I filled in a cam selection form on cranecams.com and got this cam (134561) recommended...

It doesn't seem to fit at all in my opinion

I don't see it on the cam card, but, isn't the 561 a roller cam?

The roller is the 651 cam. I've heard of the 561 being used but It has a rough idle and reverts a lot of water. I wouldn't use it.

I just went back to the Crane web site.They have two cams that might be confusing. The 132561 is the old 420HP cam and is an excellent choice for a 454. The 134561 is the longer duration one that I menioned above. Stay away from it.

A 236*/246* duration cam is A LOT of cam for a 454cid marine engine. I think you will find yourself being very disappointed with a cam that size for a 454 marine application.

Obviously you can do as you please, but a Comp Cams 218*/226* duration cam would be a much better choice. My cousin ran this cam in his 454's and with 8.6 comp ratio it made 461hp @5100rpm and 510 foot pounds of torque on the dyno.

Yes, but that was the cam that Cranecams recommended... Perhaps they ment the 132561 cam and not 134561 as PatriYacht said. It makes sense anyway.

What setup did he have, was it anything like mine? Besides that my cr will end up at ~9:1?

Is there any other web based cam selection forms besides the one on Crane Cams? Couldn't find any at Comp Cams, Isky or Lunati Cams.

Tomas, The cams my cousin had were hydraulic flat tappet cams. Other components of his engines were dual plane intake manifolds, Holley 800cfm carbs, 8.6 comp ratio, and GM large oval port heads which had been bowl/pocket ported and larger stainless 2.19" intake, and 1.85" exhaust valves installed by JimV. The GM heads were kind of a semi-open chamber head---not something you normally see in performance engines.

He is still using cast pistons and cast cranks with 2-bolt main blocks. We chose those cam specs to keep the power at right around 5000-5100rpm because of the cast pistons and stock rod bolts.

The engines were dyno'd with tubular dyno headers on Tom Earhart's dyno here in Michigan, however my cousin runs his engines with a GIL aftermarket exhaust manifolds and DRY stainless one piece pipes. One piece meaning the collector/elbow are all stainless and incorporated into the tailpipe. The GIL exhaust system will decrease the power output of the engines by something around 20-25hp because they are not as efficient as the tubular dyno headers.

That sounds kind of like my setup!
Isn't the vortec head also kind of semi open chamered?

Too big of a cam for a 454 for sure, unless you are gonna spin it to 5800+ rpms. It will also probably have reversion.

The original cam you had picked out will make more torque and hp below 5000rpms.

The one Kamma recommended will also work well and have even more torque in the lower+midrange. Might loose a few hp on the top.