Olds 455 questions upon questions...

First off, I am not an "end-user" when it comes to dealing with carb fueled engines. I owned a 79' trans-am with a 455 and did some work on it. BUT the marine aspect is throwing me off. I know enough to get by for the most part. My father and I purchased a boat, pics to come later, and when I try to find the most simple of answers to basic questions on the internet, Google, I'm having a difficult time. So please be patient You should know that pulling the engine out at this time is not an option. Here goes.

Oil?????
-What kind of oil should we be using? A builder told me HD30 weight, is this right?
-We have to replace the dipstick and have no idea what would be a correct. I can find tons of stuff that would work, but I want a correct fit to the oil pan. The oil pan looks stock, just like a standard car pan but with a box reservoir on the bottom. If pics are needed, please request.
- next how much oil? I've read 5.5qts to upwards of 7 to 9qts. I know it depends on the pan, right?
-we ordered an electronic oil sender for the engine but its too big in diameter. We need it because I wired all new Faria gauges and it has an electric metered gauge that requires certain ohms. We had the correct ohms just too big to fit due to the the block being so close to the mounting hole. Any recommendations?
-what constitutes a decent marine oil filter? You guessed it, need one of those to.

So far on this project I've replaced the exhaust header gaskets, gauges, painted it, added all new stainless steel accessories, cost a fortune, and am trying to figure out to hook-up hot foot pedal. gotta get a new line for that as well. Also, we will be recarpeting and upholstering it. Basically we stripped the crap out of it and were starting from bare minimum. Its gonna be sweet with your guys knowledge. One day I'll convince my dad to let me pull the engine. His thoughts are that it runs fine and we'll wait till it needs fixin' so far project costs are...well...a lot

 

Sounds like this is the existing marine conversion that came stock with the boat, right?

Use good oil, there isn't any special boat oil. I don't know how you calibrate a dipstick when you don't know how much the pan is supposed to hold. I suppose you could scope out similar ones in catalogues and make an educated guess. Barring that, I'd put in 6 qts and see how things look on the oil guauge you still need to get working. Too much oil causes problems too. Look for excessive blowby and leaks. 6 qts isn't too radical though. Use a good filter that fits the available space, no special filter needed.

 

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We are using a Wix brand filter to fit on and already installed just fine. It was on the boat prior and It worked well. To my knowledge this is a stock set-up. We ended up buying a relocation hose to the oil sender so that is resolved also. What should the oil gauge be reading if the proper amount of oil is in??? If there is too much??? or too little???

Also, can I use any brand of a fuel sender unit, as long as it has the right ohm range? And if the sender does have the right ohm range do I have to concern my self with the movement range as well? We have dual 16" deep tanks....

 

The oil sender monitors pressure, not the amount of oil present. As soon as there enough oil in the pan to submerge the gears in the oil pump, there will be oil pressure.
The total amount of oil needed depends on the volume of the pan, there should be approx. 0.5" clearance between the oil surface and the crankshaft.

Most fuel senders have 270 ohms for an empty tank, near zero for a full one. The wiring should also include a voltage stabilizer, which may be external or integrated in the fuel gauge.

 

...and then there was light.

I know the sender dictates the oil pressure. We matched the ohms that the gauge requires to the ohms of the sender we purchased, range 33.5 to 240...or something like that. Either way we ordered the right one. We just bought 25-40 weight inboard/stern drive 4-cycle oil and wix filter. we are going to start with 6 quarts and go from there. I am going to try and compare our current pan with some similar ones online. We did order the OEM dipstick from summit so that should help We also ordered fel-pro perfomance header gaskets. We don't have to use RTV to help seal them right....its sort of a rubber compound so I assume no. I am trying to figure out our alternator wiring now, there is one 16gauge red wire that hasn't been connected for some time but the engine still runs and the battery hasn't blown up yet soooooo...yeah. The wiring for everything works to include the lighting of the gauges, blowers and bilge pump. so That is an accomplishment I'm proud of. Its amazing I thought I knew a lot about engines , I guess 26 isn't old enough to know

 

I'd use the stock dipstick. Pan shape should make no difference. Its the level to the crank that it cares about. Shape of pan just means more or less oil to get there.

Standard auto oil filter & oil should work fine as well.

Couple things that Olds 455 have troubles with in boats.

