and got wrecked in Chicago--finished dragweek but parked until fixed.



Old 408 engine-- new 442 looks exactly the same except clean

Sorry been away a from my computer but thank you all! It has a 9 1/4 in it already factory non ac car ( very weird options ) so what I think I'm going with so far is 360 block kb107's no deck on block or heads, j heads with nice port job stock valves, good thin head gasket, ( I have a set of 273 adjustable rockets actually laying around, good choice?) 484 purple shaft cam, edelbrock performer rpm and around 750 vac secondary carb. 3,000 stall. Is there any major flaw in this set up? And wow that duster and valiant moved!!

inside the 360 look good?

Buy a real, good, cam Stay away from the Mopar purple shafts Call Hughes, Mancini and some other good Mopar vendors for some good cam advice

I just put together a 360 with a Comp Cams Extreme Energy EX274H cam.
Crane 1.6 rockers
.520" In - .523" Ex (230* In - 236* Ex @ 0.050")
Icon flat tops
4000rpm stall converter 10"
4.10 gears
727 manual valve body
1971 Dart

It runs real good!

Got any problems driving the car with the 4,000 stall? And never under stood the inches on converters..

Diameter of the case, generaly the smaller the case the higher the stall.

Make sure you have it balanced. KB pistons are a bit lighter than stock pistons, which will knock the factory balance off a whole lot. Make it worth while and put the scat I-beam rods in it as well. They are 150 grams lighter than a 360 rod and have 7/16" cap screws. Makes a nice lightweight assembly that will rev quickly.

If I were you, I would junk the 318 and the 360. Find a 90's 5.2 or 5.9 magnum out of a pickup. The magnum engine with have decent compression pistons, moly rings, and heads that flow better than your old junk. 300-500 bucks should be able to get you a good runner you can just drop in. I wouldn't even open it up, other than to change the intake manifold if you want to go carbed. If you check on ebay and the mustang forums, you can find good deals on new and used centrifugal superchargers for 5.0L mustangs. Toughest part would be fabricating your supercharger mounting bracket. Put it all together with an otherwise stock engine and you should be looking at 350-400hp. Add headers and a cam upgrade and I would expect 450hp. Best part is if you blow it up you go find another donor engine to drop in.

I would try to find a complete 2wd 92-95 ram truck or van as a complete donor, because the overdrive transmission would be a good score/upgrade for your car. Throw your old junk in the box after and send the shell off for scrap.

Talk to AJ at BGR,he has built a few small blocks and knows the diffrent combos for specific builds.

Dakota guys are putting down 550whp with stock 360's and turbos tuned by flyinryan tuning.