My brother, who lives in central Nebraska, knows a local farming family that has used stationary 454's for their center pivot irrigation systems. A few years back they converted from natural gas to E85, and rather than rework the engines they had, they bought all new engines and put the old ones in the shed. He's got an '81 C10 he's rescuing from the crusher and was going to put a 305 he had in it (originally had the 5.7 diesel, had been converted to gas Olds 350 before being parked), but then he heard about these 454's these guys have.

They are definitely Gen V, block casting # 10114182 (also have some Mark IV's, but they aren't as in good of shape). They are mounted on stands with gauges & switch panel, have a weird low profile 4-barrel intake with the NG carb on top of it, custom welded exhaust with a tube out of each port to a box plenum to a single stack on each side (must have been pretty loud), heat exchanger instead of radiator. They appear to have a standard bellhousing and clutch that has been set up for hand clutch and an output bearing/flange. The distributor is a non-vacuum advance large coil-in-cap HEI, not sure if it has mechanical advance. No mechanical fuel pump provision. Everything else looks "normal" (alternator, water pump, starter) except for a multi-groove pulley on the damper. They do have the cast aluminum valve covers (except for the older engines, which are stamped steel). I haven't seen them, but my brother has looked at them a couple of times, got the block casting #, and sent me some pictures.

To the farmers, these engines are scrap iron. My brother & I tried to calculate what they would get out of them for scrap, and thought something in the neighborhood of $75 for 3 of them. With that, he asked what they wanted - they said $50 a piece, as many as we wanted, and guaranteed to run (or they'd give us another one).

He's probably going to get one or two of them, get a "regular" carb intake manifold, headers, and install it in his pickup. If I got in, I'd assume changing the heads, rebuilding forged with higher compression. But, I haven't talked myself into jumping in yet. I've seen the discussion about the "issues" with these engines, mostly involving the lack of aftermarket parts, but the heads I've looked at say they fit Gen V, and Summit shows cams for Gen V from several manufacturers (not sure if these engines have roller or flat tappet lifters).

Anyway, that's where this is at. No particular hurry to act on this. He'll probably jump on it in the next few weeks, after he sells his small-block-only stuff first.

 

Gen V will have flat tappet cams. The BBC didn't get the roller cam until the Mark VI engines. Aftermarket heads will work. The only issue is having the proper head gaskets so coolant doesn't leak into the lifter valley.

The gen V heads are junk. They're peanut ports. They have a non adjustable valve train that uses 3/8" studs in the heads. Adapter rocker studs with a 3/8" bottom and 7/16" top can be used to install aftermarket rockers but the 3/8" bottom is small if you use any kind of heavy valve spring. They only thing the Gen V heads are good for are standard replacements onto another Gen V engine.

The low profile cast valve covers is normal on a Gen V. They use an o-ring instead of a gasket and don't leak. The Gen V engines will have steel cranks with 4 bolt mains and use a one piece rear main.

As cores for build ups, even the older Mark IV engines are probably worth it. The heads alone are worth the $50 providing they're not cracked.

 

Okay, that clears that up.

I've heard you say that before. No mention of needing a special gasket with the heads I've looked at.

Understood, for what I would do, I'd get aftermarket heads with adjustable stud mounted rockers. For my brother, he'd be tickled with more power/torque than the 305.

Right. A plus.

Another plus.

I'm sure the Mark IV's have peanut port heads as well. But, I was thinking similarly, that the engines would be worth the fuel to go get them and sell as cores. I paid $100 for a bare rebuildable 454 block.

A couple of pics:





The cradle would probably make a good engine test stand.

 

Holy canoli!
Im sorry I dont get to see this stuff all the time! Awesome.

 

No kidding.

But, these engines are kid stuff compared to their field tractors.

Not sure what RPMs they ran them at. Apparently the E85 engines had a different torque curve, so they had to change gearing on the well pumps (weren't too happy about that, from what I hear).

