How much HP? on my 454
12-12-2014 | 04:38 PM
#41
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Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 14,154
Likes: 3,714
From: On A Dirt Floor
Gotchya. $4k or so for pair of heads and near $1k for a worked intake. Sounds about right.
When i went down to their shop to work out some things, 10yrs or so ago, I got to see 90% of what they where up to. The $7-$8 cast iron small block heads where, well, interesting. There where some others i walked over to I got pushed away from. LOL. They had probably 20-30 cyl head work stations with a couple cnc machines in the middle. A few yrs after they built an additional building for more cnc machines. They have programs for several cast iron heads, which I think is cool. Not a ton of cast iron porting going on in the world, so it fetches some pretty big $$$ for those who do.
When i went down to their shop to work out some things, 10yrs or so ago, I got to see 90% of what they where up to. The $7-$8 cast iron small block heads where, well, interesting. There where some others i walked over to I got pushed away from. LOL. They had probably 20-30 cyl head work stations with a couple cnc machines in the middle. A few yrs after they built an additional building for more cnc machines. They have programs for several cast iron heads, which I think is cool. Not a ton of cast iron porting going on in the world, so it fetches some pretty big $$$ for those who do.
01-18-2026 | 08:45 AM
#43
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Joined: Feb 2020
Posts: 83
Likes: 54
While an old thread, some folks find value in this stuff. A friend of mine put together a really hot 454 a few years back and it was really a "shop rat" motor of a bunch of stuff laying around, that turned out to surprise EVERYONE.
It was a 468" ci build. 088 Rectangle port heads with increased valve sizing/valve work. 2.25"/1.88" Manley SS/Inconnel valves. Pac Racing Spring Pack. Titanium Retainers. Mild hand port clean up/gasket matching. It was a rather "low buck" build, had a $400 ish Scat connecting Rod on a KC Forged GM Crank. The Scat rods were floating pin and had the ARP bolt package. Pistons were an off the shelf SRP Wiseco $700 piston from Summit 4.310". Cometic .040 hg and heads decked. Believe from memory it was about 9:8:1. Camshaft was a double firing order swap 110.5 LSA, 235/240 .651/.640 lift. Johnson Lifters, Some old 1.7 Crane Gold roller rockers. Intake was a Edelbrock Performer RPM Air Gap dual plane with a 1" open spacer on a Pro Systems 850 4150 carb. 89 primary, 75 secondary jets and 83 air bleeds 35 degrees of timing. It pulled like a freight train! 567 hp & 574 lb ft. It had fully dry stainless marine exhaust and propelled a heavy resin bucket 96 Baja Outlaw 24 to 75.8 mph on gps.
Unfortunately it had a detonation/hot july 100 degree day/bad tank of fuel that cut it's life short on the second or third summer. Before that it was a real ripper, and ran awesome. Shame a bottle of octane booster would have saved it. It got rebuilt and the boat sold shortly after. Hindsight being 20/20 and 93 octane and booster in hot months it would still be going in the original build. The guy who has it now still runs the boat but was warned about octane booster when its hot and fuel quality. If memory serves I think compression may have come down a hair in later rebuild to make it a bit safer with high temps and iron head. With the prevalence of the cheaper promaxx and afr enforcer alum head offerings I think this would be an awesome alum head 10:1 build.
I'd certainly consider building them again it worked so well. The Dual Plane intake with a 1" spacer was the real surprise, it really ran awesome around docks with tons of carb signal and the torque numbers were amazingly fun to roll into on a bravo platform. Arguably the best "budget" build that ever came out of the years of messing around with this stuff.
It was a 468" ci build. 088 Rectangle port heads with increased valve sizing/valve work. 2.25"/1.88" Manley SS/Inconnel valves. Pac Racing Spring Pack. Titanium Retainers. Mild hand port clean up/gasket matching. It was a rather "low buck" build, had a $400 ish Scat connecting Rod on a KC Forged GM Crank. The Scat rods were floating pin and had the ARP bolt package. Pistons were an off the shelf SRP Wiseco $700 piston from Summit 4.310". Cometic .040 hg and heads decked. Believe from memory it was about 9:8:1. Camshaft was a double firing order swap 110.5 LSA, 235/240 .651/.640 lift. Johnson Lifters, Some old 1.7 Crane Gold roller rockers. Intake was a Edelbrock Performer RPM Air Gap dual plane with a 1" open spacer on a Pro Systems 850 4150 carb. 89 primary, 75 secondary jets and 83 air bleeds 35 degrees of timing. It pulled like a freight train! 567 hp & 574 lb ft. It had fully dry stainless marine exhaust and propelled a heavy resin bucket 96 Baja Outlaw 24 to 75.8 mph on gps.
Unfortunately it had a detonation/hot july 100 degree day/bad tank of fuel that cut it's life short on the second or third summer. Before that it was a real ripper, and ran awesome. Shame a bottle of octane booster would have saved it. It got rebuilt and the boat sold shortly after. Hindsight being 20/20 and 93 octane and booster in hot months it would still be going in the original build. The guy who has it now still runs the boat but was warned about octane booster when its hot and fuel quality. If memory serves I think compression may have come down a hair in later rebuild to make it a bit safer with high temps and iron head. With the prevalence of the cheaper promaxx and afr enforcer alum head offerings I think this would be an awesome alum head 10:1 build.
I'd certainly consider building them again it worked so well. The Dual Plane intake with a 1" spacer was the real surprise, it really ran awesome around docks with tons of carb signal and the torque numbers were amazingly fun to roll into on a bravo platform. Arguably the best "budget" build that ever came out of the years of messing around with this stuff.
Last edited by deathdealer; 01-18-2026 at 08:59 AM.
01-20-2026 | 05:45 AM
#44
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Joined: Aug 2019
Posts: 1,250
Likes: 420
From: BC
Tighter LSA creates more overlap and interaction time of the Int/Ex valves. It'a a factor of chamber/valve efficiency. If it's easy for a low pressure pulse in the exhaust port to affect and help start the draw of intake charge...less overlap and LSA is required. If it's difficul...more time is required...so more overlap.
