andysg

Hello everyone. I am new to fords. I have a 1977 Sea Ray 24 foot boat with twin 302's. The engines run very well but are lacking high end power. The boat tops out around 55 with both engines maxing out at 4000 rpms. I need recommendations to enable the engines better breathing to at least 4500 rpms. The engines stock have 225hp i was thinking of getting them to at least 260hp or maybe more. I have a few basic questions.

1. What would be a good cam to put in the engines? The cam has to behave similar to how one would require for an automatic trans. It has to be able to idle in gear hopefully around 800rpms. but i still need it to pull to at least 4500 with a big load on the engine. Pulling to 5000rpm would be nice for short bursts but what is the recommended sustained redline for a marine 302? I believe they are built more stout than the car engines.

2. Are stock heads capable of high enough flows to support 260+hp? I do not know anything about the stock heads. I will find info about them tomarrow.

3. Are the stock intakes capable of flowing well enough? I doubt they are so what would be a good suggestion for the intakes? The carbs are 600cfm Holley's.

Any help or tips are appreciated. Thanks