454 Chevy Big Block Bow Tie Build - Horsepower S13, E12

clear back there yeah we're doing fine nice big engine bay oh boy talk about a marriage made to horsepower heaven Chevy's last full-size rear-wheel drive muscle car and GM's first big-block from a box the 502 is only the second non production gia performance parts motor and well 20 years later it's still a big choice for guys who just want to plug and play when it comes to motors not too long ago we got the point you see after we gave our 85 Monte Carlo a nine-inch rear end upgrades for the suspension brakes and exhaust not to mention a trans conversion from factory automatic to 5-speed hey we were glad to forego the engine bill this time and use the crate bone and when it was time for the payoff man that 502 engine board that made the mighty Carlo live up to its nickname and later on the Dynojet it proudly produced 420 plus worth bow on the rollers 515 4000 for so you're probably asking yourself why did those idiots pull that motor out anyways well good question see some of our PowerBlock neighbors have been bugging us to let it leave it for one of their project vehicles now we hate to see grown men cry so we're gonna let it go but we are going to build something different for it and in a way it's the chevy version of a big-block project that came out of the blue a few months ago we challenged ourselves to build a Ford 460 on a poor-man's budget of less than $2,500 some parts reuse some stock replacements all good enough to make a cheap blue oval bullet we're three hundred and seventy eight horsepower but hey we need to stop to pat ourselves on the back we launched a stage to build with a big cam performance heads single plane intake and a thousand CFM car to pay off this time 607 horsepower well this time it's Chevy's turning the spotlight and for a foundation how about this 454 short flock that we found had machined and rolled in here for to build ups first bang for the low buck build up and see how we compare with that Ford then we're gonna take the gloves off for a high performance build and see if we can beat or beat the 460 numbers for the budget bill we cleaned up these cast iron heads then went into the summit catalog for a bill sheet of affordable parts like these pulleys aluminum intake manifold basic dress-up kit and hydraulic flat tappet lifter and camp set this thing is replacement for 67 and of chevy 396 to 454 cubic inch engines with an operating range of 25 to 5500 rpm now a Shinto 50,000th is 228 and 238 well next to go in are the hydraulic flat tappet lifters from our summit kit with plenty of Lube on the bottoms where they contact the cam lobes then a stock replacement double roller timing set but wait we haven't talked about budging for the old motor we shelled out 250 dollars then our machining bill came to seven hundred and we spent 1350 on parts so we're at $2,300 which is about 200 bucks under the Ford budget ya refurbishing these old cast-iron heads is one way we save so much money now these things are an open chamber design and well that basically refers to the size and shape of the combustion chamber closed chambers were kind of baths of shape these kidney-shaped and they went to these in the late 60s for improved fuel economy with lower compression as a trade-off in their 27 year run for fifty fours were rated as high as 460 horsepower in the early 70s and as low as 2:30 back in the mid 80s we're using ARP head bolts and what we're doing is putting thread sealant on the threads and then sam arp assembly Lube on the upper part of the threads now we're doing the sealant because our water jackets are open and not blind [Music] the balancers next and we got this one from Pioneer for our big-block Chevrolet but if you remember correctly the Ford was a little different they used a two-piece balanced assembly on the front of the crank snout the first piece to go on was a cast counterweight that got sandwiched in between the harmonic dampener now Chevy did this they used a counterweight that's installed in the center of the harmonic dampener to balance theirs needless to say it's the same results just a different path to get there our water pump is a cast iron mechanical from O'Reilly Auto Parts then a pair of chrome pulleys for the pump in the crankshaft now we can cover our stock oil pump and pick up with a GM replacement panel to finish the bottom end last but not least a mr. gasket oil filter adapter we'll finish the rest of it in the dining room meanwhile I can't help thinking how cool it's gonna be to get this burgundy beast back on the streets and when it's eventually time to drop the motor in things are gonna fit like a burger and a bun same headers same linkage we'll even use those motor mounts after the break we'll have our burger on the grill and see how much sizzle we get on the dyno you like the pork rinds we're back and about to see which budget big-block produces the most power months ago we built a budget for 64 big-block that made an impressive 378 horsepower on our dyno today we built up a Chevy counterpart 454 with a new short block some fairly basic