I've got an LT1 longblock now. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna just put it in stock, and upgrade it later. I'm very impatient, lol. But I was looking at 383 LT1's, 396 LT1's, and 409 LT1's. What are the advantages/disadvantages of all of these. Other than the obvious advantage of displacement. Mine will go in my daily driver (Kitt), so gas mileage would have to be decent.

 

My dream LT1 would be a 396 with AFR heads, forged internals, LT4 intake, and the CC306 cam. That cam is a monster and it only gets better and smoother with more cubes. If I didn't go with a LT1 set-up I would pretty much do the same thing but only with a miniram instead. That can support more power than the LT4 intake. I recently saw that new 409 LT1 that you speak of but that seems like to much material would be taken out of the block.

 

Also, I'm really considering a 383 kit for the LT1. I can't afford it before I put the LT1 in. Would it be reasonable to get the block bored out for the 383 kit. Get pistons that are the same, put everything together and run the LT1 till I get the crank.

 

You could do that and then it would be a 355. However you may just want to wait so that you don't have pay to re-assemble the short block again.

 

Bigger is better... build the 409

 

with the 396 and 409, the long stroke puts massive side load on the pistons...for a weekend racer thats not really a big issue, but i was using it on my daily driver and wanted to get 100,000 out of it id suck up the 26 cubes and build the 383...then just spray a 50 shot and youll be good =)

 

i'm just about ready to do the 383 project.. but.. now im wondering ... thinking about 396.. how much more would parts run me? ie, pistons etc.. would it still use the 400 crankshaft? details? thanks.

 

IIRC its a custom ground crank...instead of the 3.75 400 stroke its 3.87 i think...

 

This is correct and it is expensive because of that.

 

My ideal setup is a 396 4 bolt long block with 10.5:1 compression, AFR LT4 race ported heads on top, solid roller cam around 250/250 and .600, 1 3/4" long tube headers, 42 lb injectors and a 58mm TB. Forged internals to hold about a 200 shot of the juice.