Sounds like a good plan to me. Except, I could'nt wait thru the whole winter to find the answer to this equation. I'd be out there tonight redoing stuff, and testing it before winterization. How the heck are you gonna sleep after doing all that long, hard hours of engine upgrading and research, then just put the boat away with it running like a stock 454 mag?

If I had an extra pump laying around, I honestly would send it to you and even pay the shipping, just to see some kind of positive result here. Unfortunately I dont have a single extra pump around here.

6-8psi with it running. Any less and it will be starving.

I have an old Holley 6 valve pump that doesn't require a regulator if you want it Ill dig it out. You can have it. Just need a light weight pushrod and a few fittings... Up to you let me know.

I'm with you. I would loose sleep over it. Alot of sleep. I'd have dreams about it and wake up...

Believe me guys, I've got two daughters to raise, so there's plenty to lose sleep about besides the boat! ;)

I appreciate the kind offers from you guys, and all the advice and suggestions. Hopefully work will slow down and I can get a look at it this weekend. Baja, I'm going to take a look up in the rafters for that pump I have laying around - if I can't find it, I might take you up on that. But I will insist on sending you a pre-labeled box for it.

OK, found the pump that I was running on my 454. I had taken the bottom half off of it to inspect it, and from looking at it, it appears to be one of the 6-valve pumps. MT, Black Baja, is this the pump I want to run?

http://i1224.photobucket.com/albums/...Fuel-pump1.jpg

http://i1224.photobucket.com/albums/...fuel-pump2.jpg

Is there a way to test these pumps? I reassembled it, but noticed that it is very hard to press the arm in on it. I know they have a pretty heavy spring, but should it be this stiff? I bolted it along with the leftover pushrod back onto my old 454 shortblock that I still have laying around, and spun the crank by hand with my finger over the inlet. I could not really feel any suction against my finger, but suspect that I may need to spin it much faster than this.

Anyone else have any ideas for testing it? It was working fine when I took it off that engine, but since I had it apart I would like to test it before going to all the trouble of bolting hanging upside down and bolting it up to my engine.

Yes, the arm should be very hard to move.

Thats the pump i feed a pair of 850 holleys on my engines and my buddy feeds a pair of 850s on top of his blown 540s. Try it and let us know how it works

Would I be able to tell anything if I just plumbed the mechanical pump in line with the electric? Currently I am running a line from the tank pickup to the electric Carter pump, and from there to the fuel / water separator, and then up to the Carb. When I switched from mechanical to electric, I just put a coupler in my braided lines coming out of the fuel / water separator to bypass the mechanical pump. It would be pretty simple to just install the mechanical pump and plumb these lines into the pump. This would put the mechanical pump ahead of the fuel / water separator and the electric pump. I suspect that this would not be optimal because A) I still would have the restrictions of the 3/8 rubber lines and tank pickup, and B) if the electric pump couldn't flow enough volume to the carb it probably won't be able to keep up with the mechanical pump either.

Oh yeah, forgot to ask - are the composite fuel pump rods any good, or should I stick with one of the bronze tipped rods? I was tempted to just throw the mechanical pump on there with the stock rod just to see if it builds good fuel pressure, but I don't want to take a chance of damaging my cam's fuel pump lobe.