Sinking Creek 4WD Association

So this summer I was planning on starting a project engine for my truck. My truck is a 2000 dodge Ram 1500 with a 360/ 5.9L magnum. We had a huge debate over what i n should do in the group chat. The 360 in my truck right now has 220,000 miles on it and its beginning to get kinda tired so i wanted to liven it up again. What a lot of people do with the 360 is stroke it to a 408. Sense this is a project engine and realistically going to take forever for me to build I was planning on getting a junk yard block and work from that. I am very inexperienced with engines but i know the basics of how they work and have been doing a lot of research. I expect to pay anywhere from 3,000 to 6,000 all said and done. I guess what i am asking is where can i make the most bang for my buck? What parts should i invest in and what parts don't make that much difference considering cost. like a flat tappet cam vs a hydrolic roller.

One of the main debates we had was what would be better, a stroked 408 or a turbo charged 360. I am not completely sure how much the price difference would be but I know turbo charging would be more expensive and harder to build. The goal is to pull as much power I can out of the 360/408 (whatever I choose) with a reasonable budget that wont blow up after 75,000 miles. One of the problems that a lot of people said my engine had were the heads. I'm getting better ones but Im not sure if aluminum or steel is the way to go. I would like to get them ported to breath better too because a lot of research suggested that they choked the engine out of a lot of top end power.

I would honestly just rebuild a stock to mild engine and get your feet wet. Putting a cam, some heads, headers, and get the EFI working well is going to be expensive and difficult enough to keep you busy and frustrated. The last guy who talked about building a stroker on this forum didn't and he has a lot more experience under his belt, err I mean hair.

Diesel and one ton swap!!!! Oh wait, theres already one in your parents yard...

If you want longevity, reliability and decent economy in addition to noticeably more power, here are my suggestions:

1. Don't increase stroke. If this motor was going in a toy, by all means get all the cubes you can. For a daily driver or a motor that is going to see even moderate street duty I'd stay away from a stroker, especially one with a 4" stroke. More stroke means more piston travel per revolution, which equates to more heat, wear, and stress on components. There is a reason why most industrial engines use a shorter stroke than their light-duty counterparts: increased longevity and reliability.

2. Build a basic, but stout bottom end. I'm not up on mopar stuff, but I assume the stock crank and rods are good for at least 350-400hp. Have the crank turned, the rods magnafluxed, and spend the little extra money to have the rotating assembly balanced. Use ARP chromoly rod and main bolts. Hypereutectic pistons are a good choice for a street motor, sturdier than stock cast pistons, but without the cold startup clatter (or price) of forged pistons. Do the math based on what cc head you will be using and buy pistons that will give you a static compression ratio between 9:1 and 10:1, 9.25:1-9.5:1 is generally good to run on mid-grade gas.

3. Match your heads, cam and intake to what you realistically want to achieve, idle to 5500 rpm range is probably what you should be shooting for. Again, I'm not up on mopar stuff, but maybe your stock heads, or another stock casting with some port work would do what you want, maybe not. If you go with aftermarket heads don't go too big on the runner size, 185cc or less. In the long run I think iron heads will be the most reliable and easy to deal with, but honestly I don't know if there are many iron aftermarket heads for the 360. If you go with aluminum, buy something good quality. Some of these cheaper newer brands are not what I would consider a quality head, you will have a lot of issues with them. AFR, Trick Flow, Edelbrock and a couple others make good aluminum heads. Be sure to pick a cam that will keep your EFI system happy, there should be EFI specific cams available. Flat tappet is fine for what you are doing, just break it in properly and use quality oil.

I think a well built, naturally aspirated 360, with properly matched components and proper tuning would give you everything you want. The motor in my '79 is just a mild build: 9-9.5:1 compression, port work on stock heads, properly matched cam/intake/carb, headers, etc. When you drop the hammer on it things get violent.

More power means the pieces between it and the tires begin to suffer. Consider what you actually want from the vehicle before you start cramming more power in it.

TerryD wrote:More power means the pieces between it and the tires begin to suffer. Consider what you actually want from the vehicle before you start cramming more power in it.

Yeah I get that, that was one of the other reasons I wanted to do an axle swap. Sooner rather than later I wanted to get that transfer case saver to beef that up. And as for a transmission Id like to rebuild one. I can find them on craigs list for as cheap as 150. Id tear it apart and rebuild it a few times to get familiar with it and then build a built one. And if that all fails I may invest in a pact. But that will be a few years down the road. As long as I don't lay into it too hard too much I'm sure I can baby it enough to make my tyranny last at least another year. I know my truck is not a race car but I still want to make it as best it can be. And if I do end up spending a little more money that want to on it I still get the pride in being able to say that I built everything in it and I can be confident in my equipment knowing it won't fail.