You must look at what the sportsman block is and the reason for certain ratings. Ford reduced their ratings due to oval track racers running them for extended periods at very high rpm's and having problems having it hold the rating ford had at the time. Drag racers aren't doing this however....which lets them make more power without the main caps walking. The fact is that block failures are due to the lack of meat in the main cap area, and the sportsman block DID take care of this to some degree by making the main bolts blind (no hole protruding from bottom) and adding more material to the mains between them and the cam. Basically what they did is go with the original early 302/289/mexican casting, but add the possibilty of oem roller cam use. The early blocks all had this extra stregth to them, which is why people use them/were using them when wanting the strongest 2 bolt block setup.
For 500rw, the sportsman will get the job done....but we will also be using the new boss casting as well, which is a far better choice and will be a very close price to the sportsmans
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Regarding our fuel pumps-
We have a 1 year guarantee, and RARELY have anyone contact us with a failure. Our pumps are
NOT made by walbro. They are quieter, flow nearly the same, and have the same dimensions and nearly the same design. You will barely notice any difference from stock noise. We have flow information on our website, and have also had RC engineering independently test them to flow very close to the highest flowing walbro in tank pumps.
Anyone who has researched the walbro 255's know that there are plenty of people whom have had their issues with them, and if the customer wanted a replacement they also had to pay walbro another $40 to even have them look at the pump to see if they would warrantee it....let alone have them actually send them a pump as a replacement after taking the $40 and having a bad pump. Basically, buy it, and you are stuck with it...working or not. We pride ourselves in doing everything possible to make the customer happy....and no hassle warranties are part of that goal.
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-Paul