Looking at building a 540. Iron heads, 10.0 compression, Edelbrcock super victor intake, 1050 dominator. looking to be somewhere around 600hp. Im running the gil manifold and risers so i know i cant get too crazy with the cam looked at 2 cams, one is crane cams 168771 and at the teage stage 2. but dont see too many people running the Teage. Any experience with them?
Boat is a 24 outlaw with bravo one drive.

call Bob at marine knetics...he is the man !!!

I personally wouldn't go 10:1 with iron heads. If you have the GIL exhaust with short risers, youll have to be real careful. You can always have them modified to be dry to the transom, and not have the reversion issue. With the right combination, you can put together a 600HP 540 that's around 9:1 that will run on 89 octane.

We just did a couple 515's for a friend. 10.5 to 1 aluminum heads and went with the crane 741's. Works very well. The 741's are pretty much the same as Teague stage 2. I bought the Teague stage 1's last year and they are similar to 731's but mine were ground by Andrews FWIW. Couldn't be happier with my stage 1's but I only have 454's.

I'm going to agree with Mild Thunder, you can do 10.5 with good aluminum heads and everything tuned right, but not with iron heads. I wouldn't go more than 9.5:1, with iron if you don't mind running 93 octane.

i run 93 octane in everything i own so not worried about that at all. the motor thats coming out was a 525SC with an upgraded cam. comp XR271HR-12 224/232 @ .050 .591/.601 on a 112. that motor made 568hp/599tq. so my goal is to be able to have more power but N/A. i know 10:1 with an iron head isnt the best. prob try to run a lil thicker gasket to drop it to 9.5. because going to NA vs i was used to the blower, dont want something that is going to be a pig out the hole, and have to spin it real high to get the power. Reversion is def a main concern. I def plan to get some headers, however they just arent in the budget yet

10:1 with an iron head isn't asking for trouble, it is trouble. This isn't a car engine, which would be fine. You're also not going to drop half a point with a head gasket. Get new pistons now to lower the compression or you will be doing it as soon as you get on it. I had a professionally built and designed BBC that ran 10.2:1 compression and I got a little to aggressive on the timing and I melted a piston as soon as I went WTO. That was with AFR cnc heads, forged pistons, a custom cam, and custom carb to work with my combo. If your calculations are correct and you are really at 10:1, your engine will not last.

Running a super thick head gasket on a N/A engine is a bad idea. You want to keep the quench area within reason. Otherwise you gain nothing as far as preventing detonation, which is the idea. Make the HP and Torque with the correct parts combo, and you wont need to run on the edge.

+1 Bob will NOT do you wrong. He's extremely knowledgeable and very nice to do business with!

i called and talked to bob. and wow. he knows his stuff. im looking into changing my exhaust set up, so he can get the right cam i need to prevent reversion.