Steven6282

Ok, well I've got most of the work that I'm going to do to the engine in my 86 done. So it's time for me to start planning what I'm going to do with the LT1 engine that I have.

My goal for this engine is going to be ~450hp at the flywheel. Maybe even 500 if I can get there without to much extra. I'm also planning to eventually put a supercharger on it so need to keep that in mind. And adding a shot of nos at some point as well is on the table, not really sure about that yet, but if I decide to set it up for drag I'll probably want to add a shot of nos.

So, what are some suggestions? Are there any good reference / build posts or websites that I can read up on? Any tips to keep in mind while doing this? This wont be my first engine rebuild, but it will be my first non stock rebuild.

One thing I know I would like to do, I really like the lopey sound of the cam in my 86. So I want to go with something like that again. It's got a nice classic car sound to it, not extremely rough, but has a definite lope to it.

How will it work with the LT1 computer, is there some way of flashing it with a different program to handle the higher performance or will the stock programming still work?

Right now the LT1 is in an 84 camaro of mine that needs a lot of work done to it. It's just been sitting in my backyard waiting for me to get done with my 86. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to put the LT1 back in the 84 when I get done with it and possibly set it up for drag (my 86 is geared more toward autocross type handling), or if I'm going to do something else with the motor. I guess I can decide that once I finish rebuilding it. I suspect this is going to be a long term project since a lot of the parts probably aren't going to be cheap hehe. I think I may even just completely strip down the 84 and redo it from the metal out. I didn't do that with my 86, and sometimes I really wish I did.

Brando5641

iTrader: (-1)

You need to do a lot more research.

Steven6282

Uhhh, yeah that is kind of the point of this post. Asking for references to good places to do that research and to get information...... So thanks for stating the obvious and being immensely unhelpful.

Information on the internet is so abundant and differing that I would rather have some experienced people point me to the information that they feel best suites what I want to do.

Thirdgen89GTA

iTrader: (5)

First of all, decide which way you wanna make the power. Forced Induction / Power Adder, or Naturally Aspirated.

Those two will decide which upgrade path you should take.

450hp via heads/cam is easy on an LT1. There are 2 very well established people that offer packages that could get you 450hp crank no problem at all.

Lloyd Elliot Port Works
Advanced Induction.

Both of the above offer packages that can get you right to 450 with little to no guess work. Building the rest of the car to take it is up to you.

Of the two Lloyd is the more budget minded setup. A.I's head work is definitely better and will usually make more power with the same camshaft, but they are more expensive.

Lloyds and AI's numbers are with supporting mods. Larger Throttle Body, tune, Long Tubes, ORY....etc.

___________

You will need a tune for ANY work you do. Either via a Dyno Tune session with a speed shop / Tuner, or a mail order tune. Don't expect incredible numbers from a mail order tune, they don't have access to your car so they are making a ton of assumptions from previous work done with similar mods.

If you don't have the ability to flash it yourself, you will either need to buy the equipment (laptop + cable + software), or do a PCM exchange.

Then the harness needs to be built. There is enough information on these boards that you could probably do it with research and time. Or you could buy a harness.

As Brando said. You should be reading the sticky's at the top of the LTx and LSx swap forums. It may be information overload but if you read them and then look at what you have and what you want you will get an idea of how to get there. Eventually you may have questions that aren't covered by the sticky's ask those then. Let the sticky's cover the broad general swap topics.

Orr89RocZ

iTrader: (20)

Between this site and camaroz28.com and maybe the lt1-lt4 sections of ls1tech.com, you should have good information there about builds.

LE portworks is best bet for budget minded setups. 450 is easy at the motor. Thats mid high 300's whp thru an auto. higher 300's thru a T56. It will likely require a cam around 224 deg and LE1 or LE2 level ported heads. AI's 190 head package equivalent.

Lt1's do well with tight lobe separations on the cam so a 108-110 lsa will give you power and the lope you are looking for.

Either way LE and AI are the LT1 ppl. They will set you up with a package. Bret Bauer at bauer-racing can do camshafts as well for these cars...i've run his cams and know ppl who have his cams and they do make good power.

