I know LT1’s aren’t normally in third gens but they’ve been a cheap, popular swap for long enough I thought there might still be some fans in here. After finding damaged valves from valve float I’ve got the heads off my ‘96 LT1 at Lloyd Elliot’s for some minor port work and cutting new seats for the new valves. I’ve been running the old GM Hot Cam for several years with comp 1.52:1 rockers. With the engine torn down to the short block and the probability of replacing the oil pan with a baffled one that’s already on a shelf there’s really no added expense to replace the cam that’s in there with one I have on a shelf too out of my other car’s 383 SBC which has the stepped nose. The only thing I would have to do differently is get a longer dowel pin for the optispark drive. Here’s the specs of the 2 cams:


Hot Cam: 218/228 @.050 112 .498/.498 with my rockers

Howards Cams 180885: 225/225@.050 110 .532”/.532” with my rockers.


The car has all the usual bolt-ons (1 3/4” primary unequal length long tubes w/ 3” collectors, 3” single exhaust, good intake, running 3.42 rear gears and a T56 transmission. I’m looking for a powerband under 6k rpm as the bottom end is stock, promoting more midrange torque, compression is about 10.5:1. Heads will flow about 260/180 at .5-.6 lift with 1.94/ 1.5” valves. Don’t have low lift numbers. LT1’s have pretty short intake runner lengths like a single plane carb mani.


So anyone think the swap would be worth anything?

 

WHOOPS! I just noticed this is in the Exhaust forum. Please feel free to move this to the Engine forum. Sorry

 

That will work good. Lots of lloyd elliott combos in the 2000’s were running tight lsa single pattern grinds and makin good power. Single pattern with good exhaust flow usually does good in the lower mid range