budget parts including a hydraulic flat tab at cam and valve train setup plus a dual plane aluminum intake manifold all for around 2,300 bucks we're getting really close to seeing how this bowtie motor stacks up to its blue oval counterpart any predictions man you always put me on the spot you know these things are built pretty identical I'd be scared to say but I will tell you this I think they're gonna make within 20 horsepower of each other no but the Chevy guys are hoping they're yeah well they've got a shot with this Mallory HEI distributor that has a billet housing plus we're using a set of their pro side winder 8-millimeter wires to keep the playing field level we're using the same 750 CFM Summit carb we used on the Ford build alright Joe you want to give it to fire it up now since it's loaded with a hydraulic flat tappet mouth frame break Ian's oil and some fun time it's mandatory to avoid scarring camp jam hirin good oil pressure smooth running that's all we need don't shabby my house on the flat board here's a little horsepower history on the 454 in its 3 1973 glory days the ls6 version was factory dynoed at 450 horsepower ford 460 stock advertised course power was 365 after five gallons of gas we dumped the break-in oil and fix this small but annoyingly let the Battle of blue and orange begin like will make the Chevy guys happy or not I hope so 384 384 horsepower at 525 pounds of torque right I've searched you that's only the four grand Joe I know let's make a 4505 Oh 407 I'm liking these numbers can't believe this motor is ready for five grand and I bet you blue oval fans are ready to kick the TV hey card though I'm partial to forge myself but you got to hand it to this 454 combination standing 409 but it may have peaked out well maybe not but that's enough salt of the wounds for one day and for clinching the numbers here's how the tube budget big blocks stacked up against each other as you can see Chevy runs away with it thirty-one more horsepower than the budget version of the 460 and ironically 31 more foot-pounds of torque that's two motors with just about the same size block and similar parts packages it's gonna make stage twos build up even more interesting you see next week we throw away the budget tear down that 454 and building up with high-performance parts we'll see if it meets or beats the Ford stop number of 607 horsepower hey coming up a celebration of cool nostalgia racing and hotrod heroes don't miss it hey want to know what that's about the good old days well you come to Bowling Green Kentucky once a year you can see it here it divas smell it it's hot rod reunion time and we're here for a blast back to the bass [Music] this is where it's at I mean this is where your racing is supposed to be now he could be right fans of all ages eagerly invaded the Midway packed the wooden grandstands and immerse themselves into the glory days of hotrod racing at this fundraiser for the NHRA Museum talk about living history you get to see up-close the famous cars from the past and meet some of the people behind them who's winning weapons were skill and grassroots ingenuity we didn't buy a horse power back then I mean you have something new you had to make it evolve it yourself the old-time racers come to reminisce and mingle with the fans who watch them race into the history books hanging without the fans not too many people would have heard of Sox and Martin in the 60s and 70s the Sox and Martin race team dominated the Superstock Eliminator class a few years before his death I met Ronnie match racing bob ried at this Mopar badness event in st. Louis and got to witness that legendary four speed power shifting prowess of his of course it was equally neat to meet his old teammate buddy Martin here at one of their old stomping grounds one of you races here up there well I don't I'm trying to remember if we wanted we lost that you know usually wins sticks in your mind so maybe we didn't [Music] forget about what people are saying about the economy right now there's a record number of cars here for this year showing shine in fact there's so many nice cars here it's going to take something really odd bulb or just flat-out over the top to get your attention as always a mixed bag of classic restored and modified machines line the rolling concourse but neither a slick street rod nor a caddy convertible could draw a crowd like this oddball entry some things that people come up with one freaking Lincoln and the owner showed both a sense of humor and imagination to create many of the parts from the super tall intake runners on down to the square tube headers so what's our over-the-top pick well it's got to be the sleek and low 69 Mustang Mach 1 built by its Georgia owner and his son it's section 3 inches chopped 2 inches has 428 Cobra Jet Tremec five-speed torsion bar front end Mustang 8.8 rear end whether you like or not you're probably going to look at it like a drug you know you you get addicted to it you can't quit well over 400 addicted racers came to compete at this finish track and nothing gets the crowd going like a blister and run by a