not trying to stir up a war here , but since my olds 455 locked up ive been trying to decide if i want to rebuild it or if i want to stick a 454 in there ,.i keep seeing adds on CL that have RUNNING late 80's-90's 454's with under 100k on them for only $600 ,. the motors are even still in the truck so i can test drive it to see if the motor works good when put to the test ...i cant even get a new 455 crank shipped to me for less than $600 ,.. so when does it become logical to keep throwing money at this damn 455 ?  ,.. i understand that olds can become reliable with the right mods ,. but holy shit the stuff is so expensive


the more i think about it , i get a bad feeling in my gut when thinking about sticking another Olds in my boat ,..but then i think about a 454 in there and it puts a big fawking smile on my face !  just like it did just now while typing this , thinking about some Chev HP in there   



so is it just me or does the other swappers get this excited while thinking about the transpalnt they want to ? 



still not sure what ill do yet ,.. but it feels pretty cool thinking about sticking a bow tie sticker on the back of my Bitch 

Go ford

that i think was a no brainer and im a ford guy

well the Olds forum guys have talked me into keeping the Olds ,..they linked me to RockAuto which has a complete bottom end rebuild kit for $350-500 (GM reman or Michelle (?) reman),..comes with a a ready to run crank and full set of main and rod bearings ready to fit the crank


m gonna try and keep it as cheap and reliable as i can for now ,. so i will probably keep the stock top end and throw some new rings on ,.i am also going to do the oil restriction mods and add a oil cooler . then later down the road i would like to add some high compression pistons and nice rods ...after i finally get some use from this boat,.. i been working on it over half my life and have only had 2 good trips to the lake about 10 years ago,.  i would like to eventually build this 455 up to like the original Berkeley Packajet  455 was .that setup use to push this huge jet boat around 70mph ! . nice marine cam , high comp pistons , K (?) heads ..or something better than the J's ,..the motor thats in it now never got past 50mph maybe

The limitations and corrections for the 455 are well known, and not expensive really, but you will always be limited by head design and the constrictions of the bottom end.  Moving the oil around is easy and cheap.  TIMMINATOR on here wrote an article that outlines about a hundred mods, how many you wanna do is up to you.   But is 60 mph instead of 70 is cool, and you don't have a yacht like mine, then a properly built Olds is the way to go $$$ wise.

Rock auto has great prices. And Timinator has wealth of information and is a super cool dude

Wow, really? A BBC in a jet boat was a selling point for me... Test driving and owning gasser trucks, chevys run like striped apes!

Are we talkin modified motors or closer to stock trim?

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Yeah....But the distributor is still in the front......   So I guess it shouldn't seem too queer...

 Well, ummmmmmmmmm, you weren't suppose to notice that GT.      

 Honest guys, its a jet boat. 

The limitations and corrections for the 455 are well known, and not expensive really, but you will always be limited by head design and the constrictions of the bottom end.  Moving the oil around is easy and cheap.  TIMMINATOR on here wrote an article that outlines about a hundred mods, how many you wanna do is up to you.   But is 60 mph instead of 70 is cool, and you don't have a yacht like mine, then a properly built Olds is the way to go $$$ wise.

i would be ok with 60 , hell even 50 would be good enough for now (sure would be moving alot faster than it is just sitting here ;-) )