I have a '76 Power Wagon I'm trying to bring back to shape in order to turn it into a winter truck / tow my 18' boat or a car on a trailer when I need to. It's a 4x4 truck, kingpin D60 front and D60 rear on stock truck tires now but going to be on 34x12.5s soon.

My goal is mostly torque and something that's not going to eat a hole in my wallet with gas, although with no OD and 4.11 gears I'm already kind of shooting myself in the foot here.

Currently it has a big 440 sitting in it with a large (no idea the specs) cam and a holley 700 DP on top. Other than that I believe it's mostly stock. If it matters I can try to pull away the grime and find what casting the heads are at some point. Sucks gas like crazy but will roast the tires whenever I want...lol.

To the point: I like the idea of keeping the 440, but I think in the long run would it be better if I just put a small block in it and call it a day? Plus, I could keep the 440 for something more worthy of the power (charger?.. drop it into my dakota r/t?... who knows hahah).

I can get my hands on a 360 magnum for basically nothing, throw an eddy carb intake and an LA dizzy on it and a small cam and call it a day.

Which would work better?

Are you planning on rebuilding either one? 360's aren't known for milage. If you were building one, I'd do either. I would build the biggest engine I could. Both engines respond well to stroke.

I am planning on rebuilding whichever one I decide to go with, yes. Right now the cam bearings in the 440 are wiped.

That being said, a new bottom end and balancing really isn't in my budget. Stock bottom end is a must, but I'll still go in there and replace all the bearings and hone the cylinders while I'm at it.

I've been looking up heads/cam combos for both, obviously going carbed but also need suggestions on what intakes are good for low end torquey motors

Are you planing on building a transmission at this time also?

I would stay with the 440, just go with an rv cam, vac secondary carb.
Lifting the truck & big tires will shitcan your mileage also.

No matter what you do, gas mileage will be bad.

My stock 89 w250 auto with 4:11's will get 12mpg, the stock 76 d300 dualie dump with a 400 2 barrel carb, np435 and 4:56's gets 8mpg.


Live with it........


Ed

440 hone re ring mild 220--226 duration cam, Qjet carb, 14degrees initial timing 36 total all in by 2800 12 degree vacuum advance for a total of 48 to 50 at cruise and 60 mph will get you 15ish mpg. The holly double pumper on a truck will just use fuel to use fuel. Yes you could tune it to do really well BUT can you tune yourself to be fuel efficient using it?.

"Which would work better?"

Neither.


Park the '76-440.

Take all that hard-earned money you are wanting to blow on tires/lift/engine and:

Buy yourself a 2wd 318/360 2nd Gen Ram (they go for $1000 to $3500 depending on miles) and tow your boat and car hauler without a worry. Drive it all winter and pat me on the back everytime that thing fires up and gets you where you want to be instead of fighting with 41-year old technology.

And, get 15 to 17mpg empty if you drive it right and do some proven upgrades.

I'm in the same boat, so to speak. I have a 74 w200 with a 440 that just developed a knock. I'm building a 360 with 9.2:1 Pistons, .486 cam, scat rods, etc, to toss in there while I pull the 440 apart to fix it. It's been rebuilt once, and I'm hoping that a crank kit will fix it.

Buy the 2nd Gen truck , good idea....if you get a good one.

360's tow well, but gas mileage sucks....440 will do about 3-5 miles better per gallon.
intake Edelbrock Performer RPM
Cam HUG SEH1016BL-12 ,
Carb.. Thermoquaud make sure it works
.
Before I laid my 78 D300 rclb 440 4 speed dually to rest in 2012,
around town it would do about 12mpg on a good day, 14 on a great day.
on the highway about 12 no matter what day , throw 7500lbs trailer it would do 10-12 depending on the hills and speed.

You will never be remotely happy with the 360. I promise you that . Guarrantee you wont see 8 mpg, and itll be a slug.

Stick with the 440. Is it the original engine?

It's not a 360!!! It's a 5.9 mag. There is enough different between the Mag motors and LA motors that the Mags deserve their own monicker.

Here's the biggest question of all...How many trips towing per year and how many miles per round trip?

If it's something like three trips per year for distance of 200 miles or so, the 5.9 Mag will get the job done. You'll just have to drive in the slow lane, although with a jacked up Ramcharger I can't see you doing anything other than that.

A short wheelbase rig like a Ramcharger is too easy for the trailer to steer. When the trailer starts steering, your control goes right out the window. Thank God for electric trailer brakes.

This summer I took a trip in a low mileage Ram 2500. I mostly drove between 70 and 80, with no excursions off the highway. For the whole trip I averaged 13.8 mpg. That's with the bed empty and the tires inflated properly.

There is a whole lot of parts changing, swapping smallblock for bigblock.

I have made several tows over 1000miles using a 318-powered D100. But I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else, and every time I come back from one of those trips, I say never again, It isn't just the semis passing on the uphill, it's also white knuckle time the whole distance.

