I already have..I have 10k in my 99 TA ..including the price of the car and all the work w/parts .

 

BTW , I was running 13.1-13.3 on average with a six speed and horrible sixties on street tires in my nearly stock LS1 . I have owned 2 LT1's and 1 ls1 and Im telling you , get the LS1 . The power difference is unreal and once you cam it..OMG . I have a friend who has a cammed LT1 , headers , tuning , and some suspension mods running 13.2@108 too my nearly stock LS1 running 13.1@109 . Its a no brainer . But the LT1 is a budgetable car .For a little bit of nothing you could have one hell of a fast car .
My car is cammed now and it feels unrealisticly strong .

 

then your friend must have a mild *** cam...

 

lt1's need headwork to perform their best.. ls1's come with good heads

 

Itsslightly bigger then a hot cam . A cam none the less .

 

I'll join this one.

I've had a LT1 for 10 months now. I love the car, but now that i look back, it would have been so much better for me if i had just gotten a LS1. At the time, i wanted to have enough cash myself to buy it, so that put the LS1 out of reach for me.I looked around for a car for about 3 years before i finally got mine. Looking back....I really should have got a LS1 I think.

I'm just a low income college student, but what little money i have goes towards making my car faster. I don't have the money for any kind of internal work or spray, etc, so its just bolt ons for now. I have noticed a LS1 responds so much better to bolt ons than a LT1 does. People always say, with X amount of bolt ons, you can be about as fast as a stock LS1....what percent of people keeps there LS1's stock here? LS1's always have the upper hand.Sure the LT1 sounds better,but thats much to worry about when you think about all the other diffrences.

Don't get me wrong, I love my car, and my LT1, It has never gave me one problem at all to this day,and I don't drive slow, but I have been seriously thinking about selling it and getting a small loan to get a LS1.

I'd do it right the first time and get a LS1.

 

lt1 is good cuz the block and handle over 1000HP. Unless you plan on going wild, or unless u like the look of an lt1, there is little reason to choose an lt1 over an ls1 if you can afford both.

Mindgame runs 576RWHP on his daily driver naturally aspirated LT1, good for 9s in the 1/4. I dont think an NA LS1 can get much, if any, higher than that. In theory, an LT1 can get more potential power than an LS1, but most people would rather replace the motor by that time.

For anything under 450rwhp NA, its so much easier to do on an LS1.

 

i got my 96 ss with 14k miles on it for 9,500 how many ls1 ss's go for that? with heads/cam thats another 2k and 400rwhp for 11,500.. not bad in my opinion. the ls1 has superior heads, more stroke, better intake manifold, and exhaust manifolds that look like shorty headers, ofcourse they are going to respond better to bolt ons

 

amazing how much incorrect assumptions about ls1s ive read so far.

 

You do realize the LS1 has 6-bolt mains compared to the LT1's 4-bolt mains. The LS1 is just as strong of a block as the LT1, where do people get the idea it's not?

 

F*** them both. I want an LS2

But since I can not have that right now I will have to state the obvious which is LS1 > LT1.

 

Iron vs. aluminum block. Thats precisely why the 2003 cobra had to be redesigned. Ford wanted to keep the lightweight aluminum block but were forced to switch to iron.

 

Yes but doesn't the Cobra also have forged internals?

 

Then if you want strength, build a 6.0L truck engine. They use a cast iron block, but the heads and everything else are all interchangable with the LS1.

When it all comes down to it, the REAL difference between the LT1 and the LS1 are the HEADS. I'm willing to bet that stock LS1 heads can outflow even some aftermarket LT1 heads, but once you get into some serious aftermarket LT1 heads, with porting, polishing, etc., then I'm sure the LT1's could perform just as well as some worked over LS1 heads, THEN it just becomes a pi$$ing contest between the two of them!

For typical street/strip applications though, I still lean towards the LS1, because stock for stock, they already make more power, then with simple bolt-ons, they respond really well, and the ignition system is one of the best things GM ever did to their engines IMO!

 

i keep hearing all this stuff about LT1s being better for SERIOUS motor build ups....think about this for a second. if you have enough money to buy an LT1 and make it STUPID fast, you ALSO have enough money to buy an LS1 and make it STUPID fast...going fast is expensive regardless....if your trying to build a 1000 hp car who in the hell cares if you get to reuse the factory block?? woudl you want to anyway in that kind of application??? you'd have to replace EVERYTHING else in the motor so y not put a decent block in it...guess what, its not an LT1 anymore...now its a built race motor.

my point is that if your going to be real serious with the car, the terms LT1 and LS1 really don't mean anything....a lot of the fast LT1 guys run 383s and 396s with blowers or nitrous....the fast LS1 guys tend to go with Iron-block nitrous fed 382s and 422s....if you're planning on doing stuff like that, who cares what motor came in the car originally...

im sorry but as an owner of both, im going to say that when building anything under this level (as in a modified street car), the LS1 tends to respond better to simple modifications...im not LT1 bashing so lets avoid starting a Gen-II vs. Gen III rivalry here, im just saying that if you can possibly afford it, why not go with the newer (which in the auto industry usually means better) technology...(killer heads, all aluminum, no opti-spark, etc.etc.)