can I make her any faster?

[Wyomingoutlaw]

hey guys, my boat is a 21' tahiti with a 460 and berkeley 12jc a pump. all stock I'm pretty sure. she runs great but naturally I'd like her to be a little faster, especially since she's long and sleek and everyone expects her to be a white knuckled thrill ride. aside from putting in a place diverter, I was considering a little souping up this winter; nothing major, just a valve job, new cam, intake, carb, ignition. but I was reading on the berkeley web site and they said you can spend alot of money and not go any faster if you don't modify your pump. what do you all think? will such engine mods make any difference? and berkeley shows my pump pushing considerable more water at 4800 rpm, yet my engine hits 4200 and thats that. any way to get her to rev up?

[centerhill condor]

"lakes only" is a bbf genius! you know speed is a question of money...how fast do you want to spend it?

[jeffroe]

you can put in a bigger cam or maybe better heads but by far the best bang for the buck is to supercharge you'r ride. but it's a stock motor no problem they make smaller street blowers that don't require you to rebuild or even change you'r current motor just for supercharging. weiand makes a 177 blower for less than $1800 that will wake up you'r stock big block and add about 100hp and even more torque (torque is where all the fun is) use the same carb you have now (jet it up a few #'s) set you'r timing at about 10deg base and about 35@ 3000rpm, i guarantee this will give you more kick in pants power than other improvment unless you really go thru you'r current motor and spend the big bucks$$$$. watch EBAY these little blowers are on there all time, steal one for $500-1000 and you won't be sorry. my 2cents
p.s. don't change you'r impellar until you add more power, run it with the extra hp and you might be surprised with the performance.

[roostwear]

I got the most bang for my buck by doing 4 things. Change cams, add a Stealth intake, upgrade my carb, and add a diverter. Anything you do has to have a good pump as a base, but a well balanced combination will get you more than a hodge podge of hi performance parts. If your funds are limited, do it in stages.

[FILUCKY]

Want to build a hot BBF, go to www.460ford.com Lots of great guys over there that know Fords, If i can give any advise at all, don't let a chevy guy tell ya how to build power with a Ford. listen to guys that just buld BBF's, you'll be miles ahead. Not trying to take anything away from a guy that builds chev's but theres a lot of tricks to making good power that usualy a good motor builder would know from lots of years or R&D on a paticular motor. Paul (lakes only) is a regular over at 460ford also, along with many other BBF specialist. :)

[twowheeledfish]

hey guys, my boat is a 21' tahiti with a 460 and berkeley 12jc a pump. all stock I'm pretty sure. she runs great but naturally I'd like her to be a little faster, especially since she's long and sleek and everyone expects her to be a white knuckled thrill ride. aside from putting in a place diverter, I was considering a little souping up this winter; nothing major, just a valve job, new cam, intake, carb, ignition. but I was reading on the berkeley web site and they said you can spend alot of money and not go any faster if you don't modify your pump. what do you all think? will such engine mods make any difference? and berkeley shows my pump pushing considerable more water at 4800 rpm, yet my engine hits 4200 and thats that. any way to get her to rev up?
I have to say man, 4200rpm seems quite low for a 460 with a berk jc-a. Have you checked the engine compression and/or is your tach reading correctly? I have an 18' Eliminator bubble deck with a 460. I put an offenhauser aluminum intake on, stuck with a holley 650 w/ vac secondaries, punched the exhaust through the transom with 3.5 inch tips, radiused my intake grate, replaced the berkeley bowl with an american turbine split bowl (running an aluminum A impeller), and wedged the nozzle up 2 degrees. I spin 4700rpm and hit 71mph on the gps. It just seems that your engine should be spinning a few more revs with the current set up.

[Beer-30]

I have a sister that live in Lander, WY. They are at about 5500'. Normally aspirated engines are about 70-75% of their sea-level horsepower. Depending on your altitude, you will have to build based on that. If you want 400HP, you will want to build it to 500 or so HP specs.
Of course, any power-adders will help. If you are up there in altitude, you will probably not see much until you do a package of heads/cam/intake, and a nice high alt tune for the carb and ign.

[Legal Chemistry]

I had the same issue. 4200 seems rather low. I found out my secondaries weren't opening all the way. Once fixed I went from 4200 to 4800.

[ERV JR]

I Second That One About The Carb Sec. Not Opening. My Boat Would
Only Turn About 4300, Changed The Vac Sec. Spring And Picked Up
Rpms To 4800. A Quick Trick Is To Put A Paper Clip In The Vac Sec
Diapharm Link And If They Open The Paper Clip Will Slide Down And Tell U How Much They Do Open

['78 gt boat]

"lakes only" is a bbf genius! you know speed is a question of money...how fast do you want to spend it?
I agree 100% Lakes Only on the board is the master of the 460. He built mine and we just took it out and GPS'ed it at 57.8mph with 3 adults, a full tool box, anchor, line, and two full 20-25 gallon tanks. Not bad for a little tugboat. :crossx: :crossx:

[twowheeledfish]

I have a sister that live in Lander, WY. They are at about 5500'. Normally aspirated engines are about 70-75% of their sea-level horsepower. Depending on your altitude, you will have to build based on that. If you want 400HP, you will want to build it to 500 or so HP specs.
Of course, any power-adders will help. If you are up there in altitude, you will probably not see much until you do a package of heads/cam/intake, and a nice high alt tune for the carb and ign.
A good point. I didn't catch the wyoming location. My boat only spins about 4200 rpm at lake almanor, which is at about 5000 ft.

[Wyomingoutlaw]

I put an offenhauser aluminum intake on, stuck with a holley 650 w/ vac secondaries, punched the exhaust through the transom with 3.5 inch tips, radiused my intake grate,
what do you mean you "radiused my intake grate"? what is that and what is involved?

[twowheeledfish]

what do you mean you "radiused my intake grate"? what is that and what is involved?
Its a little trick that I learned from my river racing buddy. Makes the pump flow mo' water mo' better. Involves grinding the pump side of the individual grates to a mild point, while leaving the river side of the grates alone. For those of us that run shallow rivers most of the time, loaders aren't an option. I can't tell ya how much it helped, if at all, as the grinding was done in concert with some other pump upgrades (american turbine split bowl + 2 degree up wedge) that netted 4mph without a diverter.

[Nick69]

stock 460 has real low compression go with flat tops , grind the therm bosses out of the exhaust change cam and intake put a snoot and placediverter , shoe and rideplate and loader and that should pick up the speed alot

[dmontzsta]

LakesOnly = Ford Pimp

[lilrick]

LakesOnly = Ford Pimp
Dmontzsta=BIATCH!