R.

2nd this approach. I had a similar build; 440, +.030 with tight quench, smallish 224 cam, blueprinted chambers with mild porting, port matched intake, dry film lube and thermal barrier coatings everywhere, headers, with carb (AFB) and ignition tuning to the Nth degree. This sat in a '73 crew cab, 2wd, 3 spd auto, 4:10 gears, 33" tires that was typically operating at 4500-10000 ft in elevation. The thing was a beast. I could pass traffic, going up passes, with a loaded trailer. It averaged low teens loaded or around town and high teens unloaded on the highway.

But, I'd agree with others that a lift kit and 35s isn't going to be stingy with the gas and isn't the best tow vehicle around.

I think either engine could get the job done OK. The 360 might need (even more) gear for good towing with tall tires. Neither would win a fuel economy competition.

There would be a lot involved in changing to 360 and less performance. I also would suggest freshen the 440. Loose the DP carb and "big" cam and get a vac secondary carb and RV type cam. If budget allows, set it up with closed chamber heads with quench and decent CR for both power and economy.

I had a 74 1/2 ton Dodge 318 with 2.92 rear that towing my open trailer with a 64 Savoy on it would gain speed going up steep hills. After the second near miss with trailer sway I went back to the GMC 3/4 ton that was a dog, but safer. No way I would tow anything with a Ramcharger (I had a 1990 one). That 318 really surprised me with the pulling power it had.

Fuel mileage will be crap either way, and since your truck has the 440 in it already, I would stick with it. I'm guessing your 440 is a garden variety low CR 70's smogger 440. Since you don't know what that cam in there is, I would change it to a 10230700LK Lunati cam. It's a mild cam but good for a truck/puller. Stock intake manifold or an edelbrock performer (not the rpm) if you must have aluminum. Headers if you want, however in this case I don't really see them gaining you much of anything. A 2-1/4 dual exhaust would be ample and give you a little sound. Your key will be in the distributor and carb. Recurve your distributor properly, I agree with the numbers dezduster gave. The holley 700dp is a good carb, just not a good carb for a truck or a tow rig. Holley's aren't known for fuel mileage and a mechanical secondary carb is a bad idea on a tow rig. I've had good luck with my thermoquad, others have had good luck with their quadrajets. There's also that holley street demon that looks very nice. I wouldn't look at a conventional holley, even a vacuum secondary carb, for mpg in a tow vehicle.

Put a 5.9 in it. 5.9 Cummins that is. Early VE non intercooled 12 valve is about as simple and trouble-free as it gets.

Well, I am going to use the 1999 Ram 2500 as a benchmark. 13.8 mpg unloaded.

Here's what I spec'ed for a friend's '75 440 powered 4x4 truck. He was getting between 6 and 8mpg unloaded.
KB184 pistons.
Hughes HE1423 camshaft.
Edelbrock Performer
Can't remember carb.
Headers and 2 1/2" duals
MP high perf electronic ignition kit.
Stock 452 heads with fresh valve grind.
The machinist had to work to get the squish right and the compression right, finally left the door at about 9.5:1.

Mileage immediately improved to a hair over 15 mpg. The truck looked better, drove better, sounded better, hauled better, and just generally was better.

If you think about headers in terms of flow, then they don't help. The longer tubes of the headers keep the exhaust pulses separated and exert some sort of a ram tuning effect, that's why they are used.

R.

KB184s are what I used in my build. Yes, they took some work to get squish and compression to work, but once it was there, DANG! I did use the small spec Summit cam and 346 heads. The Hughes cam might get a bit more area under the curve.

While it made loads of torque right off idle, its power wasn't too shabby either. A dyno day with some buddies had my towing motor putting down numbers that made some of their performance builds look weak.

What did it dyno?

I will choose a 440 over ANY small block ANY day. They are proven to get better fuel economy and obviously more power and torque. Plus, it would be sacrilege to remove a big block, especially from a stock BB truck and install a 360! You just don't do it.

This is my opinion as well. In fact, I am trying to get rid of my 2001 4x4 to get a 60's or 70's big block rig. I only use a truck 2,000 miles a year, so fuel mileage means nothing to me.

Me three...no way any SB is is going to be better for towing.

-------------- 440 --------------

Here's my 'stock vs stock' story I've told here a few times over the years.....

Back about '90 I had a '76 Club Cab, 2 wheel drive, 8ft bed, 1/2 ton with a 2bbl 360 in it. No matter what I did, that 360 would give me no more than 12 MPG. Put any kind of weight in the bed, or drive aggressively, I could EASILY drop it down to 8-9 MPG.

I had a '77 440 out of a cop car that I swapped in. I never went in the engine, internally it was just as it was in the cop car. The engine was originally Lean Burn controlled, so I swapped on an earlier TQ and (stock) electronic ignition. I used headers only because I couldn't find manifolds.

