Big Block Chev 454 - Dyno Power Blast

what no mopar check this out you guys you got a big block chef 454. why not [Music] welcome to this garage and look what i've got on the dyno today big block chevrolet 454 yes it's something different from a mopar yeah and once in a while i do shave this also here i got a 454 that belongs to felix that owns a 1972 chevy nova with a four speed just asked me to build him a 454 because when he i bought the car a few years ago he said that his 44 didn't perform at all like a 454 should how was that last thing good so it's asked me to build it up and i want to make something very simple not too crazy just over 500 horsepower so we took his uh engine we uh boarded up 30 over we bought a set of uh afr aluminum heads one was a dual plane high riser intake manifold i did not get them a carburetor yet this is the one for the dyno for now anyways we put them a flat tap without all the cam factory rockers we bought some heavy duty push rods and we just wanted to make something very simple but when nick is building an engine simple still means powerful so this heads are equipped with dual springs and it's got a brand new flat type of cam i had to put this edge on the dynamometer and break in the cam yesterday with a single spring because i did not want to break it in with the double spring that came from the factory with these heads so what i did is i had the inner springs removed on the cylinder heads before i installed the engine on the dynamometer so right now i ran it for 20 minutes i've broken the cam and right now i just want to reinstall the inner springs back in so i left one out that i've not done yet as you can see i've got the inner spring i've done the other 15 so i left the last one out so i can put on video so now we've run it in for 20 minutes i want to remove this valve spring and install the second spring in there you know in many cases when i run engines with a flat tap at hydraulic cam i usually use a single spring but in this application a4 send me some cylinder heads they've also replaced the valve springs and i i noticed that when this simulators came in they were designed for a flat top at cam so i was called back area 4 and i asked them you guys why are you putting a double spring on this setup they're going nick you know it's going to work right for what you want to do with the 500 lift with maybe 6000 rpm so they said that they run the engine with a dual spring so but then they also told me to remove the inner spring to break in the cam which i've done so that is the reason why this heads came with dual springs in case you want to rip it high you want to make sure that uh that the operation that there's no vamp float or anything like that and what i like to do is breaking the cam again for another 20 minutes with the dual springs why some people do it some don't but i like to have extra security i want to really make sure i don't wear out the cam so for this reason i'm going to install the spring right now i'll show you guys how it's done 21 left and by adding the inner spring it adds a few more pounds so there's going to be more pressure on the cab and that is the reason why i re-run the engine again for another 20 minutes break it in the can with the dual spring not too many guys do that but i do that i really want to break it in again with the dual spring so now we're going to put it in the cylinder to make sure we don't drop the valve as we remove the spring and the locks and install the inner spring put everything back i put in the rod push rod back in adjust the rocker and put the valve cover back on and let's get it running for another 20 minutes and break it in so let's go so here we go we're gonna we're gonna pressurize the cylinder like so this helps the valve to stay close so we don't drop it while we're doing the exchange because we are gonna remove the locks and the retainer like so there's a tool designed for a chevy like this so i'm going to make a i've done the other 15 already so let's see here we go let me get my little magnet out take out the locks there we go i'll put the locks over here closing my way there but you know what we'll manage you know after all a4 designed this setup so they asked me to uh they've told me to run it with the dual spring on this uh application with this cam so here we go we take out the spring as you can see there's no inner spring we take the inner spring we put it in like so like that wind it in there put it back there now we put the tool back on [Music] like so because we gotta compress that spring so we can install the lock spike on sometimes it's easy sometimes it's a little battle so let's see how it goes on this one i got the two keepers right here i'm gonna put them in slowly here goes [Music] like so you see then we take out the uh our tool that was designed for this now that the spring retainer and lockster in place we could remove the air pressure the valve is not going to drop now but just lock it in place remove the hose like so and now let's put our walker back on here's our last cap it's got a lash cap so put that back on we'll get our first rod back in place here's our factory rockers you know some people say nick you know you build an engine why don't you put water lockers but then again you know roller lockers are not uh not they're not cheap it's pretty expensive and then every client has a budget so i know these rockers will do the job it's not a crazy crazy horsepower engine and i'm sure it's going to do the job and my client says nick if they do the job go right ahead put it back in and here they are okay so we got our pushrod in place now we're putting a rocker back on now i'm just going to adjust it to make sure uh valve is closed so i