If I wanted to just get an aftermarket block and/or move to a different platform, I wouldn't even be wasting my time with a small block. I like the LTx platform, it has factory fuel injection, roller valvetrain, can be supported by SBC parts, good oiling system and most of all, with the support of this site, is incredibly cheap to build.

 

if your stuck on the lt1, i would spend my money on turbo kit or sb2.2 top end. both ways you will have less money invested and will be able to make way more power..

 

 

It's true, I've met a lot of cool guys on this site. I picked up my last shortblock from a member on here for $75 with pan. I'm about to pick up 2 LT1 blocks next week for $25 a piece. I'm sure once I get to the point of needing a pan, timing cover, lifter dog bones and all the other misc crap I will get some great deals on those too. I'm going to look on here for a set of 6" rods and 383 crank and probably get a good deal on those too.

 

Very doubtful. I'm not paying full price for machine work. I've known my machinist for 10+ years who is now retired and he's done all my motors, I think I'm on 6 or 7. He's working out of his shop at his house to fund his dirt track racing and regularly hooks me up with all sorts of stuff.

 

wouldnt you need a 4" crank? not a 3.75"?

 

....

 

Talked to my engine guy today and he said that when sleeving a 350 most of the time you have to punch it out to 4.188 and that leaves it pretty thin. At most you could go to 4.2 but you would be cutting out the walls and it would probably cause a lot of block distortion and more than likely leak. He still wants to try, which is fine with me, but I got to thinking.

Around here people say that you can go about .040 over safely and anything more you run the risk of going to thin in the walls. SBC spacing is 4.40 and a std. bore of 4.0 means that you have about .400 between the OD of the cylinders. Boring .040 leaves .360 between which seems more than enough to me. What is the general rule of thumb for cylinder wall thickness and is the wall thickness issue between the cylinders or between the wall and jackets?

 

Hate to rain on your parade theres about 1/4" of air between the cylinders on an lt1 it is not a siamese block. I dont know if there will be enough material to keep it all stiff enough. About the one thing you have going for you is that the place the lt1 block is thick is at the bottom of the bore. I would be worried about the sleeves staying set under the strain of the heads being torqued down sometimes they slip.

The biggest wildcard will be the block, if you have several I would maybe try and do the 408 stroker over the sleeves. I have built a few on late 350 roller blocks. Usually the sonic tester rules out about half the cores there, and while clearancing before machine work usually about 1/3 of them fail the pressure test. The trick is to run 327 size rod journals and rods carve the cap screw top down some spot face the hole so the cap screw fits farther into the cap etc. Only thing I dont like about it is the camshaft is tiny .900 > base circle. Stick to high quality rods like pro mods or and you'll have even less trouble.

 

Now that you made me about it, I realize there's multiple ways of reading that statement. Thanks to the people who have BTDT I avoid money-wasting mistakes, and thanks to all the kids on here who fail to do research ahead of time and change their plans in the middle of a build and re-rebuild annually, I've picked up several new or barely-used components for pretty good prices. Perhaps not "incredibly cheap" but definitely cheaper...

 

Yeah, I forgot about the water jackets being part of that .360. In either case what is considered to be the minimum cylinder wall thickness, .100. I know it's more important on the thrust side, but I'm not going to try and recenter the bore to achieve that. As far as the sleeve slipping, that won't be an issue because I plan on leaving a step at the bottom and using about a .003-.004 press fit, which is good if that is where the block is pretty thick.

 

This should be an interesting build.

Hmm, could of sworn I clicked on "general tech".

 

Usually for performance use .200 on the thrust, perhaps as thin as .150 but if making any real power it will start to move around. I am just not a fan of sleeves sometimes they slip or wierd things happen. I got kind of a bad taste in my mouth about them last time I used a brodix alum block. Put the tq plate on a time or two decked it and assembled it. Warmed up broken in started tuning, smoked a head gasket straight away. Sleeves slipped in the bores about .015. After talking with a jerky dude at brodix I set the sleeves with a 10lb sledge and ended up cutting the deck 0.035" to get everything flush again . Ever since then I am just not into the whole sleeved block thing. Keep in mind that was a high buck bbc block that was designed for sleeves.

You know for roughly the same money you could just go to a dart shp block and put the optical sensor in a bit of a custom made dist housing or modify your stock timing chain cover and optispark housing to work and use ltcc or a crank trigger dist right?

In any case if you plan to go through with it I will be interested to see the outcome. Take lots of pics for us all. If you can get shots of the gutted lt1 block and putting the sleeves in that would be pretty interesting. Good luck.

 

Dropped the block off last night and he said that he would probably have some time to screw with it next week. He's going to call me when he cuts out the first two cylinders so I can take pictures and then we'll see if sleeving it will work. I looked into LS sleeves and they normally only run a little over .100 wall thickness. I also looked into the OD of the sleeves and they range from 4.254 to 4.272. Boring out to 4.125 would yeild greater than .100 wall thickness and would also leave more than .060 of the deck intact too. Hopefully with a half fill it will be fairly stable. Guess we'll see.

 

any updates?