Nah I'm just playing guys, I know they are fast. But listen, my friend has a stock LT1 with a borla exhaust and he wants to rebuild his engine because it has around 145xxx miles on it. I asked him how crazy he wants it to be...he said 500rwhp or more. He isn't a mod head like I am or any of you I don't think. He has just been in my car and he wants a fast car. Now I know my GM engines and cars and I know his transmission isn't a issue. But what about the rebuild? He wants alot of power out of it and I suggested a LT4 hot cam and intake and heads but the heads aren't that great and he might as well port and polish his already. The cam isn't that crazy it is? I was thinking shouldn't he port and polish his heads, and lower and upper intake? Give me some ideas, its been a while since I have researched a GM engine.

 

500 RWHP is a lot and he's not going to get it with a hot cam. If he wants it NA, it will need to be a stroker with incredible heads (aftermarket castings), cam, good headers...the works. If he's willing to add nitrous or a supercharger, then 500 is quite doable, but he'll still need some work on the heads, a nice cam, and a stout bottom end. There are many who have that much power or more with a lot of different configurations.

One thing is for sure: 500 RWHP will cost some real money. Good luck.

 

LT4 hotcam is definately out.


As is any work on the stock heads.. It won't get there.

 

Yeah, hotcam is way too mild for that. tell him to get a combination together and have one custom ground for his application. they are a little more expensive, but well worth the money. how streetable does he want it to be? 500 rwhp naturally aspirated is a very aggressive engine, and may have some streetability issues. as for intake, lt1s don't have an upper and lower like the mustangs do. just the one piece intake.
Is everybody sure that gutted lt1 heads won't make the required power? they are pretty stout heads for a factory head. i thought that a mild port job will bring them to flow with or even outflow out of the box AFRs. And I know all you have to do is port the AFRs and you'll be back ahead, but think of the 1000-1500 dollars you could spend elsewhere on the engine.

 

Ok well his car still needs to be streetable and a daily driver if he chooses. I'm not gonna build him a trailer queen drag car. So I'm guessing completely N/A is out of the question. What are some good heads that don't cost over $2,000? What about AFR? What should he do about intake? And I guess he is going power adder route but he DOES NOT want nitrous. I tried to talk him into a TNT kit but he thinks he will get killed. So I'm not pushing it on him, its his car. But what would be a good supercharger for about 10:5 compression and about 12psi? That should be 500rwhp and still very streetable if you ask me.

 

He would come out better just putting forged internals and going with boost like you did (turbo would be sweet). Then he can push 500-600rwhp. Of course he's gonna need a better clutch and rear end.

OR if he wants to go cheap. Theres been quite a few people here hit 400-420rwhp mark with just a cc306 cam or something of that sort and some highly ported heads. A guy named Jeffstar (screenname here) made 397rwhp or so with him home porting his stock heads and a custom grind cam. So 390-420rwhp is doable with just heads/cam but he's gonna have to get a good tune and good combination. Jordan musser also went 400+rwhp with just heads and cam.

 

Better yet. Tell him to get a set of heads and a good cam and 100 shot of n20 and he should hit his 500rwhp or more mark. I've seen a few guys who have done that also. BUt he's gonna have to granny shift until he can get a new rearend.

 

1st
the trans IS going to be an issue (t-56 or 4l60E, rebuilt or not)

2nd motor wise its pretty easy.

step 1. call combination motorsports.
step 2. pay credit card bill

if you insist upon doing building yourself i strongly reccomend calling an engine builder (like them) that specialize in LT1's. They have a 1500hp LT1. 500hp is walk in the park.

You wont be able to drive the car daily though. i can barely drive my car daily (not that i do). my car chops damn hard too. I;m hoping for 125-150hp LESS than you too. I've pretty much maxed everything out too (aside from cam, cant really max that). Very well ported Lt1 castings (looking for 270cfm@0.500) lift, ported intake, long tubes, good valves. Good luck doing it NA

if you want to talk to me (been there, rebuilt my LT1 -3 times at that) about it-
supacharged22 AIM
treyZ28@hotmail.com

 

This is what I did. Not the cheap way to go but should be close to 500rwhp.

396
12.5.1 compresson
Callies Dragon slayer Crank
Oliver Billet Rods
Ross Flat tops
AFR 210's Ported by GTP
Custom Solid Roller Cam

You can spend 10k quick, and there are less expensive ways of doing to,SC,NOS, so pick your poison.

 

A guy I knew had the following

Shorty headers/ Borla cat back
MTI heads
CC305 Cam
After market Clutch
Vortec Blower

The car made about 525 at the wheels, plenty of guys have done it with these high comp LT1s. Nitrous is a great way to.

 

If he's willing to do a supercharger, call Combination Motorsports, Nutek, Phil. O, Total Engine Airflow, or others and they could point you to an excellent combination of parts. A nice 355 or 383 at 9.5:1 wouldn't be too hard or expensive (relatively speaking) to put some boost on. A blower cam and worked stock heads will get him there. Any of the above vendors can port the stock heads very well.

 

Figure 500/.86 = ~581hp...

Nothing extreme, but it wont be cheap NA.

Can't make that with LT1 heads? We'll see about that

 

i dont think he knows what 500rwhp is
i think hes just shooting off numbers

 

Phil, do you think your normal rework can get 500 NA? Or is that with some special reshaping, different hardware, and more $$?

 

Nah, you need a bit more air to make near 600hp NA.

More $$$.. emphasis on the "more" and the "$$$." It'd be a bit of a pain to do for someone b/c of it's so time consuming, figure ~$2800-3000+ for something complete depending on components & $ for the intake work that'd be required.

IMO, not something most people want to do.