I see World is making a small block with 4+ inch bores. Has anybody used one of these for a marine application? They have crate small blocks up to 454 ci. I would want a lower C/R and different cam, Iconnel etc. Any builders have any experience with these. I was told Dart also has a raised cam small block. I started a thread like this the other day,but I think it was lost to site maintenance. Thanks Iggy and Ed Cozze for the replies. Doug

I would like to hear about that too. Good question.

Id love to see some big inch smallies in a boat.......Id like to see if they would 2-300hrs even more...........doug

We built a 434 ci small block it had a 4.000 stroke crank and a set of World Products Iron heads with a Hyd roller cam the engine made 525Hp at 5300 on pump gas. The problem we had back then was the stock block needed so much clearance on the oil pan rail you went into the water jackets on the bottom of the cylinders. The new Dart blocks have more clearance and have a lot thicker cylinder wall to stay round for a better ring seal. Also we had to use a camshaft ground on a small base circle so the top of the connecting rod bolts would clear the camshaft lobes using the 6" long rods. With the raised camshaft
you will have more clearance and you can use the standard cam core so the camshaft will not flex and you will have more accurate cam timing.

My post was about the Olds Rocket blocks from about 8 to 10 years ago. They have the cam higher in the block to clear the stroker cranks. Most of the parts needed were expensive aftermarket stuff that had to be special-ordered back then and really expensive. I think what we ended up with was a 540 inch small block.
I haven't heard much about those engines in years. I think Paul Pfaff did them.

A 540 Sbc?

Eagle is making stroker cranks that have been lightened and connecting rods that are clearanced for the cam lobes.

yep.

457 is the biggest small block Rocket Ive ever heard of. That 540 must have been something.

Why screw around with a SBC when the BBC is so available????