I got a call this evening from the guy that bought one of my complete 454 Marathon motors.

He started asking me all sorts of questions.

"What carburetor were we running?"
"What timing did we have it set at?"
"What water temperature did we run it at?"
"What oil did you run in it?"
"What headers did you have?"

I answered the best I could then asked why he would ask.

This was a 496" Chevrolet headed big block with an Eagle rotating assembly, internally balanced, set up to run race fuel or E85.

In actuality, nothing really special with the exception of the way the motor was built. Clearances, valley screens, rev kit, modified oil passages and so on.

So this guys starts rambling on how they had it on a dyno and were playing around and the guy running the dyno started asking them questions.

It seems that this motor has not been apart since I put it together (this was 1997 people) and they decided to put it in a 4X4 pull truck for competition... 

This little big block that could made over 800 ft pounds of torque at just under 5000 RPM and topped out at just over 830 HP.

I always suspected that this thing made more than we thought, but that is 200 HP more than we thought. 

I proceeded to tell him that that motor was built and had not been fired since 1997 and has been sitting in a plastic machine shop bag for nearly 16 years.... He did not like the fact that we ran it at 130* for hours at a time. 

He said he knew that but there was a case of beer involved....

Here is the funny part, they threw on a carburetor from the original pull truck motor and a factory curved GM HEI with a bronze gear and lit it off. Same oil, same oil filter, never even did a compression check. Crazy all to hell...

Needless to say, I sold it way too cheap to pay off some bills that were looming over my head...

I just found it to be pretty satisfying that my little junkyard dog is still out in the world kicking ass.... It will be in a pull truck called The Angry Indian and will be a part of the Rocky Mountain Pulling Association.

I hope to have a video of it testing soon... This engine will be bolted to an Allison transmission and in a 1968 Chevy one ton truck.... I can't wait.

Just thought I would share. FWIW this engine was in a 19' aluminum tunnel hull in the early 90's and would push the old heavy hull to in excess of 85 MPH for hours, days, weeks at a time at 5200 RPM. 



GT