The engines had the oil changed at the beginning of every season, and at 1000 hours (I'm sure one of those gauges is an hour meter). No vacuum advance because they never "cruised", basically under power all the time. That pink line at the back corner of the first pic apparently is a PCV oil recovery system, as it goes between the valve cover grommet to a pipe in the oil pan drain plug.

 

The gen 5 head gaskets are unique from both the Mark Iv and the Gen VI. There's a photo in the current FelPro catalog comparing the deck surfaces of all 3 versions of the 454. The head gasket just has to match the block. There are head gaskets that will work for both the 5 and the 6.
Now, I'd love to have another gen5 454 block, my block is cracked. I'm driving from Utah to Memphis and back sometime after May 17, maybe even early June. Any chance of me buying one, even if it is a couple hundred mile detour? Please PM me if so. Thanks

 

Judging from my 454 out of a '94 Suburban, the gen 5 is cast a little lighter than the mark 4, but as fas as I can tell, all the gen 5s had 4-bolt mains. On all 5 caps. This adds unnecessary weight, but is good for bragging. There are no provisions for the factory style roller lifters, thus it takes aftermarket retrofit lifters if you want hydraulic roller. The truck pistons have a small dish to them. Those stationary engines could use the forged pistons used in some marine applications and the 425-horse crate 454. That would be sweet. I still wouldn't want iron heads.

 

Apparently the father and son haven't been communicating. The son sold two of the Gen V's without the father knowing. So, there are fewer of them available.

A fellow racer said he'd take whatever Mark IV's we'd haul out, so I told my brother I'd take all of the Mark IV's that were left. Well, Dad said no, just the number of engines originally talked about (4). My brother wants a Gen V for his pickup, Atilla wants one for his Suburban, that leaves 2. We'll see if we can talk them out of the other two, anyway. The fellow racer just had to replace the engine in his '96 pickup, so I told him I'd trade the heads off his old engine for one of the Mark IV's.

Yesterday I was trying to improve or at least maintain my tie for 2nd place in a race series that requires a 12.75 or better ET, for some reason the nitrous wasn't kicking on (worked fine checking it out in the pits, but wouldn't engage on the track) so I didn't qualify with a 13.00 best. Got me to thinking real hard about a 454.

 

Late Monday afternoon, south-central Nebraska:



Managed to get three of them, cradle & all, in the pick-up, after removing the exhaust manifolds. Two of them are going to a racer buddy, the third is mine. Right now they're on the driveway at home (very long day), hope to get them unloaded tomorrow evening at the bud's shop. My brother got a fourth Mark IV for his project.

I didn't have time to pull valve covers to check head casting #'s. The intake manifolds, it turns out, are standard truck spreadbore intakes. The natural gas "carburetors" had dual bolt patterns drilled in their mount plates. I did pull the oil fill caps and run my finger inside, they are deposit-free. They changed the oil at the beginning of every season, and drained the water jackets every fall. We asked what RPMs they ran them at, he said 2100. These were replaced with ethanol 496's (my brother said E85, but it's E99) running at 1750 RPMs.

Since I started this thread, I've purchased an LQ4/4L80E for the '57. So this 454 will have a different use. One more fitting for this Board. . .

 

have fun with that 454. But damn it is there any of them left! that was a hell of a deal!

 

There were more sitting there, but apparently the son told the dad he let them go too cheap. We even offered more for them, but he wouldn't discuss any further deals. He told my brother two of those left were sold 2 weeks ago, but they were all still sitting there. My brother just didn't want to push it anymore, for fear he was stretching the bounds of the friendship already.

It's really hard to say how many "deals" like this are sitting out there for the picking. Farmers can be funny birds - they also had 4 Izuzu diesels sitting in there, plus a Ford big block on a trailer apparently used as a back-up engine, and a new-looking turbo 4-cyl John Deere diesel also on a trailer for the same purpose with a hole in the crankcase. A lot of these guys just never haul their old stuff away.