Behind the 440, I used a 727 out of a '77 truck that had a tighter convertor than the cop spec hi-stall unit. Out back I had the 3.23 9 1/4 rear out of the cop car.

In day to day driving, I'd get no less than 12 MPG. If I drove sanely, I could hit 14 around town. But, I was addicted to the 4bbl wail of the TQ so, it was usually around 12....

I drove the truck from MA out to Phoenix, AZ with most of my worldly possessions in back when I went to school out there, and actually got 16 almost 17 MPG on the interstate. If I had to guess, I had about 800 lbs worth of stuff in the back.

After the 440 swap, it NEVER dipped into the single digits as the 360 so easily did and the truck was easier and way more FUN to drive (ever throw 18" ft of truck sideways on a twisty dirt road? ) .

Now, I understand even a cop spec 440 , especially a '77, isn't the most powerful engine out there, but the difference between it and the 360 was night and day.

If your doing a lot of towing, its hard to beat the 440 in a gas motor, but its got to be built for towing, not a race car, or a 4x4 car crusher.

Until the efi Magnums, the best gas mileage I ever got out of a truck was with a big block truck. Once the efi Magnum came out, gas mileage was a different story all together. But the Magnum didn't do much better than an average LA 360 when you hooked the trailer behind it, and that was 2-3 mpg less then a big block with the same load, and the big block had more power pulling the load up hills then either small block.

That all said, a Magnum motor with a carb is stupid thinking, it won't perform to the level of the efi in either power or mileage. If your doing the Magnum, step up to the efi as well. I've heard the story about how you can't fix them if they break down on the road. Hey, reality check, unless you can fix your broke down carbed truck on the road, most shops are not equipped to fix a carbed truck either! Then chasing down parts could be a nightmare as well. Then you also have to consider the cost of converting the magnum motor to carbs and standard ignition systems. Its time to learn modern tech, step into the new century, its been here for 17 years already and the last carbs were factory installed 11 years before that.

It would also be wrong not to point out all the stuff that needs to be changed when you put any small block where a big block was. Gene

A carburetor has never left me stranded on the side of the road. For what they cost, a guy could keep a spare one with if he wanted to be paranoid

Between my wife and I, we have probably driven several hundred thousands of miles with efi vehicles and have never been stranded along the side of the road either.

There have been more then a few times when I've helped people with carbed vehicles that were laying along the road dead.

All this means is that now both of us will probably experience our first stranded along the road situation. I've got AAA, I'm good. Gene

Don't temp me with a good time.....it's crossed my mind more than a few times

It's got nothing to do with preferring carbed over EFI. Look at my profile picture...I daily a '99 Dakota R/T every day I know plenty about EFI and how to work on it. But retrofitting an old truck with new hardware and ECU requires tons of time and energy (nevermind cash for the efi setup, complete new gauges, new fuel pump setup, etc...) that is better spent on my daily.

Replying again...like I said converting a '76 truck to EFI is way too expensive and time consuming. And way more money than converting a 5.9 mag to carbed. I already have the carb and I can get an HEI setup for next to nothing. All I'd need is an intake (which I know a buddy who has a spare one) and an inline fuel pump which are damn cheap and have pressure regulators already inside them.

I have no idea to be honest. It may have been a small block truck. This truck was a sort of Frankenstein build my dad did when he was in his 20s...He took his truck that had a good frame and cab and threw in the 383 out of his '67 coronet (which was totalled) and a set of axles out of a donor one ton truck. 383 block cracked (coolant leak + new england winter + refilled with water, you figure out the rest) and replaced with the current 440 from parts unknown.



That's exactly what I'm looking at. Couple times a year nothing serious. If it was serious I'd be looking at newer 2500s. And I don't know where you got ramcharger from it's a W200 crew cab long bed.


I think I'm putting this truck on the backburner for a while. I wanted to get it working but I want to do it right and right now I have better things to be worrying about. The truck has too much sentimental value in it for me to see myself getting rid of it unfortunately.

Thanks everyone for your input and maybe when I get around to revisiting this beast I will come back to you all with updates.

-JC

I converted my jeep to 5.2 magnum efi using a 94 ram engine harness and ECU. The cost was next to nothing using junkyard parts. In your case it wouldn't make sense anyway with you having the big block in there already.

Well, can't explain how Power Wagon went in and Ramcharger came out. I'm blaming all problems on GMO foods these days. A few years ago it was those doggone transfats.

In the meantime, it's fun to plan the project.

R.

A twin stick 440 powered Mopar truck would be a fun rig. Forget mileage these old trucks are not much fun to use daily. Trust me, I daily a 93 D250 that rides a lot better than a lifted leaf spring D300 and whenever I drive the work F250 I'm blown away how quite and comfortable it is.