Thoughts on running tall fill 455 on the street

I know you have to run a oil cooler with any fill at all but has anyone run a tall fill block on the street successfully? Thoughts on good brand oil coolers as well.

 

Ran my fill to the bottom of the water pump ports, no cooler and drove for hours at a time,...no issue that me or the engine builders seen when came time to switch stuff up

 

Yeah but I mean a dry block. filled until just a inch of water is left

 

Not sure if the bottom of the water pump ports is a tall fill btw still a little new

 

I wouldn't, and why? How much HP you aiming for

 

What was the oil temp while driving for hours at a time?

 

No gauge, so no idea put several thousand miles on it, Bottomend was fine and dandy when i tore it down. The block itself was used in 4 combos for a total of 30k or so miles

 

I'm a wild man tho, ha ive put rod bearings in while laying on my back at the Dragstrip in a dirt parking lot with the wind blowing while being handed warm Yenglings ,i'm comfortable with stock rods to 600hp, ive never owned a girdle, and I even put RTV on gaskets and bolt threads, some would say I'm crazy.... I prefer to think of it as courageous ha

 

Want 650 plus, and then later on buying a tomahawk , like a couple of years down the road, wanna find a cooler with it's own dedicated fan

 

That's alot of power on stock rods btw lol

 

Was putting 800+ to stock rods for a couple months and they never complained. No hard 5+ seconds of WOT tho, so they weren't really loaded that hard, no girdle either...Shortblock was then sold and will be back in service here soon

 

On a BBB, filling to the bottom of the water pump holes basically just slightly strengthens the bottom of the block barely surrounding the bottom of the cylinders. To fill around 1" from the deck's surface would completely cover the W/P holes so unless you get creative with your cooling system you can't really do that.


Notice how most of the deck's height is mainly above the W/P holes in the above picture of a BBB 455 block, not real easy to fill the way you're talking about.

It can be done but it is very labor intensive to keep the path of coolant flow open. GL


Derek

 

We had over 2200 passes on a low 11 high 10 sec stk rod motor no issues. Shifted at 6500rpm. Our car car is 3850 pound race weight. That close to 600hp. For street driving 650. I would not hard fill. If worried find a poston girdle pan or halo girdle fir some extra protection.

On the street you won't be using all 650hp in that long of bust.

Our motor did run the poston girdle pan. While mike builds the new motor, we plan on taking the iron heads off putting the cnc te stg 2 heads and hope to see 10.4 on the same stk rd combo as before.

 

Crazy.. with the availability of good drop in rods these days, why on earth would anyone risk destroying expensive components to use stock rods. What exactly are you trying to prove?

I lost my favorite 430 bracket motor to a broken stock rod.. did not break on the big end, but right on the starting line after the brake let go at 3500 rpm. That motor had a super light piston in it.. anyone who ever worked with the Jahns pistons that KB had done for the 430 in the 70's knows what I mean. Used to see 6600 rpm in the traps. 550 HP engine.

I used to think "stock rods, no big deal"... but it only takes one time. The other 7 rods in that set looked and measured perfectly, and this was a motor with several hundred passes on it.

At that time, it was stock rods, heavy Pontiac rods, or 1K Billet Crowers.. that is all that was available. If I had a set of $600 drop in Molnars available like today.. I would still have that 430.

If your running stock rods in combos like I see above, do yourself and your fellow racers a favor, and put a diaper on the car, because it's not a matter of if the rods will break, just a matter of when.

They are good rods, but are not designed for the abuse your putting them thru.


For the OP, yes, you can run a tall fill with an oil cooler, and with external water lines to feed water to the back of the heads. Were I building that motor, I would skip the tall fill, would search high and low for the best block I could with thick cylinder walls and little core shift, would limit my overbore to the absolute mininum required, and would put a girdle on it. Spend money on lightweight piston work, and try to keep the rpm down. A superior balance job and good balancer is a must.

JW

 

JW, .... X2

I've seen the serious race guys that feel they have to run with a taller fill (not total fill) get creative with jamming some slippery gooped up heater hose up the front water pump passages to the top of the block while the fill is setting, ... then pull them out once it is cured.

Larry

 

Ya, done that too.. on a partial fill. 3/8 fuel line hose if I recall.

JW

 

Now I believe a lot of those folks have seen the light and invested in the Tomahawk Block, .... done.

Larry

 

I wish I had more money lol I would totally buy that tomahawk alot of the machine work and oiling I can do, honestly if I was in the area I would ask Jim for a job, I like Buick that much lol I'd rather drive a bandaided one now and wear the badge than let it sit WHOSE WITH ME

 

Our new motor mike is building has the the molnar going in. Picked a new set up on ebay for 500 shipped. To put them in this old motor would require a new balance job which it did not need on the refresh, the refresh was just to keep the motor as a spare. Well given the timing on everything the new motor won't be done till much later in the season.......we all know that's just the way these things go. So the new heads are going on the old motor.

It's a great chance to see what the new cnc heads are worth by them self over the ported stage 1. Have not gotten solid flow number in my hands yet, but looks like we will be going from 250 cfm at 600 lift to in the 350-360 area

 

I understand Ben, and no offense was meant.. I just see folks taking a left turn into hell and throw my hand out to stop them, like you do when someone pulls out in front of you with your kids in the front seat.

JW