2003F350
Senior Member
If I recall the 454 in the mid-90s had a redline right about 4200 rpm and a max rpm of about 4700.I understand where you are coming from regarding the ealry '90's 454 comment, but you are comparing apples to oranges when throwing a 5.7 Hemi in there. The 454 is based on 1960's technology and probably had a redline at maybe 4,000 rpm and designed to lug around at 2,000 rpm. The 5.7 Hemi is 40 year newer technology with a redline in the 5,500+ range in trucks and should spin at 3-4,000 rpm all day.
It also had an aluminum camshaft timing sprocket coated in a nylon-based plastic to 'quiet it down' that would come apart at about 100k miles. The cover would come off, then the aluminum teeth would wear off in short order. Being an interference engine, once it was out of time the pistons would slap the valves and bend/break them AND the pushrods. Saw this first hand in my dad's 3500 GMC dually.
The nice part was a double-roller chain setup was cheaper than stock and was still going strong when he sold the truck with 350k on it.