Tom,
I agree that buying from Mondello virtually guarantees a good motor or
parts. Peace of mind is worth quite a bit. Having an inferior engine
fail, like some on this list have had, can end up costing more than just
going for the good motor in the first place. You also may be getting
some tricks/parts that would only be known by someone who had worked on
these motors for so long.
I also agree that the Mondello motor is a better way to go than the
Caspro motor, but I think the Caspro motor is priced high for the same,
maybe even unwarranted, reason. It is priced high because it is from a
trusted GMC parts seller.
We used our race engine builder/friend to rebuild our 455. He has been
a friend and done our race motors for 15 years, so we had more peace of
mind with him building the motor than we would have had ordering one
from anybody (even Mondello). He made many calls to Mondello during the
process and ended up buying a lot of parts from Mondello. He was very
happy with Mondello at the beginning of the process, and very frustrated
with him at the end. We were paying for all parts, so the price did not
affect him at all, but he was actually agitated to the point that he
said that he would not want to deal with Mondello again and was looking
hard for anybody else that could supply him with 455 parts. Now that he
knows the "trick" parts can be procured locally with the right part
numbers, he probably won't have to. This was the first Olds motor he
has rebuilt. We now have 14,000 miles on it with no problems.
If your local engine builder charges fairly high prices (NASCAR
indicates he might) or is the type that would end up buying all/most of
the parts from Mondello without looking for better prices first, you
probably should consider just buying a motor already done from Mondello.
Mondello charges price for complete engines, but seems to charge price
and a half on parts to encourage people to have him do the whole job.
There is a good chance that it would end up being less just having
Mondello do the whole thing.
Now for some opinions about "tricks"
.
These Olds motors last for well over 100,000 miles stock. How much of
an improvement can anyone make? Our bottom end was PERFECT when we
rebuilt our motor. We actually had more piston to wall clearance with
the forged pistons we put it back together with then it had when we
took it apart. These motors were built very well originally, and most
of the "tricks" are for high RPMs that the GMC will never see. Many
are also fixes for problems caused by other "improvements". IE: If
you put in a high volume oil pump, you pump too much oil up to the top
of the motor. Then you need oil restricters and passages to get the
oil back to the bottom end of the motor so the pump can pump it back up
there again. If the stock oil pump is good to ~5000 RPM, where do you
gain? Our engine builder got sucked into this pump because he is used
to race motors. Now we have high oil pressure all the time. Do we
really need it? Is all the extra pumping and pressure costing us gas
mileage and power? Is the engine going to be better than perfect the
next time it comes apart?
Most of Mondello's experience is with race engines, so those are the
tricks he knows. Unfortunately most of these tricks deal with getting
the 455 to rev higher. I'd be willing to bet that most of the people
on this list have never even seen 4000 RPM in their GMCs. How about
it everybody. What RPM do all of you take your GMCs up to? At RPMs
this low, I really don't think that many of these fixes will make much
of a difference.
Did anyone notice that the GMCMM ad only claims 50 HP and 45 ft-lb
torque improvement for the "Mondello worked, Edelbrock aluminum heads"
on the GMC? These are even "Mondello worked" which means a much higher
price than the $1399 stock price. He also has a 4-bolt main aluminum
motor in the GMCMM ad. How much is that? That's what we want for the
land speed record everybody!
He still doesn't say in the ad what RPM the improvements occur at. Some
quick calculations I did with a shareware program say that if the 50 HP
improvement occurred at anything less than 5800 RPM then the torque
improvement would have been greater than 45 ft-lb. 5800 RPM!!!! Can
anybody else try to calculate this? Using the same calcs, the Signature
Series steel heads would need 5900 RPM to pick up the 45 HP without
picking up more than the claimed 40 ft-lbs of torque. I can't believe
someone would advertise in a GMC mag a HP improvement rated at over 5800
RPM so my calcs may be wrong. If someone could ask Mondello the RPM
specs or try to figure this out with their own calcs I would really
appreciate it. If these RPM's are found to be correct, I would really
have to question their applicability to the GMC and wonder what other
statistics are stretched to make them sound a lot better than they
actually are in practice. It would explain the need for the high RPM
tricks/modifications though.
Please don't misunderstand what I am saying. I am not trying to say any
option is better than any other option. I am just trying to give some
information to make sure that nobody on the list gets sucked in by hypes
or sales-pitches and makes a decision without looking into all their
options. I will again state that, by buying Mondello engines/parts, you
are virtually guaranteeing that you will get engines/parts that will be
well constructed and will last!
I'm sending it now before I think of anything else!
