Going to look at a 455 this weekend. Unfortunately it has J heads, but I'll ditch those for a set of C heads. My car is going to be pretty much a weekend warrior, and will be drag raced often. I am going to build the engine in stages, doing bottom end before I put it in, and then top end sometime later down the road. I want to get the car into the 12's for now, and someday deep into the 11's. I want to run pretty high compression, like 12-12.5:1, which will help power out a lot. I'm gonna run a water/methanol injection setup so I can keep it on 93 octane. I'll be using ARP rod bolts and main studs. Maybe billet main caps? I'm going to be running a hydroboost brake setup, so cam selection wont really be limited by vacuum production. Ill probably have Cutlassefi custom grind me one, possibly hydraulic roller? My questions are, is there a piston that will get me that much compression or will I need a custom set? And since this is a later 455, it wont have the nodular crank will it?

 

Thank you.

It might have an N crank, you'll just have to open it up and see.
If you're going high compression and using billet caps, it doesn't make sense to use the stock rods. Throw them away and buy some Eagles.

SRP and others make a true flat top piston for the 455, should get you in the low to mid 11's for compression at least. From there you'll need to mill the heads further.

Speaking of heads, go aftermarket. Their better, you can mill them more and they won't run you much more than a set of of totally reworked stockers. That SRP piston, Edelbrock or similar heads milled to 70cc with a 0 deck gets you 12.25:1.

But I think you could run 11.0:1 or better on just plain pump and with the right setup still get into the low 12's/high 11's without too much trouble. either.

Jmo

 

Alright, ya I guess I may as well upgrade the rods. Who makes a quality set of billet mains that dont cost a fortune? And would a hydraulic roller be worth the extra money for this build?

 

Try Rocket Racing for the mains but strapping and studding them is usually more than adequate for most applications.
Cam will depend on cylinder heads.

 

Okay so maybe I wont need the billet mains then. Heads will probably be heavily ported C heads.

 

For weekend type use and racing, I suggest race gas instead of water/methanol. Without power adders, you don't need extra main support, or maybe just studs if you go low 11s. To do that, you will be going about 118 mph in the quarter (a good estimate of power produced) and you can do that with stock main caps and re-used bolts. You can also do that with B or C heads and a stock intake if the car is well sorted out.

 

Well, the car will be driven quite a bit on the weekends, so race gas is kinda out of the question. There is no way I could afford to drive it much with race gas.