Steven6282

Well the initial 450 or 500 hp I want naturally aspirated. But the parts have to be able to handle force induction as I will probably add that later to push it on up to 600 or 700 hp. The eventual goal will be 500+ rwhp. Building the rest of the car to handle it I can do, I just don't know much about getting the engine there.

Thanks for the links though, I'll take a look at what stuff they offer.

As for the stickies, I did peruse them, but most of the information seemed to pertain to simply swapping them into 3rd gens. Not about building them for power. I don't really need to know about how to swap them into a 3rd gen. It's already in an 84 right now, and I'll look more into the swap information after I finish building it if I need it then.

Thirdgen89GTA

iTrader: (5)

You can't quite do that.

At those levels you will need to change the compression ratios or limit the amount of boost you run.

If you look at all of the factory turbo cars they generally run lower compression, this is because the turbo/super makes up for the lost compression and reduces detonation.

You can run high compression and forced induction, but it requires some more advanced engine control bits to control detonation.

Honestly for ease of use just go with a Lloyd Elliot on the budget side, or with AI if you have more money.

Call them, both will point you in the right direction, be honest about your goals.

The other problem is while a LT1 stock bottom end will handle 450hp-500hp no problem, beyond that gets tricky. 450-500hp is the UPPER end of a stock LT1 as the cams required to make those kinds of numbers push the shift points past 6500rpm.

This is one of the reasons that I only bought Lloyd's 226/232 @ .050" camshaft for my Heads/cam. Though part of me wishes I had gone higher. I still could.

When it comes time I'll either swap to a LSx engine or have a short block built for this motor and use my current heads with larger valves (running stock valves) so I can safely rev higher.

At the moment I wanted to keep my shift points under 6500rpm, especially so since i have stock gears (stock 10bolt too.....no DRs for me.)

Brando5641

iTrader: (-1)

There is no way you are going to get 500fwhp out of it NA and then throw boost and spray on top of it.

Thirdgen89GTA

iTrader: (5)

Exactly.

You need to decide on two paths. Forced Induction / Power adder, or naturally aspirated and then start buying parts accordingly.

Some things like heads and valvetrain parts will crossover between the two but not much else. Cam profiles are different. Intake/Exhaust routing is different between the two.

About the only thing you can do on top of natural aspiration is Nitrous.

I know a guy who makes about 420rwhp naturally aspirated with a LE2 setup, and runs a 150hp wet shot on his setup. I should mention that this is a 6spd car so his dyno numbers are higher.

Steven6282

What is the limiting factor? The block itself can't handle that much hp?

I thought I remembered reading about people building 1000hp + builds out of an LT1. What do people use to build stuff like that, can an LS1 do it?

I'm not looking for anything that ridiculous. Like I said I wouldn't mind seeing 500 rwhp but that is a long term dream goal.

Are you saying you can't build an engine and add a supercharger to it later at all, you have to build it with the supercharger initially? If so, why?

If the block is the limiting factor at ~500hp, what would be the advantage to getting to 500hp with a supercharger, vs doing it NA?

Thirdgen89GTA

iTrader: (5)

The rotating assembly can't handle the kind of RPM you'd need to start generating more power naturally aspirated. Remember its a limited displacment, it can only pump so much air each revolution. The faster you spin it the greater the stresses on the rotating assembly and the more expensive the valve train becomes.

Remember this is a stock, used rotating assembly.


As for F.I. vs N.A. building? Forced induction packs alot more air in with each stroke. It makes the engine act like a larger displacement engine essentially. But at the cost of heat and increased stresses. Fuel is only good for so much compression before it will ignite on its own. If you want a high compression forced induction engine running lots of boost then you have to change fuels to something less detonation prone.

And building a boost ready short block and not running boost means that you are running naturally aspirated with less compression so you aren't getting the most power out of each combustion cycle.

You really need to look at your budget and goals and then decide which is the way to go.

Since you have the LT1 already the CHEAPEST and most cost effective thing you can do is a LE1 setup or LE2. Unless you do all of the fabrication yourself and tune it yourself you aren't going to get a turn key boosted setup for less than $5k.

