They are about the same price as new BBC headers from Lightning. I believe I had about $2600 in them with the options I selected on them.

No problem man. If you ever have any questions, just shoot. I have no problem sharing what I have learned!!


One thing I will tell you is create a budget.... then almost double it. LOL. There is a lot of small stuff that I never counted for. -AN fittings and things of that sort. Plus things came up along the way where I spent a little more than I normally would have just because I wanted a little "bling" factor. Stuff like $350 billet valve covers and what not. I will say this, between selling my stock 454, a lot of the other BBC parts I had and stock stuff off of the LS motors I bought, I had less in this build than I would have if I would have bought a fresh or low hour hp500, and that was my main goal. and, somebody could have done this build for a lot less money than I did. A stock rotating assembly with upgraded rod bolts will handle 700hp. Also a set of stock heads work great, but I went with the CNC ported heads, mostly because I got a killer deal on them. Also, there are manifold options out there that are quite a bit less than a set of headers, but I figured, if I'm doing this, I'm going to do headers.

One other thing I wanted to mention is the cooling set up that is rigged with rubber hose was strictly for the dyno. I would never put anything that jenky looking into my boat. In the boat, the remote thermostat housing will actually be mounted to the back of my back seat. That will do two things. One, clean up the front of the motor even more, and two, it will allow me to build stainless -AN lines from the adapters to the housing that are equal in length ensuring I have the exact same water pressure to both sides of the engine as well as equal lines to the headers.

How much for stainless?

I have no idea. I know I'll never be in salt water, so I didn't even price them.

Maybe I need a fresh boat to complement the salt boat.

any updates?

Single digit temps have kept me out of the barn, but I have been working in the garage building brackets and stuff to get the motor ready to drop in. Also had to machine my valve covers for more pressure relief. I think they turned out pretty good. I'll post up some more pics as I get stuff completed. Its supposed to be 60 degrees here the next few days, so hopefully I'll get a lot done and drop the motor in here very soon.

I hope to see you on the lake this summer, I'd love to see this in person, such an awesome build.

Keep an eye out for me, I'll be in the white and pink Checkmate. Our place is on the Southfork just past Burnside State Park launch ramp, but I run the entire lake. Make a lot of trips up to Conley (my girls love to get ice cream there) and have quite a few friends that hang out near the dam, so I'm all over. Flag me down if you see me!! I love talking boats and meeting new people!!