' 85 318 ?

sure thing

yeah, just strip all the lean burn crap off of it, put a distributor from an older small block mopar in (easy to find) and put a regular carb on it. Is it a 2 or 4 barrel?

318s are awesome motors for reliability, torque and will run virtually forever with minimal maintenance.

They make good hot rod motors as well with a mild cam (a 268 degree 340 cam works very well in them) mild porting or some newer heart shape chambered heads or even better magnum heads, a pair of small tube headers and dual exhaust and a good dual plane intake with a small four barrel on it (a Weiand action series or Edelbrock Performer is a good choice with a 600 holley or edelbrock carb).

The biggest problem with small block Mopars of the 70's and 80's is the crappy nylon gear silent roller timing chain that wore out and stretched badly, retarding cam timing and making the ignition timing bounce all over the place. Do yourself a favor and change to a double roller or true roller high performance timing set before you put it in anything.

transmission

an '85 would have a lockup torque converter version of the 904 torqueflite in it. Not too bad to rebuild, probably easier than a TH400 (about a hundred pounds lighter too). I have personally grenaded several lock up torque converters, which in turn contaminated and destroyed the rest of the transmission and I tend to avoid them now. I know you can get performance lockup converters now, and it will get you better gas mileage. What I don't know is if they stand up to brake torques and hard launches any better than stock.

A 904 is a pretty good medium duty transmission with very little rotating mass and fairly tough innards. Somehow they get them to stay together behind 800+ horsepower Hemis in Super Stock racing!

I tend to beat on things so I usually use a 727 torqueflite (had one in my street/strip Duster for many years, much abuse, no problems).

I guess it depends on the application and your expectations as to whether to rebuild the lockup 904 or look for a nonlockup 904 or 727.

You can move the motor left or right in the frame to miss other components if you need to. Nothing says it has to be centered and as a matter of fact, if you were to go to a boneyard and measure the OEM installations, you probably wouldn't ever find one that is centered, with some Mopars being off by as much as 3". If you do move it left or right, keep the centerline of the crank parallel with the centerline of the chassis. Do not angle the motor/trans in relationship to the chassis from a birdseye view.

You'll want to make sure that the centerline of the engine/trans and the centerline of the pinion are within a degree or so of each other as the vehicle is viewed from the side. They need to be parallel for the u-joints to work properly. Otherwise, you'll get an annoying vibration and short u-joint life. Don't misunderstand, I'm not saying they need to be in line with each other, they just need to be PARALLEL with each other. You can use wedges that are specifically manufactured for the purpose of changing the angle of the differential at the differential/spring interface if you have leaf springs.