I have a 1972 455 block, dont know for sure what it came out of but was running in a 69 cutlass from a friend of mine before i had it, he was selling it for roughly 200 and i picked it up since the C heads and Intake would pay for the motor if it was no good.
when opening it up i found that a rod had spun on the N crank. first question. would it be worth lathing the crank and rewelding it? Would it still hold up to 500-600 hp?
second question. what would be a good street/strip setup 461 making roughly 550-600 hp?
my ideas so far were 1 buy the eagle rotating assembly from usaperform.com if the crank could not be salvaged.
2 for sure getting edelbrock heads.
3 edelbrock 455 rpm air gap intake manifold
any other ideas would be great. been looking through the forums alot and havent found a street/strip setup yet.
Mitch

 

Take the crank to Velasco in So Cal; they will tell you what is needed--probably can cut it .010" and use it.

 

do you know any places near portland, oregon that may be able to do it as well. the motor is at my fathers place while the car is with me in cali. if im unable to find a place in oregon then i may just take your advice and have him send it down to me to see what can be done. have you used Velasco yourself?

 

If you're looking for 550+Hp forget the stock crank. You need a stroker with the edelbrock heads, 950 carb, and good roller cam. Otherwise you're wasting your time and money.

 

Thank you for the advice cutlassefi. what could you expect out of having a stock crank by chance? have you heard of any being built up to 550+ with a stock crank? would you say the life of the crank would not last due to the power or would it just limit the amount of hp you can make? still looking to drive it on regularly with regular maintenance of course.

 

yes, forget the stock crank....and definately need a roller cam. however, i would say u don't NEED edelbrock heads, or a 950 carb. i'm building a 468ci now with heavily modified cast iron heads, 850 Barry Grant carb, JM-5-1 roller cam, full length headers w/ 2" primaries....this is a previously ran, successfull combo and makes 620hp all day long. BUT....i'm running a balanced and lightened crank w/ 4250 stroke, chisel cut, machined for BB chevy rod journal, studded & strapped, plus aluminum rods.

 

how much does it usually run to get the cast iron heads reworked? will yours be street as well? where did you find your crank, cam... ect?

 

Here is a stock cranked 461 that makes 600HP :

http://72.22.90.30/phpBB2/viewtopic....3143&highlight=

Plan to spend about 12k to get there.

 

if you throw the price of $1600 into cast heads, you can get better flow than eddy's out the box. my heads are shaved, ported, polished, worked bowls, 3/8" pushrods, 2.07/1.71 valves, aluminum roller rockers, they make about 13:1 CR.

it will be street with TH400, 3000 stall, 12 bolt rear 3.42 posi.

 

I couldn't disagree more. You really don't need a stroker. For 550+ HP you'll probably need a 1000 CFM dominator, and why does everything have to be a roller cam?

Again, a roller cam? 550 HP? If you're running a JM 5-1 (.704/.712, 278/288 @ .050", 110 LSA - operating range 3800 - 7500) you are going to need more than 850 CFM BG. I don't know who is building your combination but I'm willing to be it's the guy you bought your cam from.

Also, did you read the OP? He wants a street strip motor...aluminum rods? That ain't gonna get it.

I tell you what dude, what is your budget, let's start there. If you look at the engine build link in my signature you can see what I did. I made 492 HP / 544 TQ on unported out of the box edelbrock heads with MUCH less cam than 468 suggested.

My car is great on the street, but I have made necessary changes like manual brakes, etc. I know that I have 50 - 75 HP sitting in my heads, if I cared to take them off for port work. But after putting 10K in the engine I had to call it quits at some point. With a little over 500 now after changing the head gaskets and milling the heads .005" this car is set to go high 11's without any suspension work and a 3.42 gear.

What is your goal, and how much do you want to spend?

 

no, actually it isn't. and a 850 Mighty Demon will work, 825 race demon will work, 1000 race demon will work, but an 850 street demon, not so much.

http://www.demoncarbs.com/Tech/DemonSelectionGuide.asp


aluminum rods take stress/weight off the crank, no matter what the application.

