Welcome to the site. You will be right at home. I did basically the same thing and had a great time. The difference is that I didn't stoke mine. I just bored it .040" over for 324ci.. I used several cams and found that the dual quads will be very doable with the right combo. Without the right stuff they are an aggravation. My flaw throughout life has been to be on the conservative side. It doesn't work with the 2x4's. You can have your cake and eat it if you just pull out the stops and do it right.
For my final build which was a blast I had a bottom end which included Ross custom forged pistons with a 9.5:1 ratio, full floating pins, plasma-moly rings, Eagle SIR6123CB rods, Clevite 77 bearings and ceramic/moly coating. I cannot expound enough on the value of the coating. It cost me about $300 extra but in my opinion it was worth every penny. It helps to quell detonation and retains the heat in the chamber to be used for power production instead of transferring to the coolant to increase your operating temps, aka overheating. I used a Power Force #80012 Harmonic balancer. Of course there is the balancing, decking. bore and plate hone and just general attention to detail. Since we are talking poly it must be remembered that we cannot use generic cams nor share exhaust and intake components. The cam lobe order is different than the LA engines and is basically the same as the hemi incl the exhaust. There are few headers made for our poly but the TTI's are superb albeit expensive. Not much fun to install but again worth the money and really needed if you want to play with the 2x4's. There are some oiling mods that are easy and helpful which a machinist steered me onto. He added an extra oil hole in my main bearings, put an aluminum plate over the oval holes above the camshaft area and drilled extra holes in the oil filter plate. I did not use anything other than a standard Melling oil pump as the high volume pump can possibly take too much oil out of the pan, if you have a stock pan, causing starvation temporarily. This said there are many if not most who do use the high volume pump. My final combo did run up to 7500rpm's at the track with no oiling issues. I used a NAPA # 10-3028X , 3 piece adjust-a-hex timing chain and a HD intermediate shaft which you will want.
There are many compatible components with the LA's which incl the front cover, distributor and water pump. The oil pan is also useable but the newer pans use different seals and are considerably more flimsy. I bought one from Mopar and decided to use my old one instead after seeing the difference in quality. I use the Mopar electronic ignition with the orange box and although it is supposed to be good to about 6000rpm's I had no trouble running to 7500rpm with it. The camshaft is going to be a big if not thee biggest factor. I started with fairly stock heads and a 264deg /.450 lift hot street cam from Schneider. It was good to 6500rpm's but the car ran hot very easily and was quite a gas guzzler. I used the Weiand WPD4D with two Edelbrock #1404 with all the choke mechanisms removed and straight linkage. I did play with the progressive but it was totally crappy. I wound up getting a Schneider 284deg /.510 lift solid lifter cam and found the "sweet spot" for my engine then!!! I did opt for some major ported heads with stainless race valves 1.94" int and 1.675" exh w/ 11/32" necked down stems. This new combo without any tuning dropped me down .6 secs in the 1/8th mile over my previous best with the 264 cam!! The car was actually much more streetable, the mileage seemed better and it ran very cool. So I gotta say don't be afraid of a nasty cam.... Also don't be afraid of the solid lifters. I have tried both and the solids are my preference. That is what was stock on 99% of the poly's.
I have a Flow-Kool water pump and was using a 180deg Milodon high flow t-stat. I bought a Summit SUM-381425 alim cross flow radiator which needed a few mods to work for me but is really working great. I had a custom mirrored stainless shroud made and am using an 18" flex fan. I put a B&M trans cooler #70266 in front of the radiator and do not use the engine radiator trans cooler provisions. For fuel I upped to a 3/8" line and pick-up and used a Holley blue electric pump with a mandatory fuel pressure regulator which I set at about 5.5psi. The Eddy's cannot tolerate over 6.5 psi. I found that out the hard way! I'm not too good at reading instructions. It's a guy thing :-) I found that the carbs were prone to evaporate dry very rapidly when sitting and the electric pump eliminates hard starting and stops vapor lock. Another HUGE help was that I threw away my aliminum swirl tork spacers and built a pair of MDX plywood, 1&3/8" spacers for the carbs . This dropped the carb bowl temps from 180deg plus to about 110deg.... Now that really helped. I used a Lokar throttle cable bracket #LOK-TCB-40DQ which orients your throttle and kick-down properly no matter what Eddy carb set-up or spacer height. Of course I did use both Lokar throttle and kick-down cables.
I have a '70 GTX 3:90SG rear-end with drum brakes and disc on front. The converter was a Frank Lupo 3000stall. The trans was re-built with a Transgo shift kit but not a reverse pattern. I use the pushbuttons. The flex plate was a JW Performance XHD SFI solid unit.The trans mounts were Imperial Services PN632229 poly. I use Mobil One syn trans fluid and 10-30 Mobil One syn oil w/ zinc additives. I have 2.5" dual exh with a cross-over and Super Dyno Max mufflers. I put on a pair of K&N #62-1460 valve cover breathers and did not use a PCV as it wasn't evacuating the engine enough and I would spit some oil out the dist shaft at high rpm's. The problem left with the breathers. No one else has had this issue though. I like the NGK-R5670-8 spark plugs. Be careful with the plug choice as with my domed pistons if they are too long they will hit the piston. 3/8" reach is max for mine. A mini-starter is needed for the headers and a wiring upgrade to ditch the ammeter and increase the alt output is very smart. It's not uncommon to have an old Mopar go up in smoke due to a faulty ammeter wire.
I hope I haven't damaged your eyes by now! If you want anymore info just ask.
Rich Kinsley '64 Dodge Polara 4dr LeRoar 318poly w/less goodies
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