PERFORMANCE JUNE 2002
Currently the motor is very original, 360 cubic inch
with 2 barrel carby, it has plenty of low down torque, which is very useful for a car of this size, it still runs the factory 727
torqueflite and 2.77 diff gearing, nice gearing for very long drives and economy, having had my fair share of fast cars in the past, I'm not too concerned about having a 12sec car right now. Just trying to get the best out of what I've got.
One thing that I've noticed is 360's have very loose torque convertors(compared to auto 265's and 318's) couple that with a motor
thats basically all bottom end power and you wouldn't want to go much more than a 2.92 gears,
maximum 3.23 with the stock factory set up to multiply the torque to a higher level. The biggest problem with the stock set up(in my opinion)is the lack of an l.s.d, sure standard 360's are quite grunty but the non l.s.d diff is not very user friendly.
Performance wise
I find the car is very inconsistent with hard launchs, mostly way too much spin, sometimes not enough. but get it right and they're surprisingly quick, I'm sure that others with a similar set up have experienced this as well.
Also keep in mind that the 360 chrysler by chrysler diff was a 4 pinion with 25 spline axles, it looks the same on the outside like most valiant diffs but totally different
inside, just in case you're thinking of throwing one away because they all look the same.
I think fitting an alloy 4 barrel manifold with a spreadbore carby and a l.s.d out back
will give me enough performance, economy, with good street manners.
When the motor needs a rebuild in the future I would put in a larger cam and bump up the
compression to around 9.5:1 instead of 8.8:1 .
I'm in no hurry to change things in a big way as I've had plenty of cars in the past that I spent most
of my time working on, rather than driving them, at the moment it looks and goes ok
so I will try to enjoy it as is, but in time I think I'll go with the l.s.d first, then manifold and carb, and leave it at that until the motor needs a rebuild.(but if i win the lottery I would'nt mind a fully restored E34 pacer and a big tank R/T E38 or E49 in my garage)