What are the pros/cons of an olds 455. I have heard of bad oiling

and then you can teel me  please

Say what you will about Olds, but they will run FOREVER if you keep your eyes on the gauges (and your RPMs under 5K).    I'm still running the motor that Oldsmobile assembled in 1973 and my boat lived at Havasu for the last 15 years.  The hour meter broke at 486 hours.   Pretty good record I'd say.   Olds may have put these motors in boats and called 'em station wagons and Cutlasses, they aren't necessarily boat anchors.

yeah i have a 454 and run that thing wide open in my tahiti for the past 5 years bought it from the original owner and that thing kicks but problem is theres a damn panther sittin behind it GPS @ 54 icechest me and buddy 2 full tanks and the kitchen sink it was ok then last summer the u joint came apart i sent it to a shop cost a bunch of money (I just bought a home no where to work on it) took it home the ignitor was fried got a new one fried it put points back in it took it to the lake looked and had oil all under the motor when the guy pulled the motor out he must have broke the oil switch elbow got back to home got a new elbow and oil switch took it back to the lake ran about 15 minutes and it felt like i broke another u joint looked saw water rushing in realized the pump was loose luckily the bilge held just enough water out and that was the end of my summer 2 weeks later my only other friend with a boat snapped the exhaused valve in his BBC the number one chewed it up spit it out the wet log lol and theres nothing left of that motor except some rods. So now Im looking at a southwind with a 455 think i might send that motor away with my tahiti and keep the 454.

thanx yeah I saw a video of doc olds last night. pretty cool. it shows how he cleans up the holes and all that.

Theres a vidio I want to see it 

Hit him up to work on your truck.   Run a pipe cleaner through those pesky injectors and you should be good to go. 

sorry man, I had to do it.

I tend to agree with Glasscutter on this. In 70's and 80's stock form, the 455 Olds is a far better powerplant for a jet boat than the Chebbie or the Ford. More torque, none of them ran even AT 5k rpm, and pretty much bullet proof in that application. (Jet drives, from my understanding, were built initially around the old 215 Olds engine to begin with).

Nowadays, the advent of the "crate" motor and boat shops such as Harmin and Harden, have pushed those platforms well above what was ever expected from these engines and boats. And Jet shops, Tommy included, have built jets to take advantage of that. Not a bad thing, beleive me! It's the last bastion for us old school hot rodders, since street hot rodding is limited due to emiisions, etc, and the bar is set at these $100k+ machines you see at Barrett-Jackson.

I am a huge fan of the Olds and Poncho powered boats, and mods necessary that we used to do on street cars I, and others, have posted elsewhere, but Glasscutters on the right track! Glenn's also right, it's not an oil problem, it's over oiled for extreme rpm useage is all.

In stock form though, given the same boat, jet, etc, and given a choice between the three engines built to 70's stock spec, I would take the Olds any day. It's only because we, in our nature, can't leave chit alone where the Olds is more difficult to make competitive on the extreme side. (Mopars can easily do all of this as well, as Tom has proven recently).

Food for thought on these BOP engines. Buick built their 455 as a straight, almost complete, copy of the Olds and Pontiac 455's. When they decided to enter the Muscle Car arena, too late, in 71-73 they built 2 Buick GS upgrades. The Stage I and the Stage II. Very rare today, but both of those would probably eat the Hemi cars of the day. Ran up against a Stage I on the Docks in Erie PA back in my day, mid 80's, that thing beat me two out of two, BADLY, and I was running a 73 Nova with a tunnel rammed 427, M21 4 speed and 4 linked 9" Ford rear! That thing looked like a completely stock grocery getter, save the Stage I emblems on the fenders. I can't imagine what a Stage II is like!

What would it be like to build one of THOSE motors on a jet boat?

Ray

How about a Northstar? Lol!

Ray