can make my adjustment hydraulic so i'm just going to make a quarter turn on this one you'll see how i'm going to do that right now scale suits i'm going to put it to zero lash like so okay see it's loose like that watch this here we go make sure that we want to make sure the valve open and close and when it closes that's where we start making our adjustment but you want to make sure you make the adjustment the valve is shut there it's down now and this is where the valve is shut i know that's where it is and now i'll make my adjustment on my rocker see this is uh we're gonna make it a zero lash there we go there's a zero latch right here you see no play at all very very little then i take this and i make a quarter turn that's gonna be my adjustment i've done the rest already so now let's put the valve cover back on and let's get it started and by the way these valve covers do not belong to my client they're just a valve covers i have in stock that i've had for many many years my client has the set that are right there that look beautiful chrome chevrolet with a red bow tie those are his but for some reason those vodkas touch the rockers so i'm not going to use those valve covers i'm going to use these valve covers temporarily to do the cam braking again and also make the test on this motor so for that reason i'll leave them on for now and now let's reinstall the spark plug put back on our dish wires put our bolts back on the valve cover probably some people say nick you're already broken the cam with a single spring why are you doing it again uh you know me i like to do it twice no harm done by doing it twice after all you know just double security that you don't wipe out the cam after all you're gonna see a lot more pressure now because of the inner spring i don't mind taking an extra 20 minutes run it for uh 20 minutes with 2000 rpm that'll be happy i'm sure felix won't mind after all i did tell him that i'm gonna break in the cam with the uh single spring and put the inner spring on later on which i just did right now so if everything goes well i call my client in and we start blasting it nick is happiest when he's working in his dino room he's usually in here with a big mopar but as long as it's a muscle car engine and it makes his client happy he doesn't care what name is on the hood we might have a few drops of oil on the headers so if you guys see a little smoke no big deal put my rod back on and by the way i've got 87 octane fuel in the tank here but i'm going to waste it i'm going to use up the fuel just to break in the cam again and then after that we're going to switch to 94 octane because this engine right now has a 10.8 compression ratio there we go and then after that when if everything goes well i'm going to start playing with timing and so forth this is one of my favorite books i've had it for many many years i've had this book from the early 70s and let me tell you it's a bible let me tell you so at same time we're going to run the engine check for vibrations oil leaks water leaks air fuel ratio we're going to work with the timing but on this carburetor i got no vacuum for it for the vacuum advance but for now i'm just going to test it like that without a vacuum advance on the jupiter we just want to know what's a full timing at full advance at the highest rpm in that case doesn't matter then after that when our client gets the carpet we want to choose i'll set it up to work with the vacuum on the jupiter or i'll set it up in the car to have it working correctly [Applause] okay here we go so the board is going to be at 4.2 81 which is 30 over let's turn on the computer and the stroke is four inches okay there we go time is already set everything's done i only got 87 octane fuel but i'll change that later let's run it for 20 minutes break it in again for the second time and after that we'll change the fuel and then we're gonna start making tests okay here we go fuel pump that was easy oil pressure vacuum so we'll let it run for 20 minutes and after that if everything goes well we're going to start doing some testing [Music] so nick's buddy neil just sent him a digital infrared thermometer for doing this but we shot this video a couple of weeks earlier and nick's still doing things the old-school way so [Music] so [Music] i got 33 degrees on max timing so we're going to start testing at 33 degrees fire pressure is good so [Music] [Music] do we'll give it a few more minutes [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] i think we're ready to do our testing so uh i got the timing set at 33 degrees air fuel ratio should be good with this carburetor because uh i've used it many times never ran lean on me or too rich anyways we're going to make one test and find out but in the meantime i got to replace the fuel because right now i just used that whatever fuel i had left over from the last test which is an 87 octane so now let's put in something in 94 1914 from petro canada i'm gonna make one test just to drain the system because it's gonna take some time to drain the fuel out of the uh setup here so uh don't count the first one or two tests yeah just drain out the whole fuel get the petrol canada 94 going through the whole system and then on the third test or fourth test we're gonna start counting our numbers an engine inside consumes quite a bit of fuel so i don't think we have any worries all right let's put this away here we go put my funnel back on [Applause] and let's put some 90 for our thing [Music] [Applause] you know we have a lot of viewers are asking us how come we don't use an oracle we do not have sunoco fuel up here in a regular service station our highest octane is petrocanada which is 94 octane but anyways you know what we