454-rebuild

[bake315]

I have to tell you - I hadn't planned on doing this yet, but, as you'll be able to see from the photos, this engine doesn't have much left in the way of secrets. 

I already had the front core support, bumper, etc. removed, so I figured it was easiest to just remove the engine and tranny as one unit, plus, I wanted to install new seals on both ends of the tranny anyway. 

Got it into the garage and on to the engine stand.  Pulled the heads first.  No surprises there, no evidence of impending failure.  Flipped the motor, and began disconnecting the rods from the crankshaft.  Nearly every rod bearing had what appeared to be normal wear - except for #8, there was significant scoring there.  Definitely helps to validate my decision to completely tear it down.  Pushed each piston on through, taking great care not to scratch the crank.  Once these were out, I turned my attention to the crankshaft bearing caps.  All of these bearings seemed to show normal wear, so life is good in crankshaft land.  I will have the crank polished before re-installation, in any case.

So now, I have a blank canvas, if you will.  When I started all of this, I was just going for a cam upgrade, but now that I'm all in, it sort of raises all sorts of possibilities.  I haven't as yet had a chance to measure cylinders yet - so I don't really know where I'm going yet displacement-wise.  So for now, all I know is it's headed for a trip to the machine shop in about 2 weeks.

What I have in hand so far to put on/in the motor:

New timing set (EDL-7809)
New Performer Plus cam (EDL-2162)
New cam bearings (FEM-1404M)
Performer 2-0 intake
Carter 625cfm carb
Ceramic long tube headers

This basic list was where I was going with my original plan before discovering the wear problems.  Going forward I'm thinking I'd like to take the opportunity to tweak things a little, without having to, say, buy another cam & lifter set.  I'm going to have the heads serviced too, so the opportunity to get valves & springs that are the best match for this cam would be a priority.  The piston skirts are lightly scuffed, but connecting rods and wrist pins appear fine (machine shop will verify this).  I want to go with a forged piston for peace of mind, even though I won't be racing this truck, and considering the relatively small difference between cost for the domed versus the flat (at least at what I've been looking at on Summit's site) I thought it wouldn't hurt to go domed and get a little more out of it. 

The machine shop guy says that he'll need to have the pistons when he does the boring/honing, so I guess I'm going to need to know how far over standard bore I'm wanting to go (assuming that the block has never had a lower end rebuild).  I don't want to go 40 over, for example, if I'm not going to realize a benefit, because I'd like to have the option to rebuild it later on, maybe more than once, you know?  Anyway, to get back to the point, I assume that I need to use a dial caliper or equivalent to measure the current bore diameter.  Does it matter whether I check it near the top, or should it be somewhere in the middle?  And, I assume I should check all of the cylinders, and order based on whatever the largest measurement is, correct?

Pics to follow later.

Thanks, 

bake315

[eventhorizon66]

I'd rebuild a Q-Jet before going to a 625 cfm Carter -- get the best of both worlds.  Everything else seems fine for a nice low-end torque machine, but Vile has said that he's had trouble with Edelbrock cams (as far as durability).  The last cam his 454 ate was an Edelbrock RPM flat tappet.  Also, you might look into "armor-faced" lifters (Comp and GMPP offers them) and possibly even having the cam nitride-hardened if 100K+ mile durability is of the utmost importance to you.

[VileZambonie]

Event you have a good memory! I'd go with a roller cam setup and before you choose your pistons tell us more about your heads? What's this going in and what's it being used for?

[choptop]

Take the block to the machine shop and have him tell you which pistons to order size wise. If the engine has been bored, the pistons should have the over size stamped on the top. It may take a little cleaning, but if it was, the stamp would be there. If its stock,.030 should be ok. Id have the shop check them just incase. They usually dont charge to check because it only take a minute to check. I wouldnt worry about .040 or even .060 over on a bigblock. They are pretty beefy. Theres a guy that owns a machine shop here that bores the .100 over all the time and doesnt have any issues.

[eventhorizon66]

If you do decide to go roller, Lunati offers some of the least expensive retro-fit roller lifters I've ever seen:

https://www.lunatipower.com/ProductGroup.aspx?id=311&cid=28&pid=2

[bake315]

I'd rebuild a Q-Jet before going to a 625 cfm Carter -- get the best of both worlds.  Everything else seems fine for a nice low-end torque machine, but Vile has said that he's had trouble with Edelbrock cams (as far as durability).  The last cam his 454 ate was an Edelbrock RPM flat tappet.  Also, you might look into "armor-faced" lifters (Comp and GMPP offers them) and possibly even having the cam nitride-hardened if 100K+ mile durability is of the utmost importance to you.

Yeah, the Carter was just sort of a leftover from the truck when I bought it.  I was definitely going to go to something else at some point in the near future.  I had thought about Edelbrock, but then I read where Vile mentioned that they'd been rebranding their products, so that gave me a little bit of pause there.

Vile, you'd actually suggested the Edelbrock cam, back when I started out on this gig - don't know if that was before or after you'd heard about the rebranding.  I didn't know about the nitride hardening option, I'll look into that a bit more.  Fortunately, I don't count on this truck ever being a daily driver, so I don't know that it'd ever see 100k - at least on my watch.  Other than tooling around a bit on the weekends, and pulling a bay boat or travel trailer occasionally, duty will be relatively light.

The heads are the stock, oval port heads that came on the motor.  It's out of the '73 in my sigline.

Got back my bore measurements (hope I read it right), 4.2485.  I'm going to have a look at one of the pistons again - I don't recall seeing a number stamped on them, though.

[bake315]

Just took a look at the #8 piston.  Only number stamped on top was an 8, like what is stamped on the rod and cap.  So that tells me that it's stock, I guess.

[VileZambonie]

Edelbrock flat out told me they just stick their name on the cams although they do design the profiles. So you're essentially just paying for the name. Do you have the casting # on the heads?

[bake315]

Do you have the casting # on the heads?

Yes, #353049 for both.

[VileZambonie]

You can go with a domed piston, and do some porting on those heads. If you have rotators get eliminators.

[bake315]

If you have rotators get eliminators.

Um...  ya lost me on this one.  Still a noob, here!

Oh wait...  for the valves so that they'll rotate and not get hung in one spot?

[eventhorizon66]

Actually, I think they are there to break and cause valvetrain failure.

[bake315]

Actually, I think they are there to break and cause valvetrain failure.

Even the Howards Cams eliminators?  They look pretty beefy to me.

[eventhorizon66]

Actually, I think they are there to break and cause valvetrain failure.

Even the Howards Cams eliminators?  They look pretty beefy to me.

LOL, I meant factory rotators.  At least that's what I've heard.  That's why it is so popular to eliminate them.  Yes, the eliminators are bulletproof as they are just a solid steel spacer.

[VileZambonie]

Rotators aren't for high RPM operation. Valve float stops your engine from making power. Definitely get rid of them if you've got em.