The Official Vortec 454 Info thread

[454cid]

I don't think it's fair to assume it's going to bite the dust any time soon

Same here. I have 300K miles on mine. It's stock, and I've never worked it hard, but years ago I overheated it on a daily basis because I was lazy and didn't want to fix the leaking water pump. Later I was trying to get all the miles out of my upper radiator hose, and blew it on the highway, and really overheated the engine. So I must have blow the head gasket, and warped the heads right? Nope, all original.

Of course some do go early. I have a set of heads in my garage that I bought off of Ebay. I was told the engine had some sort of lower end damage. Rod bearing maybe? I think that engine was under under 200K miles, like 140-ish? It was lower than mine at the time, I think, because I remember being a bit surpised by what I was hearing from the seller. I drove to town north of Flint to pick them up.... no way I wanted to ship 140+ pounds of cast iron!

 

[Reluctanse]

As laborious as it is to swap a cam in a 454, I figured since this one has close to 200K it's going to be sooner or later something is going to let loose.
And again, turnaround time; I can have a brand new engine built and ready to go in a fraction of the time as pulling this one down, all the good machine shops are 3-8 weeks out on anything, or at least that's what I've deemed justifiable for getting a crate and putting a cam in it.

how much work actually is it to do a cam job? pull the intake? radiator out so there's room? valve covers... anything else to it?

 

[BNielsen]

how much work actually is it to do a cam job? pull the intake? radiator out so there's room? valve covers... anything else to it?

I think you have to drop the oil pan in order to get the front cover off, which involves dropping the front diff or jacking the motor up.

 

[Supercharged111]

Gotta yank the grill as well so you can shove the AC forward more.

 

[modernbeat]

I don't think it's fair to assume it's going to bite the dust any time soon

That's true, it's not likely to have a catastrophic failure soon.
But, at 200k miles it IS likely that the engine is worn and not as efficient/powerful as it should be. It likely has some components near the end of their life, like ALL the gaskets. And the valve springs, pushrods, valve guides and piston rings are not doing their job as they should. And even when new the stock engine was designed as a compromise of initial cost, longevity, efficient use, and power.

Replacement or rebuild allows you to make choices that better meet your desires in that cost-balance. And at a minimum it allows the engine to perform at it's most efficient potential. It's well known that the fuel system is marginal. A rebuild give you the opportunity to make small improvements like stiffer pushrods, cleaned up oiling system, better and fresh seals, more efficient piston rings, and decisions on cam, compression ratio and head improvements. It urges you to reevaluate the exhaust system and old style emissions controls. And any changes push you to reprogram, potentially replacing, the ECM, allowing even more efficiency and power from the engine.

 

[Supercharged111]

That's true, it's not likely to have a catastrophic failure soon.
But, at 200k miles it IS likely that the engine is worn and not as efficient/powerful as it should be. It likely has some components near the end of their life, like ALL the gaskets. And the valve springs, pushrods, valve guides and piston rings are not doing their job as they should. And even when new the stock engine was designed as a compromise of initial cost, longevity, efficient use, and power.

Replacement or rebuild allows you to make choices that better meet your desires in that cost-balance. And at a minimum it allows the engine to perform at it's most efficient potential. It's well known that the fuel system is marginal. A rebuild give you the opportunity to make small improvements like stiffer pushrods, cleaned up oiling system, better and fresh seals, more efficient piston rings, and decisions on cam, compression ratio and head improvements. It urges you to reevaluate the exhaust system and old style emissions controls. And any changes push you to reprogram, potentially replacing, the ECM, allowing even more efficiency and power from the engine.

You can do 90% of all that without pulling the engine. I put a supercharger on my 1500 at 230k. High mileage is not the death sentence it was eons ago, at least not a guaranteed one. Rebuilding a motor or buying a crate is EXPENSIVE. It's much much much cheaper to cam what you have, headers, tune, etc. Even if it's not ideal, it's better than what you had.

 

[BNielsen]

You can do 90% of all that without pulling the engine. I put a supercharger on my 1500 at 230k. High mileage is not the death sentence it was eons ago, at least not a guaranteed one. Rebuilding a motor or buying a crate is EXPENSIVE. It's much much much cheaper to cam what you have, headers, tune, etc. Even if it's not ideal, it's better than what you had.

The crate motors from this sharp aren't terribly expensive, the owner of the shop even invited me down once I make a decision; I mainly want the crate motor and bolt ons as I previously mentioned for a quick turnaround time, old motor out, new motor in, so on and so forth.

 

[Supercharged111]

The crate motors from this sharp aren't terribly expensive, the owner of the shop even invited me down once I make a decision; I mainly want the crate motor and bolt ons as I previously mentioned for a quick turnaround time, old motor out, new motor in, so on and so forth.

I totally get that, but that's turnaround of a crate vs machine shop build that you're comparing right? Because I'm advocating for neither under the assumption that your current motor is healthy and will live for years to come. Much like I assume mine will continue to do. I hope.

 

[BNielsen]

I totally get that, but that's turnaround of a crate vs machine shop build that you're comparing right? Because I'm advocating for neither under the assumption that your current motor is healthy and will live for years to come. Much like I assume mine will continue to do. I hope.

Yes that's what I'm comparing; and I just want to not have any worries; I've put close to 60K miles on it since I bought it, but it's also had a relatively easy life compared to what it came from, it's still holding okayish oil pressure, it pulls okay when it wants to, but I don't want to swap a new cam and a bunch of other shiny parts into a tired motor is all,

 

[Piratehunter]

The crate motors from this sharp aren't terribly expensive, the owner of the shop even invited me down once I make a decision; I mainly want the crate motor and bolt ons as I previously mentioned for a quick turnaround time, old motor out, new motor in, so on and so forth.

The price of that motor is about what I had into machining, rings, bearings, and complete gasket set. So not too bad. The adjustable valve train for the xr270 will be a bit over another $1k. I would see about providing those parts to him and get a bit off the base cost. of course, now it is a custom build. His warranty may not cover you upgrading parts on your own. Part costs are up since I bought them. Shop around, I saved quite a bit sourcing parts myself.