used to have said okay but not anymore doesn't matter this will do the job if we had to uh have an engine with a higher compression yes we buy fuel from a retailer that sells some local fuel but it's not from a local uh it's not from a local service station we get 110 112 and so forth there we go okay we gotta drain that 87 octane in the system so we might have to make one or two tests to get that out of the system here we go let's get it running here we go [Music] [Music] i got an empty little steel bowl [Music] that gives another kind of rich mixture we'll make a little tap i'm just going to make a little test just to get the fuel out of the system so do not count these numbers here we go we're going to take it from we're gonna go to 3000 to 5000 rpm at 300 rpms per second [Music] [Applause] so hello cap went flying [Music] okay [Music] i've uh i've got an oiling through the dipstick is i just put a bolt temporarily in place i don't have the correct dipstick for it it's coming out of the oil pan so i got to do something right now you know what maybe i'll just shove some silicone for now let's see if it works okay let's see how we did on our first test wasn't a great uh test i'm just hoping it has over 500 hp let's see i hope after all it is a 454 oh wow oh this is great check this out this is running on 87 octane we're at 525 at 5100 rpm and the torque numbers are really impressive five 565 six at forty two hundred wow wait you guys we have not finalized it yet look at that that looks pretty good look at that this is just a a pre-test call it whatever you wish i call it a pre-test looking good so far let me just get some silicone i want to fix that oiling through the dipstick for now my client was asking me at least let's make at least 540 540 horsepower looks like we're going to be there for sure it looks pretty good i'm very very uh happy so far the results wait one result we haven't even started yet let me just fix this lipstick i can't find a dipstick right now so i don't want an order i've not received it yet but in the meantime i want to go further on with my testing so let's see if this right stuff might do the job for temporarily just want to close the hole here i don't want to make a mess on the uh on the engine uh mess here okay here we go i can't wait to go any further we've got a forged crank we've got eagle rods in there sure i'm sure and it's got these small port oval cylinder heads but it's got good torque numbers all right let's go at a higher rpm let's go pull the 525 already it's good man okay let's get it started can't wait again we're at 5 25 i was hoping for 5 40 and over so far 5 25 at 5 100 rpm well i think that flix would be most impressed with this setup so let's take it at a higher rpm and see how it goes [Music] okay here we go [Music] so [Music] so [Music] that oil cups keeps falling off there you go what do we got 533 541 550 or 561 at 5800 p.m facility yeah it's a 454 30 overboard yeah it's four it's a 460 450 430 over check it out anyways i'm not finished testing i'm still going through the test it seems like we have to go a lot higher than 5800 rpm facility yeah i'm gonna take it up there after all uh we're looking for more power so far it's doing good it keeps climbing as you guys can see in the chart so you know what we're gonna take it at 6200 rpm and let's see what we get from there 62 here we come [Music] we're gonna make another test with 6200 rpm and here we go [Music] [Music] here we go [Applause] [Applause] [Music] wow check this out check this out for 571 torque at 4200 and 573 at 6000 rpm i'm sure felix will be happy with this one anyways let's go see if everything's good let me go check anything [Music] okay it looks pretty good looks pretty good ah i want to keep testing when i play around with the timing in a few minutes the air fuel ratio looks good in the meantime let me find an old dipstick i could put in place because i don't want to see that mess with the oil i had to replace the breather it keeps popping out it's an old breather i put in a little cap too bad i don't have a provision for a pcb valve on this uh carburetor so i can hook up my pcb valve which i will maybe so i won't use my vacuum gauge so give me a few minutes let's set this up and there's one thing i don't like is oil leaks so the city came i put a dipstick in temporarily just to prevent it from leaking oil from the dipstick because you know i want to take a good visual look that nothing else can show up so we just put a tube in for now i know the oil is full so i want to do some further testing because i'm pretty happy with the result and i'm sure that customer is going to be uh happy with this because our goal was to hit 540 550 horsepower so far we're at 570 hp and 570 torque which is good numbers good numbers after all you guys it is a simple 454. they are small port oval heads with a flat tap and a gala cam i mean really for a cruiser this is not bad at all okay let's make another test see how it goes and we're gonna still stay at the 33 degrees full timing here we go very very impressed i'm very i'm very happy okay let's see how it goes again let's make another test and we're going to go a little bit higher than that we're going to go to 6300 here we go after all we do have good connector rods in there we got a steel crank in there so we're going to take it a 63. i want to start at 3200 rpm and here it is after all you know when it's 30 overboard it's a 460 cubic inch and i'm i'm you know i like to aim for one cubic inch equals one horsepower so this is pretty good we did beyond that we're going to start it right now we're going to take the test at 3200 and go to 6300 rpm at 300 rpms per second so let me just take our overall look we put