I think the first line "You are all wrong dang it!" fuzzed up my concentration on the rest or your quote. Of course detonation should be considered as a fundemental problem. I was curious what was going on before the first engine failed. No harm recieved BG

BT

Pretty hard to detonate a dead stock mark 4 454. Even with timing off, if it was. He doesnt give us much info on the first crash, maybe it ran out of oil or the pump failed. Ive run a couple of these with locked timing and never hurt anything.

My timing was set perfect @ 28 degrees total advance at 3200 rpms. I dont think detonation was the problem, stock compression, 93 octane fuel and when I had the motor apart the first time the pistons were perfect. the other motor is also set exactly the same and is (so far) fine.

All my timing is in at idle seeing I'm running locked at 32 degrees.
Hmmm?

did you replace oil screen pickup when you replaced the pump or reuse the old one Just a thought

I'm running locked timing also. Doubt if that is the problem. If it were me, I'd yank the engine and get out the mikes and the bore gage. Once, a long time ago, I did a quickie rebuild on a car engine. I used a berry hone on the cyl walls and just replaced the rings and bearings. It never ran well. It had low oil pressure and the rings never sealed well. Never again. Now I use a good machine shop and carefully inspect every piece that goes in.

Looks like i'm tugging the motor this weekend to check the bearings and stuff then maybe to the machine shop. thanks again for all the input.

Hello all again, stupoid P/C at work crashed yesterday, so now I am at home!.
There is a lot missing on discription of last failer. Was the oil boiled, did bearings show signs of heat = black and blue. if bearings big and small all looked like copper, no more babbott, with no heat stress = black and blew, then there was a timing issue. but once again I need to see before I should speak. good luck with tugging it, just find the problem by good inspection.
Also galley plugs can leak by cam in back, install oil restrictors if appl' alows it. Best of luck. B3

I had a stock 454 that I pounded out the bearings Big and small in 45 min'.
Damn Distributor based out at 9 degrees, did not check total because it was old Distributor from a small block Mercruiser. WELL, dand thing gave me 37 degree bump at 1,200 RPM. way to much to fast. End result was garbage lower end. Oh well, even My block specialist just looked at it and stated detonation. Oh yeah, I also had to much pitch on prop, lugged a BB and destroyed it. Oil temp wigged out also, but never reached boiling point before the detonation took lower out. Learn from ones own mistakes.
Plus I installed a stock mellings oil pump, others had to much volume =HV sometimes is not the answere either. My 2 cents. B3

One other thing, I know you replaced bearings, but did you check the size of the main caps and big end of the rods? Any signs of a spun bearing? May need to resize rods & caps, grind crank 10 under too.
Gary