Ok I’m thinking about making my 95 lt1 a 355. The car I am using for this build is a weekend driver. I don’t want something that is strictly a drag strip vehicle. This car may only see a drag strip twice a year. A friend of mine has informed me that he has an eagle distributor and he is willing to sell me parts for wholesale. I am looking to make around 375-400hp naturally aspirated, and maybe later down the road nitrous. From what I have been told a 10:1 compression is what I need. I am looking at set of ARP heads as well. Can anyone tell me what pistons and head combo I need for this? I do want to go with forged internals. Also are there any kits that have everything I will need for this conversion.

 

I was going to do the same, but my machinist talked me out of it. 5cc's isn't enought. Just build a 383 if your going to tear it down to the bare block. (lol i didn't build the 383 either) use an LE2 set up (or similar) with a 383 and you should be near your goal target.

 

If you are going to run NA or nitrous, do NOT limit yourself to 10:1. The stock engine is 10.5:1, and you can run higher static compression ratios on pump gas without problems. The more agressive cam will typically hold the dynamic (not static) compression ratio under the levels that can be run on pump gas. And nitrous does not require lower compression ratios.... works fine at very high compression ratios.

What kind of HP are you after 400 at the wheels, or 400 at the flywheel? You can make 500 flywheel HP on ported factory LT1 heads... no need to invest money in AFR's (ARP makes fasteners), which will probably need just as much port work to achieve the flow levels that AFR advertises.

 

im looking to make 375-400 at the flywheel

 

You can do that with the stock longblock with a cam + boltons. 375-400 FWHP will get walked by alot of cars on the road these days though.

 

I agree, but i also plan on changing my cam and since my motor has over a 100,000 mile i thought it would be a good excuse to rebuild the bottom end as well. On top of that i dont want to have to tear down this motor agin over something that i could have already done the first time. I know that lt based motors are know for spinning bearings when cam changes have been done, because of this i plan on just rebuilding the motor all at once.