a dipstick because i don't want to see no oil leaks take a good visual look everything's okay and let's make another test [Music] [Music] okay here we go [Applause] [Music] wow [Music] we're back at 570. [Music] [Music] it seems like that dipstick's throwing out oil let's take a look uh but before we go there let's take a look at our numbers hold on the oil leak we can always fix up there whatever it is we got 574.1 at 6 000 rpm not bad and a lot of work came out on this side from where i do not know i believe it's the dipstick jeez look at that shot the oil up here man look at that what a mess that dipstick threw you all out let me tell you ah ah there it is it's nobody no it's snowman i gotta find a widow okay i gotta find a way to fix this i want to do further testing but i'm not gonna be a tough finger like this yeah there it is look at that it's all coming out of the dipstick i pulled out the tube it's not doing the job so we are gonna find another solution all right just give me a few minutes i'll figure out something [Music] i hate walking on oil and i hate oil leaks so you know what let's try to keep the place clean uh while we're working in the meantime gotta find something to block that hole all right give me a few minutes i'll figure out something i love it so far so good so i put the breather back on with the pcb valve so we're going to make the same test except i install the breather and let's take it from here here we go [Music] very much leaning with the pcb valve look at it [Music] no oil leak very good horsepower we're stuck at 574 575. yeah we're gonna mess it a couple degrees but still you want to put the timing line on i'm going to check it i want to put it two degrees more i'm going to go to 35. it's at 33 right now okay i'm not going to touch anything else that dipstick i just i don't like that dipstick for some reason oh anyways doesn't matter as long as we know the oil link is from the dipstick it's not any concern to me right now [Music] okay we're gonna leave it looks pretty good look it's better than nothing me michael turner is the rear seal look at this it looks pretty good no rear seal leaking whatsoever so that's damn good all right let's put the timing a little bit more advanced vasily we're going to put it to a 35. [Music] rev it up for me so [Music] [Music] all the wires are on that's good for throttle timings at 36 degrees except for the little oiling with the dipstick so i'm not going to be concerned with that at least at least right now the oil leak is very minimum very minimum on the oil pan so i'm going to turn it is anything else so nothing else leaks so that's pretty good it's running a little bit leaner when i do because i connected the pcb valve right now but doesn't matter we're doing tests right now full throttle all this will be adjusted after when he gets his carburetor put it back on here if we do have it on the dyno by then and then readjust everything again with this carburetor but in the meantime let's make another test now with a 36 degrees full advanced so [Applause] [Music] you're stuck there right um let's see if you shut the fan for me please so here we are we uh put the timing at the 36 degrees we got a maximum horsepower best of all at 6000 rpm we pulled out a 577 at 6000 rpm and our torque numbers highest ever is 579.3 at 4 200 rpm that's good numbers and let's take a look at our graph right here oh what happened here something happening rashidi it dropped look at this yeah there was a little much fire heard yeah there was a little misfire you wanted nothing some more yeah yeah yeah where was the world the focus packing 580. this guy's going to spin tires let me tell you nick loves the horsepower and torque numbers he's seeing but he's not happy with that dip in the graph something went wrong there did the did it run out of fuel or uh we had an ignition problem you know what i'm gonna just let it cool down a bit we're gonna make another test i wanna make sure and make sure all the wires are in place nothing popped out of place or something i'm not sure that's not normal should not that fell flat on its face let me take a look here we go let me check the fuel at least no oil came out of the dipstick so that's good we got no oil leak whatsoever we're good at torque with good horsepower the only thing is why did it go like this on the graph they were pretty good practically 580 torque at 4 200 rpm that is gonna be one hell of a street car all right i'm just gonna store up a little i don't wanna make sure everything's good no noises or anything like that and i'd like to know what happened with that graph and went down and then went back up let me check my fuel numbers here we go let me check my fuel ratio 13 13 13 that's still okay blood pressure is good i'm gonna put the uh turbine on so i could read my numbers you know what let's make a test with the turbine so we can get some more information and read our efficiencies and let's go here we go after all brand new i just got it so let's get it working the turbines are going to measure our efficiencies cfm airfu ratio and our other numbers so let's get it connected like so okay let's get it running again see what happens here we go [Music] so there we go all right let's see what happened here we go let's take a look what's going on so for the engine is consistent still at the uh 570 571 torque horsepower is at 572 at 6000 here's cfm it's taking 770 cfm at 6100 rpm and this is a 750. volume 50 is pretty good 100 plus at that 39 until uh 5200 [Music] not rpm at all now let's look at the graphic this is what i got to figure out right now there this is what we got a problem with that dip that tip what happened is that dip why 500 rpm why okay let me see something