1987 454 mag 330hp??
#11
Registered
Not true, my 1989 330 HP is a 4 bolt. Yes, it has peanut heads, an upgrade to the heads and an intake and Holley 850 Vacuum secondary marine carb would be good for the #'s you are looking for. Change the cam as well and you can get 600 HP without too much trouble. I am now running 500 cubic inch blown w/ Canfield aluminum heads and over 900 HP out of that same 330 HP block from 1989. It is a great 4 bolt base to work from. P.S., did I say that I have all that 600 HP stuff that I have replaced with the new blower set up? Right here in my garage? Lunati roller cam for a Gen 4 & lifters, Weiand Intake, World Products Grumpy Jenkins large oval port heads and an 850 Holley Vacuum secondry marine coast guard approved carb, Holley Marine Coast Guard approved high volume fuel pump, stainless monster flame arrestor. And, oh yeah, it made 600 HP. It's all here in So. Cal collecting dust my man.
949-701-0900 Greg.
949-701-0900 Greg.
About 5 years ago my cousin rebuilt his Merc 330's. He went to 461cid, retained the same stock cast cranks, 3/8" rods, and installed new cast pistons and 2-bolt main blocks. The only thing he did to upgrade the stock rods was had them shot peened, and replaced the stock rod bolts with ARP rod bolts and reconditioned, had the rotating assemblies completely balanced and the blocks align honed.
He used some old JUNK GM large oval port semi open chamber heads that he had JimV install 2.19" intake valves and 1.85" extaust valves and did some bowl/pocket port short side radius work on the heads. Funny, the 1.88" exhaust valves did not work/flow as well in that particular head because of the way the chamber was designed....the 1.88" valves actually were too large and did not flow as near as well as the smaller 1.85" exhaust valves...at least in this reference.
He used a hydraulic flat tappet cam of 218*/226* (at .050" lift) .515"/.515" lift on 110* lobes, dual plane intake manifold, Holley 830cfm carb, and had the cylinders in the blocks all "bore notched" to unshroud the valves for better flow, 8.6 comp ratio, 32* of timing, and they made 461hp @5100rpm and 510 lbs of torque at 3600rpm on Tom Earhart's dyno with car dyno tubular headers.
Torque stayed very flat up to 5000rpm. He could have used a cam with more duration, but we wanted to keep the RPM's at about 5000-5200rpm because of the cast pistons just to be safe.
The engines were installed in a 1988 32' Baja and I think it would be fair to assume that the engines have lost about 25HP going from the dyno headers to a dry piped GIL exhaust manifold in the boat. He has only tried one set of props (went from a 21" 3-blade to a 25" 3-blade) and said he picked up 10mph in the midrange and on top.
Last edited by KAAMA; 09-19-2007 at 02:09 PM.
#12
Registered
I believe that a lot of people get all wrapped up about 4 bolt mains, and 7/16 rods and such. 425 HP is nothing for a 454 today. If you were to use ARP fasteners, Edlebrock intake, good carb and cam, some clean up of the heads, and a seasoned engine builder that has good attention to detail, you will have no problem reaching your goal.
Darrell.
Darrell.
#13
Registered
Platinum Member
Not true, my 1989 330 HP is a 4 bolt. Yes, it has peanut heads, an upgrade to the heads and an intake and Holley 850 Vacuum secondary marine carb would be good for the #'s you are looking for. Change the cam as well and you can get 600 HP without too much trouble. I am now running 500 cubic inch blown w/ Canfield aluminum heads and over 900 HP out of that same 330 HP block from 1989. It is a great 4 bolt base to work from. P.S., did I say that I have all that 600 HP stuff that I have replaced with the new blower set up? Right here in my garage? Lunati roller cam for a Gen 4 & lifters, Weiand Intake, World Products Grumpy Jenkins large oval port heads and an 850 Holley Vacuum secondry marine coast guard approved carb, Holley Marine Coast Guard approved high volume fuel pump, stainless monster flame arrestor. And, oh yeah, it made 600 HP. It's all here in So. Cal collecting dust my man.
949-701-0900 Greg.
949-701-0900 Greg.
#14
Registered
Platinum Member
Fastenough, Those peanut heads have a ton of material in them. You can either buy the Merlin large oval ports( around $750 each fully assembled in JEGS catalog) or you can take those peanuts to a good engine builder and have him cut a ton of material out of the intake ports.
You can make pretty good power with those stock heads.
A freind of mine who has been building BBC for a long time put those peanut heads on a flow bench in stock configuration and found that they will flow all the way to about a .550 lift cam.
I have a couple sets of the merlin ovals myself and they work really well.
You can make pretty good power with those stock heads.
A freind of mine who has been building BBC for a long time put those peanut heads on a flow bench in stock configuration and found that they will flow all the way to about a .550 lift cam.
I have a couple sets of the merlin ovals myself and they work really well.
#15
Registered
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Southwestern OH, USA
Posts: 130
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Thanks everyone for you help. I talked to a Performance shop here in OH that does race cars and some boats and they told me about the same recomendations as all of you. They said some head work, intake, and cam and 430hp very easy to achieve. They said they would check they bottom end and if it needed redone total would be around 3k. That seems like a good enough deal. I think I might go this route in a few months. Thanks again for all the good advice.
Brent
Brent
#17
Registered
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Southwestern OH, USA
Posts: 130
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
One more question for everyone
Do I really need the cooler for the oil and pwr steering?? Not sure how well the old system is working anyway. I use syn oil, just wonder if the oil will really get that hot under normal running condidtions.
#18
Registered
#19
Registered
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Mission Viejo, CA
Posts: 390
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Yes, you need the oil cooler with the extra power. I know this sounds screwy but I have that also. The company sent me two of the one I'm using because I thought I was going to a dual engine in the future. it is a P/s and Oill cooler like stock. I also have the custom pushrods for this setup that you will need for the Merlin heads. As far as the peanut ports? My opinon is throw them away. They will never make power in the range you are looking for. NEVER. Start with the GOOD basics. This combo took my boat from 46 MPH to 63 MPH Fact on GPS.
#20
Registered
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Mission Viejo, CA
Posts: 390
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts