All-Aluminum 535 cid Pontiac Engine - Engine Builder Magazine

All-Aluminum 535 cid Pontiac Engine

We all know this is an industry built on word-of-mouth reputation and recommendation, and no one knows that better than Bill Ceralli of Ceralli Competition Engines. He recently had a customer come to him on a recommendation from All Pontiac to build him this all-aluminum, 535 cid Pontiac engine for drag racing. Find out how this brand new build ended up churning out more than 1,000 hp!

When your family has been in the automotive repair industry for nearly 100 years, you might say you know a thing or two about cars and engines. That’s certainly the case for Bill Ceralli, the owner of Ceralli Competition Engines in Paterson, NJ. Ceralli’s family started an auto repair garage in 1922 and ran it until 1972. As such, when Bill came around and was growing up in the ‘50s and ‘60s, he was hanging around muscle cars and quickly got interested in drag racing.

“I got involved with cars and got involved with drag racing in the ‘60s,” Ceralli says. “I had professional engines built by Tony Feil who just recently passed away. He’s a friend of our shop and a long time associate, and he went into business in 1962. When I was racing early on, he built my personal engines and I would hang out at his shop. That got me drawn into the need for speed and the need to accomplish things with engines – to make changes and see things happen. We put this effort in – we modified this, we milled that, we ground this – and we went back to the track and it ran better.”

Taking his new found interest and what he had learned working alongside Tony Feil and from his childhood, Ceralli decided to take his own shot at the race engine business, and started Ceralli Competition Engines in 1970.

“I got satisfaction out of being able to take stuff and modify it and then actually see the improvements and just felt that was rewarding,” he says. “I developed a passion for the work and that’s what kept me in it and dragged me in deep. The next thing you know, you’re renting a building and buying equipment and you’re on your way.”

Ceralli Competition Engines is a full machine shop with 3,000 sq.-ft. of space and three full-time employees. The only thing the shop doesn’t do in-house is grind crankshafts.

While Ceralli opened up shop in 1970, it wasn’t long before his engines were starting to make some noise out on the track.

“In the mid-‘70s we were involved with a lot of NHRA Stock and Super Stock stuff, and we set quite a few national records in that era,” he says. “From that era and into the ‘80s and early-‘90s we probably set close to 40 records in Stock, Super Stock, Modified Eliminator and COMP Eliminator racing. We had some good results with our product and we adapted to bracket racing when it became popular and when the class racing stuff became more expensive and more difficult to win. When bracket racing became popular, we naturally fell into that. We felt that’s where the market was going.”

With a shift to bracket racing, Ceralli continued to improve the engines the shop built and the machines the shop relied upon, especially the dyno, which Ceralli purchased in 1987.

“The dyno is probably one of the best pieces of equipment we ever invested in,” he says. “It’s not always directly a money maker where you set the machine, it runs and when you’re done you collect X dollars – but the dyno verifies your product. It tells you that your engine is as good as it should be, or not. If not, now you have the mission to make it be right.

“The other thing is tuning. Our dyno is equipped with wide-band 02 sensors on each cylinder. We’re able to look at every cylinder and see what each cylinder is seeing as far as the air/fuel ratio goes. Wide band today is now more accepted as the standard for tuning versus exhaust gas temperatures (EGT).”

Ceralli’s dyno started as a SuperFlow 901, and is a hybrid of dynos today – a SuperFlow 901 with SuperFlow’s 871 absorber and data acquisition software from DYNO-mite Land & Sea.

Ceralli Competition Engines has an extensive background in drag racing and bracket racing, and that’s because the shop’s specialty is high-performance domestic engines. Recently, the shop had a new customer from Virginia come in on a recommendation from All Pontiac, a manufacturer of Pontiac aftermarket components, for engine work for a drag racing application.

“This is a brand new build,” Ceralli says. “The customer acquired a set of slightly used All Pontiac Tiger heads, which we had originally CNC ported here. The customer bought them from another one of our customers. He proceeded to purchase pretty much everything new as far as the short block goes.”

The engine is an all-aluminum 535 cid Pontiac, naturally aspirated, single carburetor with an All Pontiac Indian Adventures block and All Pontiac Tiger heads.

“The aluminum block comes with approximately a 4.180˝ roughed out cylinder, so we had to bore and hone it to 4.350˝,” he says. “We had to deck the block with a smooth finish for the MLS gaskets. We had to install lifter bushings and finish-hone the lifter bushings to .0015˝-.0019˝.”

Ceralli is also running a wet deck on this engine. According to him, some of the Pontiac community tends to run a dry deck scenario where they don’t run water between the heads and block.

“My preference is to run the water between the heads and the block and not restrict it away from the two hot areas right in the center where there are exhaust valves,” he says. “I think the wet deck is a better system for an engine that has two exhaust valves next to each other right in the center of the engine.”

This 535 Pontiac has a 55-millimeter cam barrel and the camshaft was ground by LSM Systems Engineering in Michigan.

“They do the grinding, we provide the specs,” he says. “We provide our cam grinders with all our choice of lobes and designs. This particular cam is 283 @ 50 on the intake and 304 @ 50 on the exhaust. It’s on a 117 lobe center and the lift numbers are 1.014 on the intake and .897 on the exhaust.”

The engine uses a Crower billet crankshaft, GRP aluminum rods and CP pistons. It also has a Total Seal ring package.

“They aren’t gapless rings,” he says. “They are a higher-end, standard ring set probably in the $1,000 – $1,100 price range.”

The 535 Pontiac also has 1.95 intake rockers and 1.85 exhaust rockers, uses a Jesel valve train system, Isky 904 EZ-Roll lifters, Manton 7/16ths and 3/8ths pushrods, custom thickness Cometic head gaskets, King engine bearings, a dry sump oiling system with a Moroso two-piece oiling pan, Manley valve springs, and an ATI damper.

“The All Pontiac Tiger cylinder heads flow about 460 cfm,” Ceralli says. “They’ve got a 2.300˝ intake valve and a 1.800˝ exhaust valve. It has an intake manifold that’s an All Pontiac Tiger manifold that has been extensively ported by CFM South. The engine will also have a carburetor from Dale Cubic, and that’s going to have a 2.400˝ throttle blade.”

Fully complete, Ceralli’s new customer walked out the door with a brand new, all-aluminum, 535 cid Pontiac engine that pumps out 1,050 horsepower with a 15.5:1 compression ratio. We think he’ll be one satisfied customer!

The Engine of the Week eNewsletter is sponsored by Cometic Gasket and Penn Grade Motor Oil.

If you have an engine you would like to highlight in this series, please email Engine Builder magazine’s managing editor, Greg Jones at [email protected].

You May Also Like

408 cid Nitrous LS Engine

During a tour of SAM Tech, we also got a chance to speak to a few students. One in particular, Jaylon Victorian, was nearing completion of a 408 cid nitrous LS engine. He applied his new engine building knowledge and skill set to the build, and it shines through in our latest Engine of the Week.

408 cid nitrous LS engine

One of the spots we were excited to check out while we were in Houston, TX last fall was the School of Automotive Machinists & Technology, also known as SAM Tech. We’ve been able to showcase the automotive technical school, which has a focus on engine building and machining, in prior features and articles, but we hadn’t been to the facility in person – until now.

760 cid Billet Big Block Chevy Nitrous Engine

Despite what you may think about nitrous engines, and those that are stock big block Chevy bore spacing, these 4.840″ bore space big block Chevy engines have some significant R&D in them. Just check out this 760 cubic inch billet version done at TRE Racing Engines.

Naturally Aspirated 440 cid LT1 Engine

The folks at Late Model Engines in Houston, TX run a top-notch engine and machine shop. You don’t have to look much further than this naturally aspirated 440 cid LT1 engine build to see what we mean. It’s our Engine of the Week!

All-Billet 903 cid Pro Mod Engine

Pat Musi of Musi Racing Engines has been meticulously developing and tweaking his 903 cid Pro Mod engine combo since 2010. We got to see the latest and greatest version of this nitrous-powered billet beauty. Check out our first Engine of the Week of 2024!

Pat Musi Racing Engines 903 cid Pro Mod engine
Naturally Aspirated 540 cid Big Block Chevy Engine

After having issues with an engine built elsewhere, a customer came to H Squared Racing Engines to build him a streetcar combo. Utilizing an existing block and crank, H Squared was given the freedom to spec the rest of the engine. Check out the result!

Other Posts

Stuffing a Supercharged 572 cid SMX Engine in a Porsche 928

For Danny Humphreys, drag racing is a progressive disease. Ever since he watched Tom Cruise outrun a pimp in a 928 Porsche, he’s wanted the car for himself. As soon as he got one, he pulled the engine and the horsepower has gone up from there. Today, Danny has a supercharged 572 cid SMX engine

Indy Cylinder Head’s Supercharged 588 cid Hemi Engine

We’ve been following Indy Cylinder Head and the engine work Ken Lazzeri for quite some time. We got a chance to speak with Ken on the final day of the PRI show when he was kind enough to walk us through the details of several of the engines they had on display, including this bracket

Ken Lazzeri Hemi Engine
Kaiju Motorsports’ All-Billet Subaru EJ 2.5L Engine

Hands down, this was one of the more eye-popping engine bays we saw during the 2023 PRI Show. The Kaiju Motorsports-built STi Subaru is a cool car in and of itself, but with an all-billet 2.5L EJ engine featuring titanium piping, this thing stopped you in your tracks and forced your head to turn. We

Noonan’s New Billet K24 Honda Engine

We aren’t trying to hide the fact that we’re impressed by what Noonan Race Engineering is capable of. That’s why we will always jump at the chance to highlight what NoonanRaceEngineering has coming down the pipeline, and the shop’s latest endeavor is a billet K24 Honda engine, which was showcased at the 2023 PRI Show. We caught

Noonan Race Engineering Honda engine