Even the LE setups come with hidden costs if you don't already have the bolt-ons.

LE setups are very common so most good LT1 tuners have tuned one of them before and they can dial them in very quickly. www.madz28.com is one such example, he's VERY well known in the LT1 community.

The same guy who made 418rwhp on his LT1 made a little over 400rwhp with a single mail order tune and no revision from Ion @ MadZ28. So the dyno tune still netted power gains, and pretty substantial ones.

For your desired power level N/A packages from Lloyd or A.I. are the way to go. You can retain excellent street manners and still make the power you want to make.

420rwhp is dang near 500hp at the crank.

Orr89RocZ

iTrader: (20)

You COULD attempt a mild shot on top of a n/a combo. Guys have done that and lived...but its seriously stressing things. tune has to be in check or else you will leave internals on the track.

Only way you can do a boosted build later is if you change the heads. Get ported stock castings for your n/a build and shave them to 54cc chambers. 7-12cc dish piston if possible to get 10.7-11.5 to 1 compression. LT1's can run abit higher with good cam and still live on pump gas due to reverse cooling. You have to have shortblock built for the high hp now tho.

Then when you are ready to do boost, get aftermarket heads in a 65cc chamber and change cam. This will drop from 10.7 to 9.5 to 1 comp if using 12cc dish piston. This is rather pricey to do since aftermarket LT1 heads aint cheap, but its easier to do than changing pistons.

I'm not sure you can make near 500hp on low compression and then boost later. you can try it....

I dont have an LT1 but I'm gonna dyno my car all motor thats built for boost. Its got big heads big cam and 9 to 1 comp at 400 cubic inches Should be interesting to see how the low compression effects things.

KiLLJ0Y

iTrader: (1)

find a corvette 4 bolt main block or use the Fbody block and get aftermarket splayed main caps if you are going the FI or spray route with 400+hp..

the stock throttle body is good to 400hp.. a 52mm will go over 500 so dont waste money on the 58mm

port match the manifold

if you are going the FI route, i strongly reccommend the 24x PCM swap as it will be better for tuning, it also ditches the opti and goes coil per pack

power is in the heads, find the BEST heads you can, and match it to the cam and where you want the power band to be, if the flow on the heads drop out at 5500rpms dont pick a cam that peaks at 6500, you get the point.

cheap insurance is the oil pump drive retainer, search my name on this board, i posted a thread about it, and its only $14.

dont do a an electric water pump, stockers are great and will better cool the engine in traffic and racing. the electric should only be used on a dedicated drag racer.

if you want a little more compression, use the 96 B-body or impala GM head gaskets.

dont use the melling High Volume oil pump, use the melling regular pump and weld the pickup tube to the pump


this is the stuff i found out in my research from LS1tech, camaroZ28 and here... hope this helps

Steven6282

Well my budget isn't really a question here. This is one of those things where I'm setting my goals and my budget lands where it lands to meet those goals.

Let me ask this, if I built a boost ready (super charger ready) short block, as you said I would have low compression and not get the most power out of it, but what kind of power could I expect? I mean really I probably wouldn't run the engine until completed if that is what I had to do, but it depends on how much my impatient plays into it and how much the super charger setup costs. As I said I'm not really concerned with the overall costs, it just adds time to when I can get it done

What could I expect to be top end fwhp going the supercharger route?

It seems going NA top end fwhp is around ~500hp right?

If I went NA with the LE2 heads and the 232 / 240 cam from Lloyd Elliot, what kind of sound is that cam going to make? 1600 dollars for that setup from them is cheaper than I thought it would be. I was expecting to be more into the 2k range for heads and a cam hehe. So if that LE2 setup can really get me over 400 rwhp and can support a 150 hp shot of NOS, I might be content with that.

