RE: Perhaps a little off topic...

I might as well join the off-topic conversation, too… :P

I never owned a whole 340. Bit I did own a 340 block. In high school, I had bought a ’71 Dodge Polara wagon with a 360. It was a $100, but rust free. Bought it from my power mech teacher, who couldn’t get it running. It would turn over all the way one way, then stop. You could turn it all the way back, and it would stop again. He had bought it from the original owner for $150, as it needed a new timing chain. And this was what he found after replacing the chain & gears. He thought it was a stuck valve, but none were. So he kept the brand new tires, and let me have the rest for $100. When I took it home on a Friday, I told him I was going to drive it back to school Monday. He laughed at me. I was just feeding him a line, I never expected to get it running, but was going to try.

So on the Saturday, I tried to figure out what the problem was. Checked the flex plate bolts, etc. Couldn’t find a single reason why it was doing it. So I started tearing the engine down. When I pulled out the distributor, I noticed a piece of plastic on the distributor drive gear. Seeing as the intake heads, etc, were still on (but bolts all cracked loose), I just re-torqued everything, and dropped the distributor back in. It fired & ran like a dream. So I did wind up driving it back Monday. My instructor was somewhat pissed, as he could tell it was the same engine, but I wouldn’t tell him what I found. I think he thought I knew what the problem was all along, and pulled a fast one on him.

At any rate, I spent the rest of the school year beating the heck out of that car. It was pretty damned fast for a wagon. By the end of the school year, the brakes were a problem. The calipers had started dragging, and I ground the pads into the rotors. Rear drums were warped as well. Yeah, we beat that thing hard. Something I regret now, but it was barely worth the $100 I paid for it back then, even as rust-free and minty as it was. Nobody wanted them.

So, rather than spend the money on brakes, I decided to donate the engine to my father. He ha a ’78 Dodge 1-ton Maxi with a worn out engine. We tried to put the 360 in from the Polara, and the engine casing for the mounts was wrong. So I called upon a hard-core Mopar friend of mine for advice. He checked the engine out, and immediately made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. According to him, the casting indicated it was a 340. He did show me at the time how to tell, but I have since forgotten. At any rate, it turns out the Dodge DID build some 360’s using 340 blocks, I’ve run into a number of people since that knew this. So I followed my previous bad decisions with another, and sold him the engine for a couple hundred bucks. He then flipped it to a guy with a 340 with a cracked block for $400. Damn. Even back in the mid-80’s 340’s were worth money.

-Ray