Chris Craft 430's, Hello everyone...

[Chris Craft crazy]

Hello everyone... while searching for information on this series of engines, this forum came up... and I've read almost everything here...Thanks for the info. Some of you may not know this, but Chris Craft used the lincoln 430 for quite a few models, both open boats, like the super sport at 18 to21 feet, and also some of the larger boats, up to 47 feet. After reading a bunch about this engine, it's easy to understand why it would be a good marine engine... the ability to withstand heavy loading, and the heavy construction.

I have a 36 foot chris craft cruiser, with twin 283's and I just bought a 1965 Chris Craft supersport 21 foot, with a 430 in it. The motor runs great, nice and quiet, lots of power. The boat is coming into my shop for a restoration, including new upholstery and a complete refinish. While the engine is good, I am doing my regular due diligence and starting to assemble a)knowledge of this particular engine b) spare parts, because it's old and c) where the hell to find things because that's smart. I have also been a car guy, but I find I can't afford to do old cars and old boats at the same time

I am thinking of finding a later model block and getting started on assembling a motor for eventual swap... with some perfomance changes of course I think a 430 with big slugs, the edelbrock setup, a roller cam and some careful balancing and assembly would make a cool boat. With the stock lincoln, which in the marine version in 1965 was rated at 275 horse, (which I think is likely underrated) the 21 foot supersport was spec'd at 47 mph. That was fairly quick in 65 on the water. I will mention that this is a numbers boat, the original engine is all there.

[Theo]

Welcome to the forum Peter,
first of all thank you for joining and sorry for my late welcome. I'm just the admin, so others can be of better help. We're a small community and traffic is low and slow. So responses don't come instantly.
Your boats are interesting and it's nice to have s.o. with a boat within the http://www.ford-mel-engine.com especially since Paul "FEfinaticP" memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=100 is mad about boats and CC Commander in particular. He is one of our modeerators in the http://www.ford-mel-engine.com and also runs a forum of his own.
It's the Cris Craft Comander Forum at http://www.network54.com/Forum/424840/

[FEfinaticP]

Hi Peter, Hi Theo,

The 430 and 431 Lincolns are great motors, the latter having the benefit of superior cooling systems with large volume internal flow. Yes, I'm mad alright, ha.

I have some specifics about your boat so I'll email you, but don't want to post a cross link here to detract from the mission of this forum, since it is so boat specific.

I will say, in 1964 when the fiberglass Commander came out, the 431 big blocks pushed that 20,000 pound boat at 31 miles per hour and they produced better fuel consumption than the 427 which Chris Craft started using in model year 1966. I recently met a gent in Huron, Ohio, at the 2009 Chris Craft Commander Rendezvous, on Lake Erie, with an immaculate pair of survivor 431 lincolns, and brother did they sound sweet. I would encourage you to keep these big dogs, rebuild them, enjoy them for their performance and rarity, rather than taking the $$ easy way out which often turns into scope creep and more problems and cash than originally thought.

Regards, best,

Paul

[Chris Craft crazy]

A double post, but a cool picture... a 430 doing it's thing 44 years later.

[Shelby#18]

NOW that is something I could get into. What a fantastic piece of work. I was just going through boats for sale last night seeing what was out there. A friend of mine does have a 430 he took out of a boat to put in another. Something w/430 would look sweet behind that Colony Park of mine.