EDIT:
Found this clip for one of the AI cams at 230 / 238. Guessing the 232 / 240 would sound similar to this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sy37dfVY3BM

EDIT2:
If I put a forged 383 stroker kit including a crank in the bottom end of the block, what do you think would be possible at that point NA vs FI? I know I'm at that point basically just using the LT1 for the block but just entertaining ideas atm

KiLLJ0Y

iTrader: (1)

no clue on power with low compression and no charger... are we talking 9:0:1 or less? sound is depending on a lot of factors.. lobe separation, long or short tube headers, CATS or no cats and of course: muffler or resonater selection as well as pipe diameter.

question for you.. Most people these days select the LT1 because its budget minded and cheaper than the LS1-2-3-6. If you say budget is isnt a question, why pick the LT1 over the LS series engines?

I ask this because the LS PCM is much more capable of doing the job better than the LT1, the 5.3 LS engine loves boost..and is a 6 bolt main engine. or do you have some kind of affinity for the LT1 engine?

Thirdgen89GTA

iTrader: (5)

Its not JUST the heads/cam you need to budget for. You need rockers, fuel system, injectors, tune, TB, Headers, Intake..... It adds up fast.

This is the cam thats going in with my setup when I'm ready to do the H/C/I mods. I got nearly all of my stuff done for a price I won't list cause he wouldn't give that price out to anyone but friends. However with all of the deals i got, I still ended up paying quite a bit for the other upgrades that need to go in with the heads/cam/intake stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUXFpsYvk2w

And these are the parts going onto the car.

Full gallery is here: http://gallery.me.com/thirdgen89gta#...lack&view=grid

But here's a few pics.

Heads (stock LT1 heads, ported by local a local guy). Even he recommended just doing ported heads over a budget turbo setup.


Ports before/after


Stock ported throttle body, porting in progress pic.


Intake

Steven6282

I bought the 84 camaro I have now with the LT1 and a T56 from a 97 trans am in it. At the time I bought it mainly for the T56 for my 86 (which I still haven't gotten around to swapping haha) knowing the LT1 needed some work because it was overheating (pretty sure the engine is stopped up somewhere).

I had originally planned to just resale the car with either my T5 back in it or no transmission. But I never got any interest in it, so have since decided to turn it into my next project since my 86 is nearing completion of my goals for it.

So the only reason I'm considering working from a LT1 base is because I already have one.

I know, but I was expecting to be over 2k for just the heads / cam.

Orr89RocZ

iTrader: (20)

IF you want more, you can get much much more....but that throws out the blower idea.

Think 12.0-12.5 to 1 comp, big cam maybe even a solid roller, AI's large 200cc heads or aftermarket heads that are abit bigger, 7000+ rpm, you could maybe get near 600hp. Thats a VERY stout n/a 355 or 383. NOT easy to do but possible. Not cheap either.

But the 400whp build + a mild nitrous shot sounds like its right up your alley. Thats a mid 10 second car on spray. I'd just rebuild the LT1 with some forged parts to be safe. 2 bolt could hold it but 4 bolt is best IMO. Some will argue against that...

Brando5641

iTrader: (-1)

IMO LM7 is the way you need to go. You can run one for many miles with a stock bottom end on 10 lbs of boost and be damn close to 500 ponies. I know there are lots of people running super stout LT1's out there but I think if you are budget minded an LS truck engine is the only way to go. I plan on one day doing a RMT on the camaro with the stock bottom end LM7. The best thing about it is if I blow it up, no problem I can go get another long block for $250 and turn the boost down a little.
Even right now I got the rev limiter set at 6500 and it hits it daily with no problems.

dprest68

iTrader: (1)

Like Killjoy & Brando I was thinking you should switch over to the LSx platform for a more reliable stock bottom end. There was a turbo build in one of the "hot rod" type magazines where they were trying to blow the stock bottom end on a 4.8 or 5.3. They got it up over 1000hp from what I remember and didn't blow the engine. Just my two cents. You could probably find that article online if you searched for it.

Steven6282

I'm not really interested in switching to a LSx. Unless I find someone that wants to do an even swap for a running LSx for my LT1 (doubtful that is going to happen). Like I said before the entire reason I'm building off the LT1 is because I already have one.

Right now, I think I'm going to end up doing a 355 bottom end rebuild with forged parts, on it with LE2 heads and cam. Hitting ~500hp at the flywheel will make me happy for now, later on if I want more then I might consider investing into an LSx.