Half of used injectors and TB is roughly $225 and slap your $30 HEI on there and there is your $250. I'm not sure what opti problems you are eluding to, but if you have a vented unit and install it correctly you shouldn't have any. Plenty of people including myself run for years without issues. If you have this bad a$$ motor that you spent 9K on that still isn't done then what is an extra few hundred bucks to finish it up?

more power for a 1/3? Yeah ok.

I said ported stock castings will outflow just about any out of the box Gen1 head and it sure as hell doesn't cost $1400 to port stockers.

Cam only LT1's make about 350, a very small H/C make 400 most of the time and those numbers are to the ground not the crank so that 425 is probably closer to a cam only LT1, but if you would rather spend 5k on that instead of 1k for a cam swap by all means.

 

And again you miss the point. My point being you can get a WHOLE LONG BLOCK with a forged bottom end, for less than what a H/C swap and supporting mods will cost for a
LT1.

Where are you getting your stockers ported for less than 1400 I just looked at a site and they want 1350 to port stock casing.. You could buy a set of new assembled trick flows for gen1 and have them ported and would out proform ported lt1 stock casing for still a CHEAPER price..

You got me on one thing I meant to say more power for a 1/3 less money not a 1/3 of the money I stand corrected...

And personally I have not had any opti problems yet but sure seem's to be a lot of people having issuse on this forum..

Like I said I'm not trying to get in a pissing contest there's no way you can build hp cheaper on a LT1 platform vs Gen1.. And if I were building my car for a hot DD I wouldn't even think about changing, But for a drag/limited street setup I think converting to a carb setup is much easier and will cost less to build and time spent tuning

 

Cam only LT1's make about 350, a very small H/C make 400 most of the time and those numbers are to the ground not the crank so that 425 is probably closer to a cam only LT1, but if you would rather spend 5k on that instead of 1k for a cam swap by all means.[/quote]


Are you saying you lose 75hp through drive train loss thats alot of parasitic loss there chief>>>

 

17.6% drivetrain loss through an automatic with a loose, non-locking converter is not "alot". Sort of normal. I'm losing 20+% through my TH400.

Appears you made up your mind before you asked the question.... so not sure why you want to continue arguing, insulting people with the hamster analogy, calling people "chief", etc. If you want to conduct an intelligent arguement, go for it. If you just want to insult people, take it somewhere else.

 

I think you are making bad assumptions based on missunderstanding information.

Heads/cam LT1s are capable of solidly over 400rwhp, solid roller strokers have gone beyond 500rwhp through automatics with LT1 head and intake castings.

I think you are looking for tha all too common bad results and trying to use them as an excuse.

Most of the carbed guys at the track can not get over the combination of power/reliability/drivability and economy I have with my car.

Using examples like NASCAR is folish seeing as they use carbs based on RULES, every last car would be injected if they were allowed.

You want ti use a carb, go for it, but don't try and use missinformation to explain it, just say it is what you want.

 

"You figured wrong" If I can quote ulakovic22

And calling someone Chief where I'm from isn't an insult it's a friendly name..

And before you go jumping in here Injuneer I belive From my first post I asked this
"Could the guys that have swapped chime in and let me know what you think".. I would belive that ulakovic22 is the one here arguing since he obviously has not done a carb swap or has much knowledge in building a gen1 engine as compared to the LT1.. All he has done is provoke with unvalidated comments.

And I guess you can say that 20% is not alot if your talking about Automatics, When I'm refering to a M6 thats apples and oranges.. Thats why I was referencing flywheel horsepower not RWHP..

 

Will you please produce some of these car that are making over 500hp n/a through an auto for me I would like to see some video of that.. I'm not doubting you but I've seen like one or two vs the hundreds that bearly break over 400 that are stroker H/C cars..

And I will Completely disagree with you on Nascar As there is a race team in my town and I personnally know the team and owners and nothing is farther from the truth About them wanting to go FI.. But rules do hold them back from making more power than they already do ..If you can build a motor that makes 800hp and will hold together at 9k from 250 miles and you can still do better why would you want to throw all that R&D away to go with Fuel injection what would the advantage be there??


And true I may be misinformed a Bit here and there but I didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday.. As I'm sure you don't know it all either at least I woudl hope you can admit it..

Before all this got blown out of shape what I was Asking was to connect with other guys running carb's not a bunch of hater's

 

You want to talk racing and what teams will do if allowed let's look at F1, hell they don't even use throttle cables far as I know.
NASCAR is supposed to be a fairly "low tech" class as far as racing goes.

