Big Block Chev 454 - Dyno Power Blast

what not mopar look at this guys you have a big

block

chef 454. Why aren't you welcome to this garage and look at what I have on the

dyno

today. big

block

chev

rolet 454 yes it is something different from a mopar yes and from time to time I also shave this here. I have a 454 that belongs to Felix, who owns a 1972 Chevy Nova with a four speed. He only asked me to build him a 454 because when I bought the car a few years ago he said not his 44. It doesn't run at all like a 454 should. How was that last one good?

So they asked me to build it and I want to make something very simple, not too crazy, a little over 500 horse

power

, so we took the engine from it, tackled 30 more than us. I bought a set of uh afr aluminum heads. One was a high-rise, dual-plane intake manifold. I didn't buy a carburetor from them, but this is the one on the

dyno

for now. Anyway, we put a flat tap on them without all the factory cam rockers. We bought some. heavy duty pushrods and we just wanted to make something very simple, but when Nick is building an engine, simple still means

power

ful, so these heads are equipped with double springs and have a new type of flat cam.

I had to put this lip on the dyno and broke the cam yesterday with a single spring because I didn't want to break it with the double spring that came from the factory with these heads, so what I did was remove the inner springs from the heads before installing them. The engine on the dyno, so now I ran it for 20 minutes. I broke the cam and now I just want to reinstall the inner springs, so I left one that I haven't done yet, as you can see. I have the inner spring, I made the other 15 so I left the last one out so I could put it on video, so now we've run it for 20 minutes, I want to remove this valve spring and install the second spring.

You know, in many cases when I run engines with a flat tap on the hydraulic cam I usually use a single spring, but in this application A4 sent me some cylinder heads, they also replaced the valve springs and I noticed that when These simulators arrived. They were designed for a flat top on the chamber, so they called me to area 4 and I asked them why they are putting a double spring in this setup. They're going to say it will work well for what they want to do. with the 500 lifter with maybe 6000 rpm, so they said they ran the motor on a double spring, but then they also told me to remove the inner spring to break the cam, which I did, and that's why This turns.

It came with double springs, in case you want to rip it high you want to make sure the operation doesn't have vamp float or anything like that and what I like to do is rip the cam again for another 20 minutes with the double springs. Why some people do it, some people don't, but I like to have extra security. I really want to make sure I don't wear out the tube, so I'm going to install the spring right now. I'll show you. how to do it there are 21 left and adding the internal spring adds a few more pounds so there will be more pressure in the cabin and that is the reason I run the engine again for another 20 minutes, break it into the can with The Double Spring not many do that, but I do that.

I really want to reinstall it with the double spring, so now let's put it on the cylinder to make sure we don't drop the valve while removing it. the spring and the locks and install the inner spring put everything back put the push rod back adjust the rocker arm and put the valve cover back on and let's run it for another 20 minutes and we'll break it in so here we go here we go let's pressurize the cylinder so this helps the valve stay closed so it doesn't fall out while we're doing the swap because we're going to be removing the locks and the retainer so there's a tool designed for a

chev

y like this so I'm going to make one , I already did the other 15, so let's see, here we go, let me get out my little magnet, take out the locks, there we go, I'll put the locks on.

I'm closing my way there, but you know what we'll accomplish. After all, A4 designed this setup, so they asked me to run it with the dual spring in this application with this camera, so here we go. We take out the spring, as you can see, there is no spring inside. We take the inner spring. We place it like this. we can install the locking pick sometimes it's easy sometimes it's a little battle so let's see how it goes on this one I have the two keepers right here I'm going to put them in slowly here it goes like this, you see, then we take out the uh, our tool that was designed for this now that the spring retainer and lock are in place, we can remove the air pressure, the valve is not going to go down now, just lock it in place, remove the hose like this and now let's put our walker back on. here's our last cap it has a tab cap so put it back on we're going to put our first rod back on here are our factory rockers you know some people say nick you know you build an engine why don't you put water tanks, but then?

Again you know wheel lockers are not no they are not cheap they are quite expensive and then every customer has a budget so I know these rockers will do the job it's not a crazy power motor and I'm sure that it will do the job and my client says nick if they do the job go ahead and put it back in and here they are good so we have our push rod in place now we are putting a rocker arm back in now I'm just going to adjust it to I'm sure the valve is closed so I can do my hydraulic adjustment, so I'm just going to give this a quarter turn, you'll see how I'm going to do that right now.

Scale suits, I'm going to put it on zero tabs like this, okay, look, it's loose like this, look at this, here we go, make sure we want to make sure that the valve opens and closes and when it closes, that's where we start to make our adjustment, but you have to make sure you make the adjustment. The valve is closed there it is down now and this is where the valve is closed. I know that's where it is and now I'll make my adjustment to my rocker. Look, this is it. Let's make it zero whiplash. Here we go.

There's a zero latch right here, you don't see any play, very, very little, so I take this and do a quarter turn, that's going to be my adjustment. I've done the rest, so now let's put the valve cover back on and get started. By the way, these valve covers do not belong to my customer, they are just valve covers that I have in stock and have had for many years. My client has the set there that sports a beautiful chrome Chevrolet with a red bow. Atar, those are yours, but for some reason those vodkas touch the rockers, so I'm not going to use those valve covers.

I'm going to use these valve covers temporarily to stop the cam again and also do the test on this engine, so for that reason I'm going to leave them on for now and now let's reinstall the spark plug, rewire our dishes, let's put the bolts back on the valve cover, some people will probably say, Nick, you're already broken the cam with only one spring, why are you? doing it again uh you know me, I like to do it twice, there's no harm in doing it twice, after all, you know, just double security so as not to delete the camera, after all, you'll see a lot more pressure now because to the internal spring I don't mind taking an extra 20 minutes, run it for 20 minutes at 2000 rpm, that'll be happy.

