Ok i'm finally gonna start building my 454 it's gonna be my first boat motor and there is very little in the way of informative shops in this area, so I need to know what i want before i go for machine work.. Could someone help me with a few questions and recomendations.
the motor will start as a stock bore 454 4 bolt main and will end up a 468 in a jet boat. I would like to build somewhere in the area of 550-600hp but this may change once i get budget figures together.
1. what is the highest compression i can safely run on pump gas.
2. will the stock crank and rods be ok with this power?
3. now there seems to be a ton of differn't answers on this one but should i use aluminum aftermarket or beefed up stock cast iron heads?
4. should i have the machine shop make any modifications to the block as far as oiling? or altering for anything else, i have heard talk of machining the block for o-rings?
5. I would like to run a tunnel ram with 2 4's any good combo's you guys are running on a similar hp motor?
and last where do you recomend i buy parts from? I want to gather all my parts take the motor/ heads/ pistons and rods to the machinist have everything machined then assemble it myslef but i prefer to buy the parts myself so they don't try and put some junk in.
thanks for the any info