I can't feel that strongly as you do, Steve, because a great Cordoba deserves a big block.
I dunno Stan.................in the late 70s the 360-4 bbl engines performed flawlessly while the 400s/440s still had lean calibrations and associated poor drivability and performance. The 360-4s were back to richer stoichiometric fuel/air mixtures, not lean and vacuum advance was restored in the calibrations. I and my staff were the ones that were given the assignment to "fix" the 318 and 360 4-bbl engines at that time by the chief engineer, Dick Goodwillie - and that is how we did it for both the federal and California calibrations. The 360-4s actually felt stronger in acceleration than the 440s because they had richer air/fuel mixtures and higher stall torque converters and healthy spark advance whereas the 440s ran too lean with retarded timing that yielded weak output and low stall converters that felt doggy and just guzzled more gas.
I and my staff made the catalytic converters do the emission clean up, not some stupid lean calibration/retarded ignition timing crap. We were also able to increase just a little of the exhaust gas recirculation to help in reducing nitrogen oxide emissions since the rich air/fuel ratios covered up the small increase in exhaust gas recirculation in terms of drivability and performance.
Just an aside, it was the combination of hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides in the vehicle exhaust that reacted in the presence of sunlight, thus creating the dreaded "smog", that was especially strong in California.
Also Stan, the lighter weight of the LA engines helped the overall balance of the B bodies such that the handling, especially of the Magnum GT models, was improved over what use of a B/RB engine would yield.