I'm sure Felix won't mind after all. I told him I'm going to break the cam with the single spring and then I put in the inner spring, which I just did now, so if all goes well, I call my customer and we start blowing it up. Nick is happiest when working in his dinosaur room, he's usually here with a big mopar, but as long as it's a powerful car engine and it makes his customer happy, he doesn't care what name is on the hood, it's possible We have a few drops of oil on the heads, so if you see a little smoke, it's not a big deal.

I try, I put my dipstick back in and by the way, I have 87 octane fuel in the tank here, but I'm going to waste it, I'm going to use the fuel just to break the cam again and after that I'm going to switch to 94 octane because This engine right now has a compression ratio of 10.8, here we go and then if all goes well I'll start playing with the timing and stuff. This is one of my favorite books. I have had it for many years. I have had this book from the early 70's and let me tell you, it is a Bible.

Let me tell you that at the same time we are going to run the engine to check for vibrations, oil leaks, water leaks, air. fuel ratio we're going to work with the timing, but on this carburetor I don't have vacuum for the vacuum advance, but for now I'm just going to try it like this without a vacuum advance on the Jupiter, we just want to know what is a full timing with full advance at highest rpm? In that case, it doesn't matter, then when our customer receives the rug that we want to choose, I will either set it to work with the vacuum on the Jupiter or set it up. put it in the car so it works properly okay here we go so the dash will be at 4.2 81 which is 30 plus let's turn on the computer and the stroke is four inches okay here we go the time is already set , Everything is done.

I only have 87 octane fuel, but I will change it later, we will run it for 20 minutes, install it again for the second time and after that we will change the fuel and then start testing. Okay, here we go, fuel pump. That was an easy oil pressure vacuum so we'll let it run for 20 minutes and after that if all goes well we'll start doing some testing so Nick's friend Neil just sent him an infrared thermometer digital to do this, but we filmed this. video from a couple of weeks ago and Nick is still doing things the old school, so he got 33 degrees at max time, so let's start testing at 33 degrees.

The fire pressure is good, so we'll give it a little more. minutes, I think we are ready to do our tests, so I set the time to 33 degrees. The air fuel ratio should be good with this carburetor because I have used it many times, it never ran lean or too rich anyway. I'm going to do a test and find out, but in the meantime I have to replace the fuel because now I only used the fuel that I had left from the last test, which is 87 octane, so now let's put something in 94 1914. from petro canada I'm going to do a test just to drain the system because it will take some time to drain the fuel from the setup here so don't count the first one or two tests yeah just drain all the fuel.

Run the Canada 94 gasoline through the entire system and then on the third or fourth test we'll start counting our numbers, an engine inside consumes quite a bit of fuel so I don't think we have any worries, okay. this here we go, put my funnel back on and let's put in about 90 for our thing, you know, we have a lot of viewers asking us how come we don't use an oracle, we don't have sunoco fuel here on a regular service. station, our highest octane is petrocanada which is 94 octane, but anyway you know what we used to say, okay, but it doesn't matter anymore, this will do the job if we were to have an engine with a higher compression.

Yeah we buy fuel from a retailer that sells some local fuel but it's not from a local uh it's not from a local gas station we get 110 112 and so on we go well we have to drain that 87 octane into the system so that we may have to fabricate one or two tests to get that out of the system here we go, let's get it going here we go I have a small empty steel container that gives another type of rich mixture we will make a small tap just I'm going to do a small test just to get the fuel out of the system, so don't count these numbers here we go, let's take it from we're going to go from 3000 to 5000 rpm at 300 rpm per second, so hello, the cap flew off, okay, uh I have a grease to through the dipstick.

I just temporarily put a bolt in place. I don't have the correct dipstick. It's coming out of the oil pan so I have to do something right now. You know, maybe I will. just insert some silicone for now, let's see if it works well, let's see how we did in our first test, it wasn't a great test, I just hope it has more than 500 hp, let's see, I hope it's a 454 after all, oh , Wow. oh this is cool look at this it's running on 87 octane we're at 525 at 5100 rpm and the torque numbers are really impressive five 565 six at forty two hundred wow wait guys we haven't finalized it yet look at that. pretty good look this is just a pretest call it what you want I call it a pretest it looks good so far let me get some silicone I want to fix that lubrication through the dipstick for now my client I was asking. at least let's make at least 540 540 horsepower looks like we're going to be there for sure it looks pretty good I'm very very happy so far the resultssaid. that there were spring harmonics with the springs and you know that was the right comment because we ended up taking the valve springs out of the valves and I started measuring the height of the spring and I realized that they were too long and didn't have enough spring pressure, so which we realized that at one point, it had harmonics with the springs at certain rpm, so I added a 45 shim on each spring, put it back together, then went back to the dyno and started running it again and finally we got we got rid of the drop we got. a straight line and that's it, I was just trimming the valve springs.

You know, I thought it was installed right after with the cam we specified we would use, but anyway sometimes you have to look deeper and do your own work. which I should have done so there you have it you spring harmonics what's the problem you shaved them off and we finally got rid of the dip in this 454 chevy and you guys if you look below the video we have a ton of products that you can buy, so whatever you want, buy it, love it, use it, enjoy it and help spread the word about Nick's Garage. If you have some time, check out our Patreon page, we have additional content and you can check it out and grab it. there and see you next time