I finally got my shiot together and finished assembling the 455 for which Mark did the shortblock and head refresh. It was a great time hanging at his shop and doing the tuning on the Brawler 850. And also pulling his dyno HEI and putting my Progression Ignition distributor in and making sure it was what I thought it was. I'll post some videos and shots of the printouts when I get some time tomorrow.

The gist is that it made 547.8 lb.-ft. of torque at 3800 and 467.3 hp at 5000. It noses over early because the previous head builder only did 30° valves/seats with a 2.07 intake valve.

Mark basically helped me get it back together (and not self destruct) and get it tuned optimally for the combo. Big thanks to Mark, the day at his shop was time well spent and his tuning skills were way worth it!
Thanks Mark!
And also a big thanks to rickw30 for the W/P pulley! He GAVE it to me and hand delivered from Orlando to Melbourne! Thanks Rick!

Prepping for dyno time:

 

Congrats! Looks great and I bet it'll run even better.

I wish I didn't live at the opposite end of the continent from you guys so I could have access to Mark's expertise. I don't think there's a builder/tuner around these parts who even knows which way the distributor turns on an Olds V-8.

 

Thanks! I still have to clean and paint it Olds blue as I used to have it Olds red for the ‘68 H/O color. Now that it’s going into the ‘70, I bought 4 cans of the blue from Thorntons.

It is very nice to be close to Marks place. Don’t know what I would do without access to him and his shop.

 

Is that the 455 from the silver car? Glad you got it fixed

 

Yep Dan, the spun rod bearing one. It now has a crank from Mark, Eagle rods and semi custom pistons at 4.190” bore.

 

Looks like a great build and probably very fun working with Mark directly. Not bad at all for an iron head build.

 

Yes, Mark said that if I eventually want to do some aluminum heads, with no other changes, we would likely see 520hp out of it. Maybe I'll do that down the road. For now, I just want to get it in the car and the car back together.

 

Video

 

And finally got a pic of the last dyno run to post.

 

That single plane intake is making some great low end TQ numbers!

would be nice to see a pull from 2500… I’ll bet it’s still making big numbers down there. What converter and gear will the car have?

I also love the water temp…love it.

 

Thanks! It's going to be a great street engine!
I have the cam advanced 4° to bring the torque peak a little lower so I am liking where everything is right now. I have a torque converter that at this power level, will likely stall at about 3000. The rear is a 3.08:1 posi 10 bolt that will likely not live long. Same for the TH350 that was rebuilt with almost no time on it (27" tire dia). I will probably not be able to do any hole shots with it without breaking stuff.

And Mark controls the water flow through the engine to try to keep it near 160° for realistic numbers. The air that day was so good that when we started, the weather correction was practically 0%.