I just got a call from Jeff. Unfortunately, it will not be happening. His request was turned down.

He asked me to post this now in case it impacts anyone's returning home plans.

I know he's disappointed. I thanked him on behalf of us for the thought.

oh well, that would have been neat.

 

Sucks. Thats something I wouldn't have minded going to myself.

 

Lets weigh some options here.

A tour of the Viper plant oooooooor.......a very very sharp conceptual debut that you were invited to see.

I have no idea where a Dodge Viper tour of a plant would factor into this all. This is about the vehicle you've all come to praise the likeness of for the past few years.

 

Maybe they planned on doing this a day or so afterwards?

 

Right, I belive that was the plan. How abotu a tour of the Wixom Engine Plant? I wana see some hand built Northstars and LS7's

 

If anyone is traveling through KY stop at the Vette plant and go on a tour. You will likely get to see a Z06 on a Dyno. It sounds quite mean!

 

We were targeting Tuesday for the Viper plant tour.

How does it all factor in?

A former GM and SLP engineer is currently working on the Viper. He thought a bunch of fcar enthusiasts would enjoy a tour of the Viper assembly facility.

 

The Northstars are not hand built. To the best of my knowledge they are pulled from the produced units that Livonia puts out then tooled for the supercharger in Wixom. Again, that's as far as I know.

 

Sorry Josh but it can't be pulled off the line that builds 4.6s. The Supercharged N* is a 4.4 so the block is cast differently and it would use a forged crankshaft, smaller forged pistons and other changes. I really doubt that it is not a hand built motor.

 

I believe the blown Northstars are handbuilt, but how much different is the 4.4 block over the 4.6? I assume since you said it comes with smaller forged pistons that the motor has wider sleeves pressed in to constrict the bore size, but how much different is the block itself from the naturally aspirated 4.6?

 

Doesn't GM use cast in iron liners on all of its aluminum block motors? If that is the case then the 4.4 is cast totally separate from the 4.6. Also the composition of the block may be different to make it stronger, much the same way that the LS6 was stronger than the early LS1s.

 

Yes, you are correct, the standard GM aluminum blocks use cast in liners. The exception to this are the C5R/C6R blocks and the LS7, they use pressed in liners, which makes me wonder about the 4.4.
I don't know how early an LS1 you are referring to, but a typical LS1 block is alittle stronger than an LS6 block. The LS1 does not have the better bay to bay breathing areas that the LS6 does, which affects the rigidity (although probably not very much.) It is to my understanding the C5R block was derived from an LS1 casting.

 

I could have sworn that th LS6's casing made it stronger and have better internal breathing then the LS1, which is why it made is such a desire for Fbody enthuisasts to look for 01 and 02's with the LS6 block. On top of that, that from 03 on, all LS1 blocks were cast in the LS6 fasion, not the LS2.
The LS2 uses the same casing technique as the LS6 as well.

And yes, I ment the supercharged northstars, which are deffinatly built at Wixom. Was a bit talking poing about the STS-V and XLR-V. It was like MB's AMG engineers.

 

As far as materials go, both blocks are pretty much the same thing.

http://www.corvetteactioncenter.com/...06/ls1ls6.html

This has been brought up quite a bit on www.ls1tech.com, here is the first thread I could find on it.

http://www.ls1tech.com/forums/showth...+ls1+ls6+block

It is worth noting however that the LS1s were die cast, while the LS6s were sand cast. This is to my understanding the blocks have a slightly different color from one another.

http://www.ls1tech.com/forums/showth...+ls1+ls6+block