All for the love of the Hobby...

M

MoPar_Jamie

Well-known member
OR, how to kill a day, MJ-style!

Well, to start out, a few weeks ago, I found out my new '78 Monaco 2-dr HT had a dead cylinder, number-two to be exact. Burnt valve. Was going to swap heads, but decided to swap in a later motor. Found one in a JY and today I was able to retreive it, but NOT before putting dang near 75-100 miles on my Truck and using up about a half tank of gas! I'm on E right now and broke, so I gotta drive the '78 (been doing that) despite the bad cylinder. So, lets get to the Good, bad, and Ugly of my latest motor donor:

88wreck1.jpg


The good, complete, running '88 318-2v with good trans behind it, drove right out of yard. 114k miles, sounds pretty good for sitting 4 years!

88wreck2.jpg


The bad: Its in an '88 5th Ave, which really isnt that bad of thing, being RWD and all, but the ugly....

88wreck3.jpg


WHAM! Thats all there really is to say, but NOBODY got hurt in that wreck! Guess it was because of winter weather, they got T-Boned by another car. Yes it is as bad as it looks, buckled roof, floors, frame, and all. Even the drivers seat is jammed up against the pillar and the drivers rear door is held closed by rope cause it wont latch. Deck wont even close.

88wreck4.jpg


Even uglier, and not talking about the driveshaft in the back!

So, how did your day go?
 
No, that's a standard 5th Ave grille... and I'd need the whole front fascia for Lump's car. Shipping would kill me. [smilie=s:

For some reason, I was under the impression your '78 Monaco was a big-block. [smilie=think.gif] Those '85-up roller motors are nice, smooth performers. Not a ton of horsepower, but with a non-ESA carb, standard electronic ignition, and freed-up exhaust, they're certainly adequate for a driver...

...and when you're done with it, you can sell the 302 swirl-chamber heads from that 318 to one of the increasing number of twinkies who think they're awesome performance heads. :D
 
Well, I picked it up for $275. I gotta give the body back though, but not after getting what I want off it, plus it saved me the sales tax on buying the whole car. So yeah, I plan on stripping quite a few parts off it before sending it back.

EDIT: My '78 already has dual 2 inch pipes with Glasspacks and no converters, and its also been converted to regular electronic. Hoping with this motor and trans in the car it will get 20 MPG.
 
yea, i also thought that monaco was a BB car.

I still dont quite understand why youd swap a engine in that you didnt know the previous owner before youd just pull the heads and do a valve job...
I also think 20mpg might be alittle hopeful. I'd say closer to 15. keep in mind that 318 will have to work relatively hard to pull that big car around. they're heavy.
 
No thats my brown '74 4-dr thats the 400 car. As for the numbers, well, its pulled a best of 15 already with that dead cylinder, so the numbers cant do anything but go up especially with that '88 motor (302 heads, 9:1 compression).
 
Couple of notes, Jame, just to try and help you out a little:
  • The 1988 engine was 8.6:1 compression, not 9:1. Cop cars were 8.4:1.

    Glasspacks (bullets, cherry bombs, etc.) are easily the absolute-worst-flowing mufflers money can buy. Those little louvers inside cause more backpressure than two stock mufflers end-to-end. On a 2" system, it's like having a ?" straight pipe for the length of the muffler... and they sound stupid, to boot. Get rid of them as soon as you can.

    302 heads are junk, regardless of what shops that would sell you a set would like for you to believe. They are not swirl port (they're swirl chamber, and upsizing the valves eliminates the swirl effect), they do not flow well, and a 1.78/1.50 valve combination won't help efficiency or horsepower--you already have that. It's interesting to note here, for the two hundredth time, that for everybody's wailing about how great the 302 castings supposedly are, that Chrysler saw fit to use 360 heads on every single LA-series 318 4-barrel ever produced. Once again, I'd like to point out the Hot Rod Magazine 318-build article* in which they did well over $1500 worth of machine work and porting on a set of 302 castings... the result being heads that flowed considerably worse than a stone-stock 340 J head with the same-size valves. Yet they yammered on about them being good anyhow... surely to please their sponsors who sell ported cylinder heads.
Were it my car? I'd just swap the heads for 360 units, and get rid of the glasspacks.

*("Junkyard Jewel", April 2003, p76)
 
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