 

Thanks for the different advice ah64pilot. good to hear other points of view as well. new to restoring and engine building as well. i actually followed your car on here watching the build from ground up and thought it was very impressive with what you did. how long did it take you to finish btw?
my budget is small but i have a bit of time to save up for it since ill be knocking out the body work on it first. my dad is holding on to the motor currently and is going to take it in to get it bored .030 over like yours i believe. im just looking for something that can make me happy with some good numbers at the track and also cruse with it on the street. i would be satisfied with your build that you had done. just dont have the spec or sites to find all of this. main concern was if you used your stock crank as well. i dont want to do work on it unless i would still be able to use it with this build.

 

Im also assuming that depends on where you take your heads to get the machine work done. would the flow of the edelbrocks be dramatically less then the reworked cast heads that you have?

 

machine work & porting/polishing are 2 different steps. the machining will make sure your heads are true, this is also when you can have them shaved for higher compression, drilled out for 3/8" pushrods, valve seats re-done, etc. porting and polishing would come after machining, but before assembly.

as far as flow, depends on how much you work them. i mean hey, some guys like aluminum, some guys like cast iron. talk to Mark Smith @ M & J Proformance about running cast heads. he runs low 10's on worked E heads....

 

And you are building a street car as well?

I took 2 years to build the engine for a couple reasons. One, I didn't have the car ready for it yet anyway and two, I wanted to spend a little more money and do it right. At the time I couldn't devote huge amounts of money to it so I had to save a little at a time and get the parts I needed. Sort of the same approach you are going with, do the car (body, paint, interior - which I still need to do) and then put the drivetrain in.

The first page of my build link has all the specs of my engine, down to the crank and rods. But in a summary it is a .060" over 455 with a "N" crank ground .010/.010, studded mains, billet main straps, stock rods (shot peened and resized with new ARP bolts), Icon 886's (-.005 deck height), Edelbrock heads (milled to 73 CC's unknowingly by Mondello), Torker intake port matched to heads, and a Holly HP 950 tuned by Dan Davinci.

If you followed that guide but had your heads ported you would be in the 550 - 600 HP range. It's gonna cost you about $10K - $12K depending on what parts you need to buy (I had to buy everything cuz all I had was block, crank, and rods). At the power I make there is not a set of street tires that will contain the power, so don't expect to go street racing unless you can afford to drive around on slicks. It's more power than you think, and I'm sure you will be happy.

 

Awesome thank you, im assuming its gonna take me a little longer then 2yrs as well with my project. (lots of body work mostly dents, little rust) and i heard about your incidence with the modello parts. ( read that forum as well, Thanks ) since im stationed in cali, im sending alot of the parts to my fathers place so we can build it together once i take some time off but for now my plans are to hit up the hobby shop and utilize the time and tools they have to knock out most of the body work. changing the interior to black since the tan doesnt quite cut it for me. i have pics on my profile of what kind of path im taking with the car.
what trans and gears are you using in yours currently? would you say the original 3.42s would hold up to this power range as well?

 

awesome did not know that. thanks for this as well. what else would you look for in the block if the rod spun on the crank?

 

here's some tid bits on aluminum rods & street applications:

http://forums.carcraft.com/70/838683...eet/index.html

http://www.bigblockdart.com/forum/sh...a-street-motor

 

I'm using a TH-400 built to stock specs with a Trans-go shift kit (competition shift - quasi manual valve body) and a '72 Corporate 10 bolt rear end with 3.42 Richmond gears and an auburn posi. I would think the factory gears will hold up just fine. The corporate rear's are good to go into the high 10's so I wouldn't rush to build a rear just yet.

 

I'm out of this one, there's lots of crap flying around here.
Just an FYI, even the great Bill Travato only made 540 with a 496 stroker, 10.5:1, new style Edelbrock heads, and a 238/242 roller with I believe a 950.
I was still pulling 2" of vacuum at wot with a 750 on a nearly stock iron headed small cammed 455. I'm of the opinion that anything less than a 950 won't give you the results you're looking for.

Jmo

 

ok i heard the TH350's are lighter and can be built pretty strong but im going to try and find a 4 speed for this one. it was an original 4 speed car but tranny and motor were removed. is there a way to find out what motor it used to have? i got a lot of info off the vin already but couldnt figure out any of the performance specs from it.

 

If you're using a 4 speed make sure you get a 4 speed crank or have the new crank machined for a pilot bushing.

If you post your vin question in the general forum there are several members here that will be more than happy to look it up for you and tell you what you have on your hands