Engine
Ford fans will always have a soft spot in their blue-oval hearts for the Windsor, the Cleveland and the big 460 FE engines—and deservedly so. If you’ve ever crawled a junkyard for one of these engines, you’ve likely passed over more than a few 351M and 400 engines to find what you are looking for. Poor factory numbers and bad word-of-mouth have made these cousins to the mighty Cleveland about as wanted as poison ivy at a nudist colony, but there is power to be found in those engines—and cheap, too.
We showed you how to build a small-block engine that could make over 500 hp and 500 lb-ft of torque on 87-octane gas. It was a motor that could be driven just about every day with a hydraulic-roller cam and a good carburetor, making acquisition and maintenance almost nonexistent. Like many things we do in the engine world, the results we enjoyed—while good—just weren’t satisfying anymore. We wanted more.
Holley carburetors have long been a staple in the go-fast world of high-performance motoring, whether it’s NASCAR, drag racing or on the street. Much like other performance-oriented products—perhaps even more so with a carburetor—a carburetor requires a fundamental setup and a degree of maintenance, and that’s considering you have chosen the correct-size carburetor for your application, at least to get it in the ballpark. Knowing how to adjust, maintain and even repair your Holley carburetor goes a long way toward helping to ensure that your carburetor will make optimum horsepower for a long time. Because of this, we decided to compile a few troubleshooting and repair tips for the popular 4150-series Holley carburetor, which is the series designation for Holley’s street/strip and racing carburetors.
Ok, so you have your quarter-million dollar boat with twin 500 EFI Mercruiser engines for a total horsepower of just under 1000, but that just isn’t enough. What do you do? Well… there is one relatively easy way to dramatically increase horsepower, that’s right—a supercharger. On top of the power increase you get that cool unmistakable whine that will cause any wrench head to notice. This particular install is a stage 3 Whipple supercharger which will add approximately 240 hp per engine; in essence, we are adding a third engine.
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We chronicled the building of the Challenger 600 EFI engine over the course of two months and now the boat is ready to get out on the water for testing. We headed out to Lake Elsinore in Southern California (one of the few lakes without a speed limit) and gave the boat a whirl. With the help of Paul Pfaff Racing Engine’s Gordon Jennings we had a good day on the water.
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IMCO’s Stern Advantage is the perfect example of a retrofit kit that will bail a boat owner out of a bad situation and allow him to end up with a safer, better performing boat. Maveric Marine invited us to watch its crew install a Stern Advantage on a Nordic 28 that was in the shop for repairs, and we jumped at the chance. This Nordic has a 496 Mag HO with a Bravo One X in it, and the owner understood that the worn out steering problem wasn’t going to go away, so the external hydraulic steering system made a lot of sense.
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There’s no denying that the MerCruiser 496 has been a success. But no one is claiming that it’s a sexy beast. The plastic engine cover has been referred to as a George Foreman Grill or a turtle back. Vortech Engineering thought it could help out in the visual area, and the company’s new dress-up kit is a big improvement.
Included in the kit is a Vortech flame arrestor as well as a new polished billet engine cover that transforms the look of the 496. Maveric Marine had a 25-foot Cole in the shop that was darn good-looking, but the owner hated the black plastic engine cover. As soon as Maveric owner Eric Bortman heard about the new Vortech kit, he made plans to install one.
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Be Cool is no newcomer to cooling heavy metal. For years it has provided cooling solutions for some of the most impressive high-performance engines to rumble down the streets and dragstrips of America. The folks at Be Cool understand that having the proper cooling components in any car or truck is vital to keep an engine safely within its operating temperature range. They also understand that to make cooling and installation easier, they had to design a full bolt-in system, a system that would fit hundreds of applications for classic cars and trucks, as well as more modern vehicles that also need cooling help.
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Driven Racing Oil developed the original high zinc, petroleum and low detergent break-in oil over twenty years ago. Break in oil is a specialty oil that reduces wear and contaminates when breaking in a new high-performance engine. It provides controlled friction for your piston rings and incredible protection that helps your camshafts break in properly.
There’s no escaping the fact that gasoline prices are out of sight. This has many boat owners wondering how to tune their engines so they can get more hours out of a tank of fuel, while at the same time improving overall efficiency. A properly tuned fuel and ignition system will allow your marine engine to perform at its potential and will be more enjoyable to use because it’s efficient and reliable.