We had a neighbor like that when I was growing up on the farm. The dad never traded anything in or hauled it to the junkyard, just dragged it down by the river on his property when it wore out. He was killed in a tractor accident, after that his son dragged a Minneapolis Moline tractor of the late-40's variety out of the woods, pulled it apart (used a 4x4 and a sledge hammer to get the pistons out of the sleeves, according to the story), found a turbo from a Corvair Spider, and made a tractor puller out of it (in the lighter weight classes). Took it around to various county fairs and pulled the snot out of it. Said it didn't have any oil pressure at the RPMs it was made for, but the turbo would spin it fast enough to get the oil pressure up.

 

Finding out the price to sell stuff is always difficult. Sell it too cheap and everyone tells you that you're giving them away. Ask too high of a price because that's what you think they're worth and nobody wants to buy it.

A sale price is a fair price to make sure it sells. I'm sure the engines bought and paid for themselves over the years. It's not like they need to make a profit from the sale of the engines.

$50 is a little too low for a running engine. I'm sure they still would have all sold if they were $400 each.

 

I'll be eager to follow your proposed buildup of a big block third gen if you run an overdrive automatic. Failure to run one is what has turned me off of every other big block thread. Whatever you run, I hope it works out as you would like.

 

I have a '92 TH700R-4 that I would probably build up for this project.

It wouldn't be all that wild, just enough to run mid-13's at this altitude (about .75-1 second off of what the 350 currently runs). I'm thinking heads (because the ones on there are probably peanut ports, and aluminum would reduce weight), cam (nothing too wild, 5500 RPMs should do the trick), better intake manifold (probably just a Performer would do), headers (the Patriot option has caught my imagination), will have to do something with the exhaust (maybe just hook up the existing to the headers, maybe a complete upgrade), cowl hood, a better torque converter, and probably an aftermarket torque arm.

 

I for one would be curious to hear how those cheap Patriot aluminum heads do on a 454-467 down at 1000-2000 rpm in overdrive. This build sounds like your rear gears would be under 3.50:1 rather than over 3.70:1.

 

Most heads have chambers, intake ports, and valves that are larger than necessary.

3.23 gears now. Might go to 3.42's.

 

I took the engines over to the other guy's shop tonight. We unloaded them, took them out of the cradles, and removed the bell housings/clutches/flywheels. He apparently knows someone who is interested in the stationary well drive parts of the set-up (incredible). We took the Gen V apart first, the only one that had the bottom cover on the bell housing. Mice had built a condo in there, completely filling up the bell housing with nesting material. Since mice don't particularly care where they crap or pee, the bottom half of the whole thing was corroded something fierce, even the interior of the aluminum bell housing. We couldn't get the output shaft and throw-out bearing apart. The clutch disk and pressure plate were a mess, and the flywheel wasn't too pretty, either. Nasty, nasty. The worst part was after getting the flywheel off, the back side was also full of nest, and the output flange of the crank had a layer of rust on it. I just hope the rust doesn't extend under the rear main seal. The other two didn't have that lower cover, so there wasn't as much to support their nest. The damage was much less as a result. The clutch disks still had the ink stamps on the face, so little wear had occurred. A quick clean-up and they're ready for use.

Curiosity got the best of me, and I pulled a valve cover. The heads are 10101140 castings, with non-adjustable rockers. Mortec calls them "91-up...oval..CLOSED..Gen.V 366T, 427T". I can believe the oval, and maybe the "closed" (although I'm not convinced of that), but the "366T, 427T" part doesn't make any sense. The exhaust ports look pretty good sized, but I haven't pulled the intake yet to see what the intake ports look like. The part of exhaust valve stem in the exhaust port is huge, while the valve heads don't look that big. That all doesn't matter much, as I don't plan on using the heads.

Underneath the valve covers was incredibly clean - just a few stains on the cover, no oil crude build-up at all. Due to natural gas and being cooled by a constantly fresh supply of well water, I presume. I took some photos with my cell phone, but I left my SD adapter at work, so I'll try to download them tomorrow.

