I always hear about reverse flow and whatnot, but I was wondering what it is that makes stuff like heads and water pumps and the like so incompatible with the rest of the SBC stuff.

 

Have you compared an LT1 engine physically to an older one? The water pumps are completely different, they are driven by the camshaft dowel pin so they are really low profile, completely different than ours. The heads have similar ports, but the cooling passages are different. With some modifications maybe they could work, we know the intake can. It would likely be cheaper to buy better aftermarket heads than do a custom job on LT1 heads to work, though. Obviously the optispark and newer distributorless ignition systems would not work with our computers.

 

Not that you would want it to...the Optispark sucks! I'm considering doing a distributor conversion when I swap an LT1 in to my next project.