front-engine Top Fuel er like this one driven by Adam Sorkin it was following in his father's footsteps the front-engine car you know I I wanted to drive a long time ago because that's what my dad drove and I wanted to experience that and once you get in one you really don't want to get out of the only thing in common with its old-school predecessor is the tire size and engine location - Adam though the thrill of a six-second pass is still the same as ever everything's perfect you don't do anything except hold on you know but when things are bad or if they shake or they you know they want to get out of there then you got to do some work [Music] at the end of racing rounds on Saturday there's always the traditional cackle fest when the blames nitro-burning vintage racecars lights up the Kentucky sky filling out lies with nitro tears and filling everyone's minds with wonderful hotrod their build on a budget horse power projects that save you time and money this week's budget tip is dirt cheap and should spark your interest if you want to follow the lead of all the top Fuel and funny car engine builders plus it's a tech trick a lot of other guys overlook the tech is indexing spark plugs now the result is a plug that delivers the best possible flame front to the center of the cylinder when a plug is not indexed the ground strap can get in the way of the flame the explosion is late and not directed to the quench area the combustion chamber you can see how this can affect performance and efficiency indexing each plug puts it in the correct position for the fuel-air mix to ignite and force the boom back into the quench area we picked up a set of accel indexing washers for less than 15 bucks now they come in packs of 30 with three different thicknesses ten hundreds 21 hundreds and 31 hundreds now the index and washers are different thicknesses so you can index the plug in the correct location the first step is to mark the plug to locate where the open gap is going to be in the cylinder head thread the plug into the head and tighten it to ten foot-pounds this is the exhaust and this is the intake valve on this particular cylinder now we want the open gap to face towards the center of the combustion chamber slightly favoring the exhaust valve and if you take a look at the black line this one's not all of these kits come with an instruction sheet that'll tell you how many degrees of rotation each washer is worth starting from 310 all the way down to a hundred which is what we're going to use same cylinder exhaust and intake and we're using the smallest washer we had which seems to be a little too much but don't worry here all you need to do is back it off and retorque it a few times what that will do is crush the washer and put us right where we need to be there it is the only way you can screw this up is if you mark the spark plug in the wrong location now these washers come for both conical and flat seat plugs the one thing you need to worry about is only use one per plug don't double them up now the benefits of indexing spark plugs can vary from engine to engine but don't be surprised if you notice better idle characteristics better fuel economy and even a little more power out of your ride not too shabby for fifteen bucks and about an hour worth of your time plus if Top Fuel engine builders do it don't you think you should give it a shot it is totally amazing how many different types of motors we've built in the past year or so well like the classic olds 455 here Pontiac 400 now that was a good one and what about this little beast 401 cubic inches laid over 500 horsepower then of course there's the 572 big-block but probably the most popular most efficient of all has to be the Chevy LS one and if you've got one in your street machine you know what I'm talking about but if the clutch behind it is well let's say take an early retirement you might want to employ one of these it's a street strip replacement kit from Hayes the features are diaphragm pressure plate organic disc and of course the handy installation tool they all except a standard throw out bearing and like all Hayes clutches designed for reliable long use so to get more performance out of your LS car you'll have to spend about 480 bucks well it's no secret that airflow and performance go hand in hand the secret is to design a filter that blows well but also does the job of filtration now the spektr horsepower proven filters do both they've been designed and tested to deliver up to 10 percent more fuel efficiency and filtration a hundred percent well they're also cleanable and reusable and you can find one for your application in the summit catalog but don't forget about next week's show it's stage 2 for the 454 build up as the Battle of the Ford Chevy big blocks wages on

Channel: POWERNATION

Views: 687,421

Keywords: 454 chevy big block bowtie build, big block engine, Automotive;, Cars;, Vehicles;, How-To;, Auto, News;, Howto;, How, To;, DIY;, Car, Tips, 454, big block, powernation, 454 chevy

Id: G080KOZhpLU

Length: 17min 50sec (1070 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 14 2019