Zak
I agree that buying from Mondello virtually guarantees a good motor or
parts. Peace of mind is worth quite a bit. Having an inferior engine
fail, like some on this list have had, can end up costing more than just
going for the good motor in the first place. You also may be getting
some tricks/parts that would only be known by someone who had worked on
these motors for so long.
I also agree that the Mondello motor is a better way to go than the
Caspro motor, but I think the Caspro motor is priced high for the same,
maybe even unwarranted, reason. It is priced high because it is from a
trusted GMC parts seller.
We used our race engine builder/friend to rebuild our 455. He has been
a friend and done our race motors for 15 years, so we had more peace of
mind with him building the motor than we would have had ordering one
from anybody (even Mondello). He made many calls to Mondello during the
process and ended up buying a lot of parts from Mondello. He was very
happy with Mondello at the beginning of the process, and very frustrated
with him at the end. We were paying for all parts, so the price did not
affect him at all, but he was actually agitated to the point that he
said that he would not want to deal with Mondello again and was looking
hard for anybody else that could supply him with 455 parts. Now that he
knows the "trick" parts can be procured locally with the right part
numbers, he probably won't have to. This was the first Olds motor he
has rebuilt. We now have 14,000 miles on it with no problems.
If your local engine builder charges fairly high prices (NASCAR
indicates he might) or is the type that would end up buying all/most of
the parts from Mondello without looking for better prices first, you
probably should consider just buying a motor already done from Mondello.
Mondello charges price for complete engines, but seems to charge price
and a half on parts to encourage people to have him do the whole job.
There is a good chance that it would end up being less just having
Mondello do the whole thing.
Now for some opinions about "tricks"
.These Olds motors last for well over 100,000 miles stock. How much of
an improvement can anyone make? Our bottom end was PERFECT when we
rebuilt our motor. We actually had more piston to wall clearance with
the forged pistons we put it back together with then it had when we
took it apart. These motors were built very well originally, and most
of the "tricks" are for high RPMs that the GMC will never see. Many
are also fixes for problems caused by other "improvements". IE: If
you put in a high volume oil pump, you pump too much oil up to the top
of the motor. Then you need oil restricters and passages to get the
oil back to the bottom end of the motor so the pump can pump it back up
there again. If the stock oil pump is good to ~5000 RPM, where do you
gain? Our engine builder got sucked into this pump because he is used
to race motors. Now we have high oil pressure all the time. Do we
really need it? Is all the extra pumping and pressure costing us gas
mileage and power? Is the engine going to be better than perfect the
next time it comes apart
?Most of Mondello's experience is with race engines, so those are the
tricks he knows. Unfortunately most of these tricks deal with getting
the 455 to rev higher. I'd be willing to bet that most of the people
on this list have never even seen 4000 RPM in their GMCs. How about
it everybody. What RPM do all of you take your GMCs up to? At RPMs
this low, I really don't think that many of these fixes will make much
of a difference.
Did anyone notice that the GMCMM ad only claims 50 HP and 45 ft-lb
torque improvement for the "Mondello worked, Edelbrock aluminum heads"
on the GMC? These are even "Mondello worked" which means a much higher
price than the $1399 stock price. He also has a 4-bolt main aluminum
motor in the GMCMM ad. How much is that? That's what we want for the
land speed record everybody
! He still doesn't say in the ad what RPM the improvements occur at. Some
quick calculations I did with a shareware program say that if the 50 HP
improvement occurred at anything less than 5800 RPM then the torque
improvement would have been greater than 45 ft-lb. 5800 RPM!!!! Can
anybody else try to calculate this? Using the same calcs, the Signature
Series steel heads would need 5900 RPM to pick up the 45 HP without
picking up more than the claimed 40 ft-lbs of torque. I can't believe
someone would advertise in a GMC mag a HP improvement rated at over 5800
RPM so my calcs may be wrong. If someone could ask Mondello the RPM
specs or try to figure this out with their own calcs I would really
appreciate it. If these RPM's are found to be correct, I would really
have to question their applicability to the GMC and wonder what other
statistics are stretched to make them sound a lot better than they
actually are in practice. It would explain the need for the high RPM
tricks/modifications though.
Please don't misunderstand what I am saying. I am not trying to say any
option is better than any other option. I am just trying to give some
information to make sure that nobody on the list gets sucked in by hypes
or sales-pitches and makes a decision without looking into all their
options. I will again state that, by buying Mondello engines/parts, you
are virtually guaranteeing that you will get engines/parts that will be
well constructed and will last!
I'm sending it now before I think of anything else
!Zak