Far as 500rwhp NA through automatics, most of the guys doing it are not willing to waste their time on forums. Like you observed yourself most of these guys are lucky to get 400 from a stroker and that is because they refuse to see reality. They want their egos stroked more than they want results.

advancedinduction.com has several cars in the 500+rwhp range NA not all listed and of those listed I know a couple have better results since those charts were put up.

You wont like what it costs to get those results from GM castings but if you go aftermarket castings they need porting anyway, and they do offer ported Trickflows with VERY good results, even if they are not up on the website yet.

They have a few M6 stock shortblock cars making 425+rwhp, and a M6 355 making 500rwhp. Most around here will laim you need converted gen 1 HUGE heads and a BIG single plane to make 450 though.

Spend enough time and you will see most of the knowledgabe guys say little because they don't want to argue with kids who are blindly defending bad choices, hard for the FEW knowledgabe guys to get their message accross when they are one voice in 10. The people asking the questions tend to think the guys giving the popular answer are right.

If you do a search you will see a few of the guys who have done carbs do not recommend it for others.

Again, you want a carb, that is fine, just that the arguments you make here are poor at best.

 

Yes It didn't take me but a few post to figure out there are just a handful of folks here that have a clue... But again I will reinterate the reason for my post was to explore the idea of going carb'd vs staying with injection, was cost per hp... It just looks to me that if all you want is a drag car/limited street car that you could build a gen1 engine that would make around the same hp as a similar setup LT1 for less dollars..

I know AI can build some good mills but there again your looking into a rough guess of 8k to 11k to get 500hp properly..

Maybe I'm just old school but tuning and racing a carb'd engine just ain't a problem to this country boy. I wonder why everyone else has so much trouble with it ?

Last year I built a max effort fox body 331 Supercharged ys trim that ran a best of 9.70 and I think I'm going to have more money sunk into this camaro and I'm not guess'n its going to get me anywhere close to where the fox body ran...

 

It's not that everyone else has so much trouble with it, it's that no one decides to do it because it's too much trouble and see it as a step back. Gen 1 versus Gen 2 doesn't matter, they are both basically 350's with a couple mechanical changes like reverse flow heads and the timing set/cover to run the opti. You obviously like running carb's and that's great, it's what works for you. You've already made the decision to run a carb based on your personal experience, but the only major cost difference is fuel injection, which really isn't if you buy used, and roller versus flat tappet, which is pretty large actually. All the other supporting mods will cost the same because it's just a 350.

 

FWIW, your NASCAR example is a poor one. They use carbs only because the regs require them. Any and all "open" class racing uses FI. Even drag racing, though it is mechanical FI.

That said, on to your question. Carbs are cheaper, for sure, if you are starting from scratch in each case. If you are comparing a Gen I to an LT1, the choice of manifolds is another advantage. While I personally prefer EFI to a carb (and even use it on my alcohol race motor) in your case, it sounds like it makes sense. However, if it were an LT1, I stick with EFI unless it were for an all out race motor, in which case there would be a number of other issues to be addressed.

Rich

 

considering an LTx motor is essentially a gen 1 with reverse cooled heads and an opti spark, they have the same hp limit, only limiting factor is aftermarket gen1 blocks are dime a dozen where gen2 is non-existent

gen 1 heads will work on LT1 all you have to do is convert them to reverse cooling, I saw someone not too long ago with SB2.2 heads on an LT1

 

$5000 425hp long block gen 1
------------------------
$5000

vs

$1500-1800 LE/AI setup
$200 1.6 Rockers
$275 Pacesetter LT's
$75 Summit X-pipe kit
$60 Dynomax Bullets
-------------------------
$2110-2410

$2890-2590 leaves alot of money for a rebuild and maybe even some left over for some convertor, gears, etc. all while making the same power at the wheels the other is making at the crank with the consistency and accuracy of FI

 

Whyrun; if i felt as strongly as you do about your plan. I would just get busy doing it and not give a **** what anybody else had to say about it.

If you got the skills the parts and the money and guts to see it through go for it. If its something you really want to do it doesnt really matter what it costs does it? With cars/racing it is never a good idea to assume anybody else will understand or like what you have done.

 

rskrause, you forgot Nitrous ProMods (well at least the fastest ones) do not use FI either.

Carbs are awesome performers however they are not for everyone and not everyone feels comfortable working with them, thats great. However some people really need to lighten up on the "FI rules and carbs drool" BS because they are speaking with no working knowledge of highly tuned examples of each.