A friend of mine has a 96 Formula A4 with some bold on mods, exhaust, intake, Midwest stall TC. But now he's planning some bigger mods. He's purchased the LT4 intake and now has a set of LT4 heads to match. He's interested in getting the heads ported and polished.
His question is at what amount of HP will the LT1 begin to hurt the bottom end, crank, rods etc.?

His second question is about OBDI vs OBDII. He's contemplating having his car made to comply with OBDI specs because he's been told its easier to tune and cheaper. He's wondering with all the computer tech now on OBDII wouldn't it be just easier to keep that instead of making the swap. Any thoughts??

 

Generally LT1s are reasonably safe to 450 HP. Past that, forged internals are pretty much required

 

One thing to consider before doing the OBDII to OBDI conversion is emissions in your area. Here they just hook the tester up to the OBDII connector and if all sensors are happy and no trouble codes displayed then you pass. No sniffing needed.

 

Good info so far.
Actually in Mich we don't have emissions testing so that wouldn't be a problem.

However he's just concerned if the swap needs to be done. Is OBDI that much easier or better to have than OBDII??