455 Olds & Berkeley

[Bdt1967]

First post on this forum, I was an active member on the Iboats Evinrude forums, but sold that boat and got this one, since they don't have a jet section figured I would move on. Anyway now for my problem. I purchased an 18 foot Westcraft Super Sport, it has a 455 olds, with a Quadrajet carb, and a Berkeley jet drive. I think I am getting some serious carburetor problems. The boat starts just fine idles pretty smooth, I can run it up to about 2000 rpm slowly and it runs pretty smooth, when i go past that it bogs down bad. If I keep advancing the throttle it will eventually smooth out, it will run up to about 4000 rpm. If I hammer the boat from a stop it stalls for just a second then revs all the way up to 4000 and holds. I think I can attribute all of these problems to the carburetor's secondaries having issues, I think a rebuild or a replacement would fix it. My second question is, am I only going to get 4000 rpm out of this engine? It seems to be kind of a dog, I think it should probably get 4500 or so, to get enough water going through that pump. The engine is bone stock from like 1977. Seems underpowered.

[Ike]

You are right. You should get about 4500 rpm. A carb rebuild will probably do it.

They used to have a jet boat section on the Hot Boat web site. http://www.hotboat.com/ However since they sold the mag I stopped going there because they changed the whole nature of the magazine. But you might want to check it out.

Performance Boats mag is their big rival and they do have a jet boats forum http://www.performanceboats.com/html/forums/.

The Olds and Berkely pump combo is widely used so you should be able to find someone that knows about it.

[jim lee]

The other place to ask is http://www.banderlog.com . Many many people there are very used to Olds 455 / Berkeley combo.

They will probably steer you towards the Holley double pumper option.

-jim lee

[nzjet]

The revs you get from that engine depend on the cut of the impeller, if there is no problem with the engine you could reduce a bit off the trailing edge on the impeller which will allow your engine to get into a better power range and create a bit more speed.
You can modify the impeller to operate in any rev range you like.