dyno

OK we have been beating the crank issue to death good ones bad ones you name it we all have an opinion and I want to hear it. SuperV and I are running cast cranks in our 454's Supers dynoed at 505 at 5700 rpm. So lets hear it who's making more HP and who has broke them? What HP did they break at? What RPM? Can a cast crank live at 600 hp?
Don

mcollinstn

If you are talking about an externally balanced cast BBC crank, it's more of an RPM issue than HP.

David Haag

Are these the base 454/310hp engines you are talking about. If so,what are your mods to get 505hp out this motor?

paradigm shift

It not always how fast you go as it is how long you go fast.
Same with HP. It is not how much you can build but how long you can hold it together. RPM is a killer for cast cranks. At the cost of cranks why run the risk?

I would think at 5700 rpm you are pushing the limit now.

Waterfoul

SuperV's motors have aftermarket heads (don't remember which though), Lightening exhaust headers, higher than stock compression, good roller rockers, and fairly agressive cams. I helped put them together!!

dyno

Wades motors are the same as mine. Merlin ovals rpm intakes 800 holleys roller rockers 9.5 to 1. These motos have run since 1993 with a rebuild in between. Never had an issue with the cranks stock merc 330 cranks. You have to remeber that we dont race these motors they see 5700 for only short bursts not a lap at a time!

Back4More

Wow...I would have thought 5200 would be pushin it.
Do you guys have 4 bolt mains?
Callies has a budget crank called the Dragon Slayer.

WETTE VETTE

The crank in my dad's 66 Vette is cast. His motor is an 11:1 468" big block with a comp 244/244 dur @ .050" cam with .550" lift. It has oval port aluminum Bowtie heads (same thing as Edelbrock 454 "O" heads), and runs a dual plane high rise aluminum intake. It is externally balanced with headers and an 850 holley. We don't know the HP of this motor, but the car turns 11.95 in the 1/4 mi at 116 MPH and weighs 3200 lbs. He shifts gears at 6000 to 6500 RPM and has logged about 30 passes on the car at the strip and countless street blasts. Boats are harder on parts than cars, but this is a cast crank success story.

Dyno,
I really think if you want the best of both worlds you should look at the 4130 forged Eagle (or other manufactureer) 4.25" stroke crank. It is externally balanced so you can use your dampener and flywheel. It is low cost and forged steel. Not quite as good as 4340, but way better than cast. I ran one of these in my old 13.2:1 compression 496" BBC that was in the WETTE VETTE. I only logged about 60 HRS total on this crank, but a lot of those hrs were at 6000 to 6300 RPM and in a marine environment and I never had an issue. I sold this motor recently and the new owner said all of the bearings looked new and he was planning on running it as I sold it to him. Hopefully this helps.

Good luck!

WETTE VETTE

Oh ya,
The Vette motor is a 2 bolt block, but the mains are doweled to the block so the cap doesn't move and good ARP studs are used. This is a trick that works!!

dyno

Yep 4 bolts.....Thanks for the info Wet Vette your opinion means alot to me...