Ok , here's a real world combo for you. 455 bored .038over, 11to 1 ross reverse dome pistons, 850 holley carb, ta intake, our 280 cfm stg-1 heads( these are our famous head special heads flowing 280 on the intake at .550 lift and alittle over 200 on the exhaust at .550 lift) and a 276/282 solid cam at .050 on a 112 lobe sep, .600 lift intake , .594 exhaust. The made 545 horsepower at 5700, was still 530 at 6300, will rev higher but it has Buick rods in it, and 543 lbs/ft of torque at 4700 rpm. It went over 500 lb/ft at 3600 rpm, and was over 500 horse by 4800. This thing has more in it, the carb is the customer's out of the box 850. I'm telling you, it's all in the heads. Jim Burek P.A.E. ENTERPRISES
The cylinder heads are the critical link of your entire engine combination to ensure maximum performance. Our 550HP/550Ft.Lbs engine combinations include professionally ported cylinder heads and solid cam. What limits everyones desire for performance is the budget. It would be much easier for us to assist you with the best combination if we know about what it is you are looking to spend? I would strongly suggest leaving the cylinder head porting to the experts.
Look at it from another perspective. There are guys running FASTER with a daily driver basically stock shortblock (some ARE stock) and ported heads +cam+ intake+headers than other guys with lots of compression, racy cam, big dollar carb, etc. If I had it to do all over again, I'd start with the heads and cam in a ringed and bearinged zero-decked shortblock, and then save for a better shortblock. In retrospect, I think that's the cheapest way to reliable cheap 500 horsepower. Just the price of a set of forged flat-top pistons is a third of the way to a set of aluminum heads, or 1/2-2/3 to a set of decent ported iron ones.
Re: Re: 500 hp 455 bu. Jim, this wouldn't be the engine you just finished for my brother (Ken Steele) would it? That thing sounds awsome! And, he will be running at sea level instead of way up there where you had it on the dyno.
