Originally Posted by MIAdragon:
Not sure who black bear is, but a good friend and the guy who does all my tuning/dyno work said “of course, it does require the trans controller to be sent in and unlocked”.
Ok. I might hit you up for some direction if I decide to keep this thing [Reply]
So I have been kicking it around, and now am about to pull the trigger.
Since my TA has been through so many phases, and at this point is built to the hilt, save for the power level, I am going to go turbo. Ill be doing it the LS guy way, which means cheap. on3 turbo kit, with a 7875 turbo. I expect, depending on which way I go, and how ballsy we want to get, to make 600-700rwhp, which should be plenty safe with the current non-forged motor I have. of course, the built 4l80e and the 9inch wont think twice abou handling that power, so no issues there.
I have a couple of choices -
1. Slap the turbo on as my car sits, with meth. Meaning keep my 11.5:1 compression (yikes!) and my NA specced cam and go.. it wont be the absolute max effort, but will be the easiest, and leave me with more down low torque, at the expense of efficiency and top end,since the cam has 12.5 degrees of overlap, which isnt the best for a turbo set up. In this case it would be a must to run e85 or meth because of the compression. It will prob also neve rbe able to be turned up past 12-15psi, but the compression would make up for it, as long as we are safe in the tune.
2. sell my NA heads, and go to a stock 317 casting head, lowering compression to 9.8:1, and since the heads are coming off, sell my NA cam and go with a turbo spec cam. I would pick up more on the big end at the cost of throttle response and street manners. This would be more of a traditional build, and would cost me a little less since a 317 head is about a hundred bucks and I can sell my bare patriot head and NA cam for about 1200 bucks, though I would also have to buy a 400 dollar camshaft. This would also mean we have to pull the motor and its more work.
I cant make up my mindddd, id be curious to hear the opinions of SAUTO, Marcellus and others. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Buehler445:
All that shit is above my pay grade. I’m way too cheap to be doing that kind of stuff.
I would have said the same 6 or 7 years ago.
But, the simplicity of the single overhead cam, pushrod LS motor convinced me otherwise. In my 20s I never would have thought I could build a motor with my bare hands.. that not only runs, but runs like a striped fucking ape, and reliably at that.
The LS1 is incredibly engineered. Its' so easy to learn about, not only because of the design but because of the professional and amateur support that it has.