I got incredibly lucky on
finding an engine. I had originally intended on going with a 400 small
block, but had a 454 given to me as a gift couple years back. It was supposedly
a "blown up" marine engine. I ran the numbers with Mercruiser and found
it it to be a 1988 Mark IV that the 100 hour service had been done but
never made it to 150 hours. On disassembly, found out that the heads had
two exhaust valves bent. Lucked out and found only slight top of piston
damage, no bent rods etc. I really got wood upon discovering 4 bolt mains
and steel crank! The rotating assembly had been balanced too! I had let
it sit a little too long without oil on the cylinder walls, took the block
to the machine shop and had it magnafluxed, decked and bored .040. Bought
Speed Pro pistons with a .340 dome to yeild a 10.4 to 1 compression with
118cc heads. I broke down and bout a set of Edelbrock Performer RPM heads.
They are the exact same heads as the Bow Tie heads sold at the Chevy dealer,
but cheaper. Edelbrock makes them for Chevrolet for this particular head.
Edelbrock and ARP sell their head bolt sets for $95.00. They are $45.00
at the Chevy dealer for the same bolts. Sallee
Chevrolet sells the Edelbrock heads for $1599.00 fully assembled.
Another bargain worth mentioning are completely assembled World Products
aluminum Merlins for $1,430 a set from Sallee
or Flatlander. Port
size was just a little big for my application.
I bought a Edelbrock Performer RPM cam
kit. I used Magnum roller tip rockers as opposed to full rollers so I could
use stock valve cover and avoid firewall modifications. I used a factory
Chevy Marine intake. Ported the intake ports to match the ports on the
heads. I bought a cheap 7qt low profile wide oil pan on Ebay. It
works ok, but If I had to do it over again, i would spend the money for
a Moroso or Milodon. |
