Hi Whats the easiest way to get more power out of my 455 in my 76 Electra? I want to put new heads, camshaft, intake manifold and carburetor on it. I gone use it for a everyday driver, so fuel mileage must not be to bad.
Making more power and using it in general requires the consumption of more fuel. You can offset that increased consumption and maybe even improve mileage still with a change in gear ratios either in the rear or in the transmission. For example, you could install a 200R trans with overdrive. Unless you are driving it a lot it is going to take a long time to recover the modification costs.
Hi And thanks for the answer. I know it will going to cost me some money, but I am also going to keep this car ,since I have had a lot of good times with it during my Viking tour last year.So I just want to know if somebody had a good engines set up for me.
swapping the exhaust manifolds for headers is just about the only (easy/cheap) thing you can do to an engine that will increase both power and fuel mileage. in addition to changing your gearing, you can also fit taller tires on your rear wheels ... this will have the same kind of effect. keep in mind that any change in rear gearing, whether from tires or differential, will cause your speedo to give false readings without also changing the speedo gear.
Most of the 76 Electras come with the 2.56 gear... So an overdrive isn't the first thing I'd look at unless you want to drive your car at speeds way above what your speedo can indicate! The 75-76 455 engines have very low compression. If you get it as high as it was in 1969 you could get a much more powerful engine without affecting the fuel economy. I hope I'll be able to rebuilt my 75 455 soon and get it's power to the level of my 430. If you are allowed to by your country's laws, remove the restrictive catalytic converter (if it's not already done!).
Not as much as you might think. You gain about a 4% increase in horsepower for a raise in one point of the compression. So you may have 2 points to play with for a total of 8% potential increase in horsepower. However, when you do this you may require a higher grade of fuel which in turn costs a lot more per gallon which you said you are trying to avoid. So you might go a little higher with the compression without necessitating an increase in the fuel grade but it will only increase horsepower a little. (Then there is the issue of the additional costs to make the engine modifications.)
I can't get my 455 running without premium anyway (I run it with more advance than stock, it's unacceptably slow otherwise). What makes it that much harder on gas and that much less performant than my 401 and 430 engines?? I know that the Electra is a bit heavier and that it's 2.73 rear doesn't help the performance but it should at least help fuel economy!
Hi Can I get higher compression without buying new pistons; will other heads increase the compression?
The easiest way to get higher compression would be to decrease the thickness of the head gasket. Aside from headers, find someone that is good at porting heads and knows what their doing and have your heads ported. Anything you can do to the engine to increase the ability of air/fuel to flow will increase efficiency. The biggest restriction these engines have are the exhaust and heads. You could also get new aluminum heads from TA Performance, but that's the much more expensive route. Oh, and if you do get the heads ported, have the intake ports matched to the heads ports (again, to increase flow.) Hope that helps! :beer
If this is a stock 76 engine you'd be surprized how much power you'd gain by optimizing the distributor, lead/timing/vaccum and mechanical advance. If you want to change heads anything before 73 will help some with the earliest, 70 ones being the best. Do a search for Larry70GS, he's pretty good at questions about timing and carbs, there's probably a lot of power locked up in your motor that tuning can unleash. Dave B :TU:
Romy Hi and thanks for the answer. :TU: To have some porting heads here in Norway will be very expensive dont know how much they charge for an hour, but its a lot. Do you have any clue about what the compression will be with new TA aluminum heads? I have already added new 2 double exhaust with Flowmaster 40 mufflers. It sounds like there is a lot of power.(It only sounds like it) :laugh:
