ok, you need to address many issues, oil lines, cooler, filter adapter and oil temp gauge, larger pan as you said you are getting. tune with wideband, from what you were doing amounted to the pull and pray tech. killing mains came from oiling(brakedown, contaimination, etc) or poor engine assembly(clearances, line bore etc, burned piston, way lean or timing issue. Just helped a guy with 454, killed 2 remans in no time, said had noise, asked about timing, said set to specs..8 deg, what he did not know was had 30 deg advance...38 total in heavy boat did not work well.

My timing is not adjustable. My distributor isn't actually a distributor, its a high voltage switch. I have the pcm 555 and timing cannot be changed. However poor engine assembly was definitely an issue. I also found out the externally balanced flywheel was for a BBC, not sbc.

What would you recommend for a oil temp gauge on a sbc?