 

If the World Merlins came in alminum, or the AFR 265s were fairly priced, or if..et cetera. I think that for a third gen with an automatic, the point of the intake valves being too large would be anything bigger than 2.30" on a 454-467, but if you could find an old pair of Dart OEFI oval aluminum heads, those would be the ultimate for what you've typed so far. I chose a 4.500" stroke crank for my 454, to get me to 511 ci, to make use of a 315cc intake port. That was before I found my block is cracked. But I was thinking how the '98-'02 Z28 pulls 1430 rpm at 65 mph with 346 ci, so it doesn't take much torque, I hope one day someone tries those cheap Patriots on a 454-467, the loss of port velocity might even help mileage, depending on cam and gearing. Those heads on that displacement should support a hp peak approaching 6500 rpm.

 

Promised pics:

Valve cover:




Under the valve cover:



I don't recall seeing or hearing of valve spring shields like that.


I've been trying to find information on those "cheap Patriots" you are referring to. Is this what you mean? https://www.patriot-performance.com/...&cat=33&page=1 Those are 320cc intake, I assume rectangular port. To the best of my knowledge, nobody makes a spreadbore rectangular dual plane intake.

Large intake ports kill low-RPM velocity, and therefore economy.

 

First, those shields are very common on the later rats, but I discard them and the rotators for anything but stock rebuilds. Second, these are a total steal: http://www.competitionproducts.com/p....asp?dept=1486 and if you were to want to run them with a spreadbore dual-plane, using the large-oval intakes with rectangular gaskets and heads shocked me the first time I heard of it, but works pretty well, as the mismatch tends to fight flow reversion, while still allowing the pressure wave to bounce as Edelbrock or Weiand intended. I think the fact of these heads being cheaper than iron Merlins justifies the hassles. Anyway, as for velocity hurting mileage, you're using an engine 3 times larger than necessary, so reducing cylinder filling could help mileage if taken advantage of.

 

Another thought: the heads on the 425-horse 454 crate engine from GM are rectangular port and over 310cc, yet build great low-rpm torque. Okay, part of that is the 211/230 @ .050" cam, but it pulls well past 5500 rpm with the better-flowing heads used on the 440-horse version. That would put you well into the 12s.

 

Okay, I'm getting a little spooked about getting myself stuck in a money pit here.

Let's assume 3700 pounds going down the track, XE268 flat tappet cam (1600-5800 powerband), Summit Stage 1 dual plane spreadbore intake (idle-6000 claimed powerband), 1-3/4" Patriot Clipster headers & exhaust to support, 3000 RPM stall, 3.23 gears with traction:

What heads to run 13.75 or better at altitude on a hot day? (Take your sea level estimate and multiply by 1.0781 to get the 5800' elevation ET. Or, assume 12.75 at sea level.)

Call me optimistic, but I'm guessing the peanut ports with a little clean-up would probably get the job done.

 

I'd say the following: 1: a big block is no advantage for such a modest performance goal. For that goal, I'd stick with a 350 or 383, and enjoy better mileage, handling and braking. 2: While John Lingenfelter did get some impressive results with his porting of peanut ports, most of us will never come close to his results, and his results with a mild cam might meet your goals, but his results that would easily meet your goals came with a cam too wild for any street use. 3: power is addictive, and as soon as you run a 13.75, you're going to be wanting a 13.50, and on it goes. Best to start with good heads, whether big block or AFRs for a small-block, otherwise you're fighting the same battle that all hot rodders had to in the 70s. Poor heads crutched with a big cam leads to a narrow powerband and poor driveability. 4: wouldn't it be embarassing to have a 454 that can barely equal a stock '98-'02 Z28? 5: bite the bullet or sell it and get some AFRs for a small block. That's just my take.

 

Looked at the other way, a 12.75 at sea level means at least 300 rwhp. Correct for the 700R-4 means 385 crankshaft HP, which peanut ports can do, with about a 218/228 cam. This is sound theory, but in practice, you'd better be able to hook it up. Then, 300 rwhp with an LS1 is alot easier on a 7.625 than 300 rwhp with a big block.

 

300 RWHP with the big block I've got would be a lot easier and cheaper than LS1. I know that from experience.

I hear what you're saying. I'm already doing Vortec heads for the 350, with more stall & gear it would probably get to 13.80. But, with the current stall and gear, the 454 could do that without even breathing hard, and retain better street manners.

