318 muscle car?

[rm21g4]

What do you people here think about this thread? I cant help but agree that a 318 charger is not a muscle car. I own a '71 charger with a 318 and a '71 Super Bee with a 383 and I dont consider the 318 charger a musclecar. I dont even think of my 318 '74 road runner as a musclecar either. http://www.dodge-charger.com/Charger/in ... adid=51780

[juniork]

I usually go by the car, not the engine. I think they are both muscle cars, just not as fast or as disirable as others.

[wissman]

So what is the cutoff engine size for a muscle car? If a 318 says it isn't a muscle car, is a 340 also too small to be a muscle car. If thats the case I will gladly point to some examples that say otherwise.

[rm21g4]

I think 340 cars are considered muscle cars. I saw were the muscle car club didnt think 340 cudas were muscle cars. People on ebay tend to try and hype up a 318 satellite or charger to try and make more money off of it.

[JosephGiannini]

I do believe in my opinion the term muscle meant reasonable horsepower naturally aspirated for low cost. To me the 318 is the definition of this.

Car Craft Magazine Builds a 400HP Bolt-Together Chrysler 318

The Little Mopar That Could
A 400HP Bolt-Together Chrysler 318

By Steve Dulcich
Photography: Steve Dulcich

Some engines have always been considered performance lightweights. You know, the pushovers that never get any respect. Count among this group the 307ci and 305ci Chevy, the 400M Ford, and the 318ci Mopar. Some guys would rather lie than admit to having one of these mills under their hood. In the case of the 318 Mopar, there are rabid fans, but more as admirers of its anvil-like durability than breakneck performance. For most of its production life, the 318 was a bread-and-butter two-barrel economy offering. The 318 debuted in 1967 but was not blessed with a four-barrel until over a decade later in 1978. By then, deep in the smog era, it was too late even for the 318, rated at a meager 175 hp, while its 2V cousins cranked out a lame 120 hp.

Sure the motor is displacement challenged, but the bore/stroke relationship at 3.91/3.31 is pretty good. Sure the bore is a little under the "magic" 4.00-inch mark, but not by much, particularly after a rebuild. Stacked in the motor's favor is an excellent rod ratio of 1.84:1, and like all small-block Mopars, it carries factory 18-degree valve-angle heads with an advantageous spark-plug position at the top of the combustion chamber.

On to the dyno, we bolted a set of TTI 15/8 to 13/4 step headers to the 318, along with a 750-cfm Mighty Demon carb on a Wilson 1-inch-tall tapered spacer, and an MSD distributor. We clocked 400 hp at 6,100-6,200 rpm, with 382 lb-ft of torque at 4,900 from this bolt-together package.

We took the block to Precision Speed in Delano, California, for cleaning and machining. We were after a zero deck with stock rods and a set of KB 167 pistons. Precision uses the BHJ fixture seen at the rear of the block to index the decks to the centerlines of the main and cam bores. The factory decks were way out of square

By Steve Dulcich

[71383bee]

I think that the term changes over time. In the 70's or early 80's a 318 charger would not have been considered a "muscle car". But today due to the rarity of 60's to 70's cars I would consider it a muscle car, especially if it has been preserved fairly well and kept in decent shape. I think the selling point is the nostalgia behind the nameplate or body style that makes it a "muscle car". If you walk out into a parking lot and there is a decent old charger parked in the lot most people's imediate reaction (if they notice) is to consider the car a "muscle car", regardless of what's under the hood.

Just my opinion I suppose, but I like to think that my 72 satellite is a "muscle car"!

[racedodge]

to be honest, a true definition of a musclecar is a 2 door sedan, post or coupe that has a large hood and trunk area, with a very powerful motor. i.e. tempest, GTO, Charger, etc. etc.

This definition rang true for the 60's and 70's. Musclecars were ones that could knock your socks off with a powerful motor and still haul the family of 6 around town.

In the 80's, this definition began to morph into GN's, TA's, Camaro's, and some even would say the Omni GLHS (its a stretch, but yes they said it).

In the 90's and now, the V8 power in the 2 door sedan has taken a long time to develop. The cars are mainly FWD, and hardly anyone would expect a FWD vehicle to be a musclecar. The late 60 and early 70 mustangs, camaros, challengers and cudas really are not musclecars, they are pony cars. But today we have no problem recognizing them as musclecars. So, people tend to revert back to past images, movies, or stories from Grandpa and Dad to further define what a musclecar is.

It is more a generalization nowadays to what a muscle car is to be. For instance, those in the 60's and 70's stated their GT's, R/T's, 6 packs, GTO's, Yenko's, Shelby's were all musclecars, which they were. They were a step ahead of the base model turd /6, 318 type of cars that did not have the same amount of power. The owner's had to separate their vehicles from the rest of the pack, considering there were so many of the pack to try and separate from.

Fast forward to 2004, the pack has thinned its herd to just a minor percentage of what they were 30 some odd years ago, and the need to be different from the pack is no longer a mainstay. Now those 6 packs, R/T's and all have no problem being classified as a musclecar along with 318 cars. Why, because there is no longer competition fed ego's to push such a separation.

Owner's of "musclecars" today realize that such a separation would only weaken their hobby in the long run, plus they understand that a 318, when properly built, can hand a 440 owner his azz in the quarter if not prepared.

To end this long tiring thesis, I will say this. When asking a friend of mine if she wanted to buy a 74 Charger with a 318 for her son (who is in high school) she replied, " Hell no, why would I want to buy him a musclecar?"

[71383bee]

Right on! Could not have said it better myself. Well I tried, but your thesis is much more descriptive and to the point.

[73 runner]

The 318 was never considered a HP engine.