Upon further inspection from the junkyard I got my donor 318 from, I found out the engine is from 1997 Ram and not a 1998, and it has nearly 300k, yikes. I decided I'm going to rebuild the engine.
Before I do, I need to know, are there any differences in the 318 from 1997 through 2001 or are they all basically the same engine with no change? If they are the same I can go into this rebuild with more confidence.

 

Just buy your rebuilt kit, cam, etc. with a kit from the year of the engine. The internals of the 318, regardless of year, wouldn't matter a bit... However, you'll probably find that a crate motor would be cheaper than a rebuild. After all of the machine shop fees i.e. Cylinder bore, line bore, magnaflux, acid dip, crankshaft, head work, etc. you can easily spend more on rebuilding an engine than the cost of a good rebuild.

 

Center head (intake) is the injury thing that is different. Not physically just how many sensor ports it got.

 

Alright that sounds good. So this shouldn't be much of a headache then. Is there anyway I can test start the engine? I've seen people do it with the starter and battery wired together and I'd like to hear it run a bit, for like say maybe 10 seconds.

 

I don't think as you need the PCM I would think