A buffalo’s first bowtie

Thanks 87, I did ask and he said they were fine with the stock covers. I noticed on summit that some of the roller rocker sets have 2 that are shaved to fit under the stock covers, so I guess it can be an issue. I also have a wee bit of space to work with now and will be using exhaust gaskets when it goes back together and so will gain that much more.

I haven't decided yet if I want to keep the stock look or not(I already changed the tranny to black). 1 change that looks nice is the valve covers. I read where chrome retains heat,but I did see some nice cast aluminum covers with the bowtie on them that claim to be stock height.

I'm not a big Clemson fan...not against them either. I say that because my boat is blue on grey and I was thinking of going with chevy orange?!!? LOL

BFN, I may be a newbie here but I have worked at a race shop for the better part of a decade. I realize that your motor is not a race motor but you are looking for a long service life. Either cam type you use will be fine if it is properly set up, use quality components, and just as importantly, broken in correctly. By the way, you may already know this but Mobile 1 changed their synthtic formula a couple of years ago and we are not seeing as good of results as the old formula. We used to use Mobile 1 but after testing the new formula we switched to Valvoline VR-1. Just thought that might be useful to you.

Thanks for the tips Andy, and welcome aboard. The scorpion rockers are 'cheap chinese'? Right now, I'm waiting to get my parts back from the machine shop...hopefully next week. Any opinions on the demon carb?

Edit:I looked the scorpion rockers up..."Made in the USA...and Proud of it!" is their logo.

BuffaloBFN wrote: Thanks for the tips Andy, and welcome aboard. The scorpion rockers are 'cheap chinese'? Right now, I'm waiting to get my parts back from the machine shop...hopefully next week. Any opinions on the demon carb? Edit:I looked the scorpion rockers up..."Made in the USA...and Proud of it!" is their logo.

Greg, Ive read that Crane makes some of the best rockers. Scorpion is also very good, especially for the price. I run the Cranes (rebranded as FMS) and JoeinNY runs the Scorpions.

Ive heard very good things about Barry Grant carbs. They are supposed to be based on an improved Holley design, and use some of the same components (jets, etc). On a mostly stock rebuild, Id stick with a new Holley if theres a significant price advantage- but the Marine Demons are very nice units if you want to pony up the $$$.

im a holley guy all the way too, easy to work on, reasonably priced, Ive tried many other carbs in the past and always came back to a holley, my motto with a holley is ...set em and forget em.
the biggest thing with carbs is sizing them correctly, its better to have them to big then to small, i would imagine with what your doing Greg you would need an 780 to 850 cfm, check the carb issue out thouroughly because it really is a big dollar purchase, there is a ci to cfm chart to get you close and then on a holley its easy to change your jets

go by the guide, the throat of the carb is where they determine CFM, it can be a restriction if to small, you are upping the comp ratio? if so they need more air,intake? more air.... thats why its important to size the carb, I threw those numbers out there because i use 780's on 383cubes and they are perfect. there is a carb guide if you search the web to tell you CFM's to cubes. dont go by what im saying, Id just hate to see you add all thiese goodies and not have enough carb.....

I used this calculator.
I entered 454ci, 5000 for max rpms, and left the %83 VE. The results were 656.829 cfm @ 100% VE...545.168 cfm @ user % VE

I must be leaving something out or not compensating for something?

I also went through the holley carb finder. It came back with the 4160/750cfm, but with vaccuum secondaries. It was my understanding that 'we' wanted the mechanical secondaries?

TRBenj wrote: I believe the 330hp 454 PCM's came with 650cfm carb's. Check the list number on your stocker to verify. I would think that the 750cfm carb that Holley recommended would be pretty sweet. You want the vacuum secondaries, not mechanical

I think you're right about the stock carb being a 650. I don't have a 'stocker' to compare to. It's had an edelbrock 600 on it since I've had it. The CFM calculator said 656.8CFM @ 100% I also saw where Gottaski? said that raising the CFM size would extend the range where the primaries are effective. I've done a pile of reading and only really have a little of it sorted out. On the barry grant demon site, the transmission was the determining factor in mechanical vs. vacuum secondaries...but no marine info. I think I understand why several have reccomended the vacuum for this application; guess I just had mechanical in my head. It's so that the secondaries aren't forced open when they aren't needed? And maybe because I don't need to get to 8000 rpms in a hurry?
I'm still deciding on the carb brand...JR VIC? seemed very happy with his demon as are many of you with the holley. I didn't see a deal breaking price difference, and the demon looks to be easily adjustable w/o taking it apart every time.
All of my stuff is supposed to be ready this afternoon!

Just my two cents worth, but me and my friends have not had the best of luck with Barry Grant's carburetors. We had one 850cfm double pumper that, tuned at it's best state was almost 75h.p. short of our "test carb" wich was a Blake modified Holley. Again I realize that you aren't looking for all out h.p., but who can afford to lose that much power and economy. That was a few years ago but not an isolated issue because we know of at least 3 other customers, all with slightly differt carbs, that had the same problems. My opinion, from my experiences, is stick to a Holley, and if you want it a little better, send it to a specialists like Blake, but a box stock one is pretty good for all general purposes.

Scorpion is currently the largest US manufacturer of roller rockers. I have two sets of the stock ratio small block ford ones in my correct crafts. They are built on automated robotic production lines, have a lifetime warranty and I have never heard of a single failure from anyone running them. Having said that if you are planning to have someone else build the engine for you I would go with whatever brand they recommend and sell for the most part. The builder will be your primary source for support and warranty issues and if something doesn’t go well its best to have him on your side and working with vendors he knows to get things corrected.   I have edelbrock, holley, and barry grant marine carbs, but I don’t have a big block chevy so I can only speak to the generals. I have a newly rebuilt 650 holley and a just about new 750 holley on the shelf I would let you test out when your ready if you wanted to cover shipping. On my 302 for the mustang I run a 600 cfm edelbrock and on my 408 in the nautique I run a 650cfm marine demon. They are all good carbs I gained a little bit on the top end with the demon over the holley but the demon I have has no choke horn so I suspect that to be the difference, sizing and tuning will be way more important to performance that the brand in my experience.
-Joe.

Buffalo,
The HO 454 came with a 750 on it. That is one think that I will be doing on the BFN this spring, getting rid of the 650 and replacing with a 750 holley. I feel the motor has some more to give just lack fuel and air mixture.

it just seems like a 650 is too small for a BB, a 850 would be to big and a 750 would be just right, same as the old prop adage... i think i would go with the 750,
carbing an engine is a science too, it is also trial and error, I ran a 65o then to a 750 on one of the first strokers we built and it fell flat, it ran out of air in a hurry, by chance a friend had a 780 holley that he kept insisting that i try because he told me it needed more air and of course i didnt believe him, so i slapped it on and fired it and i tell you what, that engine came to life and since then i always prefer the 780's on the 383's, everyone told me a 780 was to big and i agreed, i dont think you'll have a problem with the 750 on that big block.
with the 650 and 750 on that engine it huffed black smoke on throttle and i re-jetted 10 different times and couldnt understand for the life of me why it was running rich...it ended up that it wasnt getting near enough air and the 780 cured the problem

we need some more details on what your hanging on the engine and what comp ratio and so on, what was done with the heads? did you get the engine back?

what ratio rollers?

And just to confirm, it's bored 30 over.