We'll see. I'm in no big hurry here. Might even end up just selling the 454. But, I've been thinking about a big block (namely the 396 currently in the '57) for several years. A cc-carb big block would be icing on the cake (not sure I've heard of anyone doing that in a 3rd gen).

 

I'm playing devil's advocate to a friend, not pushing in any direction, so here's more info, as much for whoever all is following this thread: Starting with the 350, and keeping in mind the need for 385 crank HP at sea level, and the OP has L31 heads and ZZ4 cam, so it must be an '87-up block. Even with dished pistons, not zero decked, and .039" FelPros, With a RPMAirGap and a switch to the GM "hot" cam kit, the results are 401 hp at 5600 rpm, 428 ft-lbs at 4200 rpm, and at least 385 ft-lbs from 2600 rpm to 5400 rpm. This should run the number. With a used truck 454, 7.75:1 compression and unported peanut ports, a Merlin dual plane intake, a 224/234, .527/.553" cam from PAW and 2" headers, netted 413 hp @ 4900 rpm, and 490 ft-lbs @ 4000 rpm. This shouls also run the number. That was in HotRod, Oct. 2001. As for the Patriots, the flow at .500" is 330/257, and on a 454 bored +.100" with a 4.25" stroke, giving 505 ci, they're good for 673 hp at 6100 rpm, 624 ft-lbs at 5100 rpm, and over 605 ft-lbs from 3500 rpm to 5500 rpm. Up at 6500 rpm, the thing still had 669 hp and 541 ft-lbs. This was in the Jan. 2008 ChevyHiPerformance.

 

Keeping the CC carb is pretty high on my list. That limits me to 5500 RPMs (6000 if you believe some claims) because of the intake manifold. I could to a Performer RPM spreadbore with "regular" SBC heads, but not Vortecs. Otherwise, I would do the Hot Cam.

The Summit or Weiand BBC spreadbore intakes claim 6000 RPMs, but that's probably optimistic. The XE268 says 5800, so that's close.

But, I agree, sticking with peanut ports, even with some port & valve work, probably doesn't make sense. Aluminum would save some of the weight being added with the big block, so that does make sense.

The Brodix 280/290's look good, but they are pricey. Edelbrock Performer RPMs actually spec out to exactly what I'm looking for, but again aren't cheap. The Patriots with the 320cc intake ports and big valves just spook me for some reason - I'm not averse to being a ground breaker, but it seems too far over the edge of what I'm looking at. $500-$1000 less than the other choices does have its merits.

Do want to keep this mild mannered for the street as well. The small block that has the power just doesn't seem to get there.

 

The Edelbrock 290cc heads have the worst flow per cc of any rat heads besides maybe ported iron ovals. Better to do the TFS Power Ovals with GM's 211/230 cam, or better yet, a 212/230 with more lift, from COMP. And the bad news is that if you're using the dual plane for vortecs that GM offers with external EGR, which is really an edelbrock performer vortec as far as the ports go, once you bolt it to the vortecs, the SuperFlow 1020 stops reading 238 cfm at 0.475" and starts reading about 226. So those intakes need to be Extrude-Honed. I hope they're surviving this recession.

 

Yeah, I have the Power Ovals on my Summit wishlist. About $100 per pair less than the Race Rites. Pretty hard to beat the Brodix name, though.

The XE268 is 224/230 on a 110 LSA.

 

The Brodix heads do have better exhaust flow to intake flow, but the TFS have a combustion chamber that seems to me more efficient. Still, it's not my money nor my car.

 

Amazing how much changes in 9 months.

The '57 is getting a stroked LQ4 (eventually). The Camaro is getting an LS1/4L60E. My brother came out this weekend and picked up the Gen V 454 - he's going to put it in his pickup, and our niece's husband is going to pick up my brother's Gen IV 454 to put in his '72 Monte Carlo circle track car.

 

I know what you mean. I've got 3 motors sitting in my shed right now and one still in the TA.