Rebuilding my 454 for drag week 2012.. Looking for suggestions and help

[Scott Liggett]

That sounds like good advise to me.

What's the consensus on the hypereutectic pistons with a small shot of nitrous? does it make anyone nervous?

I'd rather have cast than hypers with nitrous. Cast will take a pounding until it blows a hole in it. Hypers can shatter like glass if you detonate badly. Originally, hypers had the top ring land closer to the top of the piston and with tight ring gaps, they broke the piston.

If you do go with Hypers and nitrous, open the ring gap up for the top ring.

[79camaro]

Soulds like a you shoud check out the oil consumption first. I have great solid roller cam that woud great on that 454 and know of a great machinist.

You don't need spay to get in low 11's

I am in the milwaukee area

[Beagle]

Car Craft did a cylinder head test on 454's back in '08 I want to say, and it's interesting the return on $$ - the peanut ports did a lot better than I would have expected! It left me with mixed emotions about spending a pile of money on aluminum heads vs. having somebody who knows what they are doing run a grinder through the stock heads.

Yeah, here it is:

http://www.carcraft.com/techarticles/ccrp_0803_big_block_cylinder_heads/viewall.html

The comments I've read are great guidance:

Get a good foundation, if it doesn't seal up the compression, you're leaving power on the table. Blueprint what you have - ie, measure up everything and see if you're out of whack somewhere. Step up to Forged pistons if you find you have to over bore. They don't cost that much more. Take the new pistons to the machine shop and they can "fit" them with the final hone. Cast / Hyper / Forged all take a different fit for bore to piston clearance iirc.

Open up the top ring gap for nitrous /power adders on hypers seems to be what KB is screaming (KB-Silvolite.com has a suggested formula for gap per inch of bore)

Spend some money on the heads, seems like the stockers will go a long way - and a LOT of great head porters will tell you that the best return on fairly easy money is in a good valve job. Lots more there than you would think, or ditch them as suggested and the Brodix set mentioned looks pretty sweet for out of the box heads. The Eddies looked good for the money, but you know how "More" gets addicting.

Roller cam if you can, ease the mind about wiping a lobe. The cam listed in the article above was pretty dang mild. You could recipe build off of that and have elephant like torque. The beauty of a stroker is you can go to Forged pistons at the same time.

Get it to hook

That's pretty much where I'm going with a BBF build but a little milder and I'm hoping to see low 12's... hell, let's face it, I'm hoping to see it run. The information transfers, so thanks guys for the input!

[dougs67]

Thanks everyone for all the input and great ideas. I've been doing alot of deliberating and money crunching and i think my best bet is to take what i have and just clean it all up, put in some new rods and forged pistons, clean the heads up, put all new bearings in and give it hell for a while with a shot of nitrous...

If i go this route i figure i can get together enough money in a few years to build what i would say is my dream motor running 8-9s or so but who knows... for this year ill be happy to break into the high tens.

Just want to make Drag week again this year and have a good time. Fast or slow however it all works out.

[CDMBill]

Making the show is best plan, finishing is the Win!

[JeffMcKC]

Word

[quick 52]

if your still working on your engine there isnt anything wrong with hyper and a small hit of nitrous stay under 200hp and a good fuel system for nitrous and keep the tune clean. forget throwing a alot of money at a roller cam a solid flat tappet around 250 in 260 ex .600 lift on 110 in @ 107 will work fine in a budget build put the money in the alum heads single plane intake and 950+ carb. and you can use them in future builds hi 10s low 11s r easy in your goals with the help of 150hp hit a tune of 65n 52f 28* total timing 5psi fp with 100+ fuel with ngk around#9 or autolite ar3933 with alum heads gap at .030