I recently purchased a used procharger p600b kit made for my lt1 and right now i dont have the money to purchase the intercooler kit from ATI because the kit wasnt complete so i was wondering what my low buck options were, my car is running a 93 LT1 auto(4L60e?) well im not sure if i should run a lower lb pulley(4.5-6) or keep my 8lb and run 30lb injectors with an FMU, i know it wont be as good as the setup with the 2 core or twin highflow I/C's but but would that get me by or would i have to do more mods to the car to be able to get it going alright?(fuel,ecm,ect?) 255lph pump? theres approx 110k miles on my tranny im not sure if itll hold up good or not but these are all factors i am taking in mind of what i want to do and how i want to do this. sorry for all the questions but i want to get this setup going before the end of fall.

 

If you have 30 lbs injectors you wont need an fmu at that low of boost. You dont have to run an intercooler. I was working on an lt1 at work it had a vortech supercharger on it no intercooler and it was fine. Tunning is a must. I would say bolt it on with 30 lbs injectors, 255 fuel pump, and get tunning and see where that gets you.

 

well i mean 30psi injectors with 8psi no I/C is that what you mean? and how would i go about tuning it?

 

If you feel confident in tunning it do it yourself but I allways let someone else tune my car.
30 lbs injectors
8 lbs pully
No FMU
No intercooler
Tunning
255 Lph fuel pump
Thats what I think you need to do to get it to work.

 

think the tranny should hold up fine?, it doesnt have too high of miles, im thinking of changing the fluid and filter before i put the S/C on. it is a 4L60E correct i want to be able to possibly run 13's this year the car only has a Air Intake setup and flowmaster exhaust. otherwise its all stock.

 

also im not sure about tuning the LT1, im pretty sure they have a programer for it but i forgot what they were called.

 

trans is probably questionable. its a risk you will have to think about. If you blow the trans up I know someone who would have one for you. I am actully pulling it out of his car on monday. Its a 93 z28 with a built trans. He is going manual so he wont need it. I know he spent big bucks on it but I might be able to get it for cheap. Dont know if it will work for your set up. You still have to run a tv cable with this trans.

 

A lot of people blow up stock LT1s due to the weak pistons. I would not run it at 8lbs w/o an ic. I am running mine at 8.5(maybe 9) with a front mount and it has lasted as long as it has because of the cold air intake temp and good tuning.

I would run low boost until you get an ic.

Btw, how are you mounting your head unit? Your steering box will get in the way of it.

 

Actually, the stock pistons in LT1’s are pretty strong, the reason people blow them up is that high compression isn’t really boost friendly and 8 chronically run lean in them under boost. Although the pistons are strong, they are brittle and any detonation caused by both those problems cracks them eventually.

 

the s/c will be mounted now in a different car. the setup came off of a corvette so it is a reverse rotation s/c and sits facing the opposite way.

 

Maybe I should have said weak compared to a forged piece. They are pretty good, and any piston will give up under detonation, but even general stress will crack the lands sooner or later. I haven't seen many stock LT1s last for a significant amount of time on boost.

 

In most cases, forgings are not that strong, and hypereutectic pistons are stronger. The reason that forged pistons tend to last longer is that when your tune goes bad forgings get beat up, dented, distorted… when they finally let go it’s usually when they’re too distorted to support the rings properly, they get so hot you burn a hole through them or when you transfer enough heat into the top ring to make the ring ends butt and rip the top of the piston off. Hypereutectic pistons break when you get enough force into them to cause them damage. That force is greater then what you’d put into the forging, but at that point the thing basically shatters.

 

The rods are more of a problem than the pistons...they're not called "powdered metal" for nothing! Your 93 may have the old style rods , not sure...my 97 had PMs though, and one of them disintegrated for no apparant reason at 37k.

 

PM rods are stronger then the old school "pink" forgings...

 

Maybe mine weren't representative of the majority, but in 20+ years of building Chevies I have never had a problem with a rod coming apart (essentially it turned to dust) for no apparent reason. I know what the GM PR spin on them is, you can believe it if you want, but I'll stick to forged rods from here on out. GM didn't go to PM because they were better, it was because they were cheaper to make.
Someone rather high up at GM (Id give you his title but then anybody in the F-body community would know who I'm talking about) confirmed to me that they had a problem with heat treating on some of the PM rods (including mine, apparently).