i gotta do some research here okay good question eh five thirty five twenty eight four three and then we gain power and then we just lose it why was the fuel was the fuel fuel fuel fuel but still you know what i want to do let's try a bigger carbon [Music] after all this engine has taken 770 cfm and this is a 750. you know for a street engine 750 car would perform well after all if you look over here that's cubic feet per minute at 6 to 100 pm we had consumed 770 cubic feet of air that's how much air it gobbled in so we're going to try another carburetor see if we get the dip and see what elsa does here we go [Music] we've just installed our 950 holley uh carburetor which is hp model 950 cfm so let's go let's make another test i can't wait to see this one here you know what a lot of viewers always tell me to put a bigger carb well here's your chance we put it on and let's see how it goes [Music] there we go perfect [Music] [Music] so we are we just installed a 950 cfm carburetor on it okay here we go with the 950 what did we do okay actually we did worse okay here we go so here we go we used to pull out an average of 570 torque at 4 200 rpm now we just pulled out a 562 560 563 so we lost about eight pounds of uh torque and horsepower from 570 571 572 we went down to 562 so we lost an average of 10 horsepower just by one test on a 950 i know for sure that this engine deserves a 750 which is a better choice and we're going to stay with that and of course for a street it's slightly smaller carb is better than uh on a streetcar with better spots so we're going to go back to the 750. and the graph it dipped again for some reason i don't know why i'm gonna have to look into it even with the 950 it dipped in the same manner so i'm gonna have to look into this right now and which for right now i'm just gonna make a comparison test we lose power at the 5500 pm then we gain it back torque stables out the torque stays the same but we lose horsepower then we gain it back so i'm gonna have to look at that is it a fuel problem is it an ignition problem is it while floating which i'm not so sure right now but i'm gonna look into it but in the in the meantime i just want to see a similar test let's go i'm just curious see what it's going to pull so i'm just going to take one test on one cylinder let me just put on full throttle i'll put my gauge on it oh we got them away at least that's one good thing about it here we go four so we're not gonna advance the timing more than 36 degrees i got 200 psi i'm gonna leave it at that it's pretty high it's pretty good i'm gonna leave it and now i'm just gonna look into the dip what the problem is but in the meantime as you guys can see this is what we pulled out of it 570 torque 570 horsepower it's a good street engine i'm just gonna have to call on the client one day to come and look at it make some more further testing with him but in the meantime this is what i've got so you guys hope you enjoyed what you watched and here we go 454 chevy 72 nova even at mulberry guy like me i sure appreciate a big block chef here once in a while it took nick a few days to figure out what was causing the dip on the graph for the big block chevy but like a bulldog with a tennis ball he wouldn't let go and here we are a few weeks later after the dyno that we fixed the problem with the dip that we have with this engine on the dynamometer you know i've done a lot of engine on dynamometer but i never had an engine that used to go to dip and then go back up into power and i was wondering what could that be you know i read up a lot of comments with a lot of viewers you know a lot of people were asking me it's a carburetor pump ignition problem intake manifold problem or still the head design i don't know but anyways but one viewer did say that there were harmonic spring harmonics with the springs and you know that was the correct comment because we ended up taking out the valve springs and i started measuring the spring height and i realized they were too long not enough spring pressure so we figured out that at a certain point it had harmonics with the springs at a certain rpm so i've added a 45 shim on every spring put it all back together then back on the dyno and start running it again [Applause] [Music] and then we finally got rid of the dip we got a straight line and that's all it was just trimming up the valve springs you know i figured it was installed right by afr with the cam that we specified that we're gonna use but anyway sometimes you gotta look further in and to do your own work which i should have done so there you have it you guys spring harmonics what's the problem we shaved them up and finally got rid of the dip on this 454 chevy and you guys if you look down below the video we have a whole bunch of merchandise that you guys can buy so whatever you like buy it love it wear it and enjoy it and help spread the word of nick's garage and if you have some time check out our patreon page we have extra content and you guys can watch it and take it from there and we'll see you next time [Music] you

Channel: Nick's Garage

Views: 239,057

Rating: 4.9017181 out of 5

Keywords: Pistol Grip, Restoration, Mechanick Auto Parts, racing, Engine Builder, Big Block, V8, Street race, Performance, Racing, Drag race, Nick's Garage, Modification, Stock, CAM, ignition, Dyno test, Dyno, Dynamometer, Engine Test, numbers matching, Roadrunner, Road runner, Race truck, Horse Power, Horsepower, Hot Rod, Hot Rod Magazine, upgrade, Engine Build, Charger, Dodge, Piston Damage, Head Damage, Rare, Car and Driver, dream car, Chvec, Chevy, Chevrolet, 454, nova, 1972

Id: gtsRWf4lODk

Length: 56min 24sec (3384 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 01 2021