318 - Intake, 4BBL, Cam - Who regrets the upgrade?

[kkritsilas]

Now that you mention it, I recall reading that about losing compression too! Haha. Weird how things come back. When it comes to 318/340/360 talk I get a bit confused and its likely because I am trying to learn too much at once. I have decided to get it running with the Lean Burn, pending it doesn't require any substantial investment. Then I will carefully plan swapping it out with a thought out system. It would seem inevitable that if I am to lose the Lean Burn I will need to swap in a new carb and intake... and ignition as well?

I was at the wrecker but they only had a '78 Cordoba with a Lean Burn. Nothing to poach. When there I tried to look at wheels but am unsure the offset of the Mirada wheels - so he wasn't really able to show me without knowing what I needed.

The wheel thing sidetracked me and I totally forgot to ask about the Edelbrock intake though - DOH! On my way out tho he told me of a wrecker who has a lot of Mopar stuff I will contact tomorrow and see what he may have based on my list of things to find.

Factory wheels should be the same (bolt pattern, offsets, most likely width, but not sure about the last) between the B Bodies and our cars. The styling will be different, but if you like them, they will fit. I personally think the wheels on our cars (either the 5 on 5s, or the snowflakes) are the best looking wheels for either our cars or the B Bodies, and ours are aluminum alloy, not steel like the Ralleye or Magnum 500s.

 

[Mopar&vettedude]

I just got done swapping to a hei based set up on my car to get rid of the lean burn, and wow what a difference. The car performs so much better and this is with the stock 2 barrel on it right now.

 

[Monkeyed]

I just got done swapping to a hei based set up on my car to get rid of the lean burn, and wow what a difference. The car performs so much better and this is with the stock 2 barrel on it right now.

If your lean burn was ailing, switching to a healthy setup will net you big gains. I'm guessing going from a well running stock lean burn to an hei wouldn't be very noticeable. Without knowing your whole story, that's just an educated guess.

 

[Dr Lebaron]

If you have 2.2 gears, like most Chrysler Fifth Ave's, a 4bbl isn't going to do much except look non stock and suck more gas.
If you have to change the ignition, might as well keep the 2bbl theme until the rear end is upgraded.

Exhaust is another to get the motor breathing.
I just did one last week on a 86 F/A
Started with a Canadian Y pipe, right down a straight pipe to a Flowmaster 40 and then the tail pipe.
Not recommending the Flowmaster, but I had some free new ones laying around collecting rust.

 

[Jack Meoff]

Agreed.
The biggest performance gain out of the gate is swapping those gears.

 

[Monkeyed]

Rebuilding /cleaning/soaking my 2bbl figured as long as its apart it'd be nice to have a side by side comparison with a thermoquad for bore size. As you can see the primaries on this tq are actually a touch smaller than the 2bbl, and the secondaries... Cripes if that don't make a difference,.. I think the point about as long as you keep your foot out of it , you should be able to get as good, if not better mpg from the tq,

 

[Mopar&vettedude]

The car ran great and drove ok, but at the same time the car was a dog especially since i put the exhaust on. It kind of did what the tq did, it would punish you for laying into the throttle too much. Idle wise the car runs just as good if not better than with the lean burn, Throttle response and overall performance while driving the car is a major difference. I'm actually thinking about just putting a performance 2 bbl on it and calling it a day.

 

[80mirada]

The best performance upgrade for fmj bodies, is a numerically higher ring and pinion. 2.2, and 2.4 gears are great for mileage, but are to damn high unless you have a trans with a super low first gear .