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I'm just wanting to gauge interest in a test that we may perform. I've recieved a few e-mails about an engine in stock "appearing" format. Meaning the engine looks stock, but isn't. This is NOT for the racing class, this is just for guys that want a stock looking motor under their hood. I plan to run the ported C's we have again on the engine with a different combination, so it's not a huge amount of work. But let me detail what this build would be;
The ported C heads. These flow about as good as the Gen3 Edelbrock at higher lift, but a bit less at lower lift. They are the best iron heads we have.
The CompCams 0.595/247 0.595/255 (at 0.050") camshaft
Roller valve train. I will NOT use stock valve covers, to much of a pain the *** to make them seal if you take them off all the time.
Here is where it gets "different".
We have a ported cast iron intake that we ran once before. Run this piece.
Use W/Z exhaust manifolds.
QuadraJet carb
There may be some carburetor experimentation.
After the above we put real parts on it;
Victor intake
Holley HP 1000 CFM carb
Headers
Run it again and see the difference.
We are going to run this combination with the latter performance parts no matter what. My question is what is the interest level of doing the first part, cast iron intake, exhaust manifolds, etc. If there isn't much interest then we will save the time and effort and just run the other parts.
I'd be interested in seeing the results of both of these. I expect in the future to be doing something similar, either to my G block 400, or a donor 455.
Would love to see the results of stock appearing w/ the ported iron intake & ported C heads, but with just the addition of headers as the only non-stock appearing add-on, typical of a 'day-two' mod from back in the day that's so popular these days. Only because I believe the factory exhaust manifolds will never let those heads even come close to reaching their true power potential. So in essence, sort of an 'in between' dyno run before the Victor & 1000 HP carb goes on.
Would love to see the results of stock appearing w/ the ported iron intake & ported C heads, but with just the addition of headers as the only non-stock appearing add-on, typical of a 'day-two' mod from back in the day that's so popular these days. Only because I believe the factory exhaust manifolds will never let those heads even come close to reaching their true power potential. So in essence, sort of an 'in between' dyno run before the Victor & 1000 HP carb goes on.
Just a note on stock valve covers. If clearance needed, even a 1/2” spacer with Cometic rigid frame gaskets (FP Perma Dry Plus inspired) can be used out in the real world to keep a stock appearance that doesn’t catch the casual eye & can be reused seemingly infinite number of times. IIRC my present Fel Pros (w/spacers) have been on 3 different engines over 25 years and still doing the job. Similar situation with other engines we had and still have.
totally interested in this, but what I think would really be helpful in this case would be to run a couple different cam profiles if you have them... something close to stock/straight pattern, then more modern split intake/exhaust duration. Picking a cam for an Olds 455 with exhaust manifolds has never had testing performed. My straight pattern, .47x lift cam with exhaust manifolds is only down 10 hp to headers. The mopar guys ran a test like that years ago for a magazine article that was pretty cool.