Sustained high RPM can cause the oil to "build up" under the valve covers starving the crank bearings. This is why you find a lot of aftermarket oil pans on 455s in boats. The bigger pan is a quick fix, but now your getting oil out the breathers.. Oddly, some don't have this trouble, but most do.

Second, the olds block is weak in regards to cooling jacket pressure. If you are running a stock cooling system with a heat exchanger, no problem. But, if this is a jet boat with the typical feed off the jet pump, you need to watch this pressure or you will blow water into your crankcase. The leaks typically happen at the intake manifold to head gasket. And sometimes The blockoff plate behind the water pump housing.

As for your alt problems, get a single wire Alt and forget it.

What's a hotfoot petal?

-jim lee

 

Where does the disconnected wire the the alternator come from? A voltage regulator? If so, that's your field wire - and if it's not hooked up you're just running on battery. What does your ammetor read?

Just changing alternators may not be so easy depending on what you have. You have to keep your belt alignment in mind - besides, hooking up a field wire is easy.

 

Did you order a different oil pressure sender than the one that was too big? If not you can use brass pipe and fittings from any hardware store to move its location to somewhere it will fit. You can have it 10 feet from the block if you want; but a 6" piece of pipe and a coupler will probably do.

 

All good advice. I suggest you also check out the forums at Performance Boats http://www.performanceboats.com/ The 455 is a pretty common engine in a lot of older high performance boats and I have seen a lot of discussion on their forums about this engine.

 

Marine engines or marinised auto engines should ideally be dry sump to avoid oil sloshing and surging over the crank, same affect as high oil level! However, a modified deep oil pan will do just as good to keep the level down provided the oil pick up is at the bottom, it will also help with oil cooling.

Presumably the dipstick will reach into the deepest part so without seeing it and depending on the capacity, I'd suggest the bottom of the original sump as a datum point to start with for the oil level, mark that then see what amount of oil it takes to that level. If it takes around the standard amount then that can be the low level, add the rest of the unit to make an even amount and a high level.

It's not that critical but what you are trying to do is have sufficient oil to make sure the pickup is always covered in rough conditions and give sufficient oil cooling but not so much as to interfere with the crank.

 

alternator

It seems to be a 10i series delco remy. The wiring doesn't look hard. 3 freakin wires for god sake. I just want to make sure I don't re connect them wrong. I 've been reading that you can't connect the sensor (red small gauge wire) to the main power line as you cannot turn engine off. So do I connect it to the ignition?

As for the hot foot....its just a foot throttle.. I got it figured out though.

The oil situation has been settled. I think. There hasn't been a problem running the crap out of the boat and getting oil into the pan so far. I did notice some oil on the breather though. Thats about it though.

 

oil sender and alternator response

The oil sender is the correct threading its just that it was a tad to big in regards to the diameter. We bought the correct 12 inch relocation hose for it and installed it accordingly.

As for the alternator, We didn't replace it. I redid the wiring for the new gauges and since the old wiring was either old or done half-a$$ed (all kinds of colors going to and fro, even speaker wire being used) I traced all the wires and everything works. We even replaced the temp sender, oil sender, and fuel senders (2). There are 3 wires I have no idea what go to, I will post a more specific description when I go to my dads house friday. I just want everything to go right. I know the voltometer is working right because when its off, it reads around 12. Now we haven't run it yet so I don't knowif the temp and oil pressure works, but I know that I wired them right and I didn't over tighten the gauges since that could cause the needle to stick. I ensured the correct ohm range for all the senders as well.

When I installed the header gaskets I noticed a slight gap by the #1 and 5 ports and its because the hardin headers are slightly bent in toward the engine. So I might take them off and bang them back and use a little hig-temp rtv to ensure the correct seal.

 

rebuild questions

I am now planning on boring it out 30 over, get the crank checked and reground if necessary and if possible, and the heads checked over I'll replace them when I can with some alum ones). Also, I'm going to run with a new cam, some roller rockers, new push rods with hydrolic lifters and pistons of course. I'm just curious, as far as you guys know, how much would a decent budget be for such work? Consider that there's nothing wrong with any of the tolerances.

 

What is the point in doing this, save it for an engine that needs it.

 

Don't try to rebuild that engine. Take the money and build a BBC. That engine will just run 4600-5000 rpm for awhile then it's gonna break again.

Rick Johnson