Take back the keys!

fbirdformula wrote:i want drivability outta my car... i don't want it to only be capable of doing the 1/4 mile... i want to drive it on the freeway... and other places.. a 383 would be great if all i did was take it to the track, but since i'm not just taking it to the track and are probably gunna drive it almost everyday i can i'm gunna make it a fun toy. i figure if i get my heads ported, and do a nice cam it should bump the hp up to about what i want...if not i'll keep doing more mods to it till it gets where i want it to... hell i'm not even sure i want 500hp... i may not like it if i'm driving everyday

I paid 1800 for my Eagle rotating assy ballanced (4340 4" stroke/3.905 pistons/4340 h-beam rods w arp studs/main/rod bearings) about 4 years ago for an LS1, imo that sounds a lil overpriced for stock sized shit....

CID has noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooootttttttttttttttttttttthin to do with driveability really, its everything that goes along with it dude. Hell look at the z06 it comes with 427 CID factory and gets 15 city/24 hwy while putting out 505 horsepower(you sure as fuck can drive it on the freeway). It has a baby camshaft though, which is prob the main thing your talking about... my 383 LS1 averaged 18.6 mpg when i drove out to Pittsburgh and that was with a pretty big f-ing cam (.651/.658 248/254/113) 4.56 gears and not to mention it was on a Saturday, the next day at sunset it ran a 6.89@105 so shes a lil motivated. my car isnt good for handling because i have a spool which falls into the driveability thing, but the good thing about spools is they're fuckin strong and wont break... so it was a natural chioce

...i dont see it being possible to get 500 hp to the ground out of a stock cube lt1 unless u got a crazy flowing set of heads/gigantic cam and run like 18.5:1 compression... high boost on a forged bottom ended lt1... or forged bottom end with a big shot of n2o

...just my .02

don't forget you can punch that lt1 out to 454 cid (biggest i've heard so far with an lt1) so 383 isn't that big, and when your talking about making power on motor... theres no replacement for displacement (before i open that can of worms i mean with identical engine components/compression etc... bigger cid will always will make more power)

i'ma keep doing research when i can but from the sounds of it i'll be going hte 383 route... and my cam won't be as large as gary's but it'll be large enough... as for a transmission who knows what i wanna do yet... probably an auto w/ manual valve bodies so i can control when i shift.

fbirdformula wrote:i'ma keep doing research when i can but from the sounds of it i'll be going hte 383 route... and my cam won't be as large as gary's but it'll be large enough... as for a transmission who knows what i wanna do yet... probably an auto w/ manual valve bodies so i can control when i shift.

Nobody's cam is as big as Gary's!!

imo, just buy the 383 stroker kit. buy a set of 185cc or 205 cc AFR heads (get the smaller chamber option for a little better mpg, i think they offer 58cc and 72 cc) run somewhere between 10-10.5:1 compression, run like a .540ish cam, and a nice edelbroc intake (probably a vic jr). Should net u somewhere around 450hp to the ground still getting around 15-17mpg if u baby it.

By no means am i sayin to go buy all that shit, but it should be a decent start for u to start researching some stuff. AFR heads are the shit.

http://store.summitracing.com/partdetai ... 028+401472

sons of teh betch... i'll need new headers for this..... i heard dart heads are pretty nice too, but after looking at them they aren't what i wanted for the price. wow... err... maybe next winter i'll be able to afford this... bottom end @1800...... heads @1800... hmm timing chain cam lifters pushrods... probably another grand total...yea it'll be winter or so before i can get this done, if nothign else goes wrong economically or things suddenly break at the house... thats not evne to mention all of the studs,bolts, gaskets, and everything else

go check out some firebird fourm classifieds.. haha

I'm entertained....lmao here here here.... I want to add to the insanity

My opinion is Eagle is a great company as long as its main line items, don't worry SUMMIT doesn't carry anything but the main line unlike some other retailers you could find Eagle cheaper through online, yet still a true Eagle product not part of their main line, its kinda like how both Best Buy and Walmart sell an item that looks the same and yet once you review the features you realize there are great differences between the two. Then you go online to check (lets say its a sony item) on Sony.com and you search for the product number you just got from the item at Walmart and can't find it, doesn't mean its not a Sony or not real, just means its a product specifically made for Walmart. Now getting back to my point...Eagle does the same thing with their products, there is the MAIN LINE which Summit, Jegs, AMS performance, all those carry THEN there is a second line up that you can find cheap but just like momma always told ya, you get what you pay for. Look into the Callis -brand name- Compstar -Series- as well, should be priced similar. As for the quality of the MAIN LINE Eagle products, they without a doubt will hold anything you through at them and then some, I have two friends running Eagle components in their engines, one back fired on a large shot (were talking over 200 here) without any major damages.

Words of wisdom, do tons of research, do learn about your project as much as possible, even if you don't have the technical know how to do it yourself, understand concepts and what works and doesn't work will save you from getting RIPPED OFF there are a lot, and I mean a lot of shops just waiting for some wide eyed kid to walk in and say here assemble this for me, LS1TECH.com is a great place to start. Like previously stated.

Gary and Tom - are dicks if you ask about things without knowing word one of what you speak of, get used to it but he knows libraries full of useful info, same with Brian, mustang kid.

You stated, you don't have the time, this is a two year out project, well sorry to tell you and consider me what you will, cars even though referred to as toys on here a lot are just like Edsell Ford once said "the automobile is a hobby in and amongst itself" Even if all you do is read a little here and a little there for 5min once a night about engines, you will learn slowly and at your own pace, eventually you'll grow to have a knowledge base. I'm not being a dick even though you think I am, I'm simply stating a lot of your predetermined notions about the 383 were because lack of knowledge. Oh yea and as for only having the car a year, here is food for thought


It takes a lot of trial and error to get things right, this isn't even half the slips I got from my SS that I used to run


This was my third time out to the track and possibly the worst time I ever got in that thing -14.933- this was NA for all those watching at home


NOTICE...not even a whole year later and I was in the low 12's....yes this was with the aid of a 150 shot but there was more involved then just the bottle to get this 5000lb SUV to run times like that.

I know guys I'm but I'm bored...!

lol sabo maybe i'll have u help w/ my project... just dont leave tinfoil in my motor

People who insist on not using an air filter at the end of a cold air intake that pulls air in a couple of inches off the ground will get random debris in their engines intake tract, not my fault. The other stuff that was found under the intake was remains of an old intake gasket, which I had nothing to do with the reassembly process there, it was already on the car when I got over that evening to help John and Teddy. I think I would have caught the glimmering of something shiny in the valley of the engine.

First thing about building an engine is you gotta have a car to put it in, you already got that. Need a good block, its steal yea its a two bolt but it works just fine, John is in the mid 11's now with his and he still get around 13-14mpg around town, two point if advice I can give to anyone, if you got a project... either have all the money in advance to pay for is, so it comes apart and right back together quickly or have a good daily driver and piece mill it together over time. This leads to having the car down for an extended period of time.

lol show me teh moniez.... i'm broke bro... i have a daily driver but its slowly falling apart...imagine that? anyways i was thinking about leaving stock heads on it till i can save up enough money to put the afr's on... so if i geta decent cam... and keep stock heads how will that affect the motor? will it be defeating the purpose totally? i should make some gains out of it but not like i would had i put a new set of heads on. i just wonder if i'll have to change the springs in the heads....

i bought my ported ls6 heads off ebay for 599 its all about flow numbers and suck... your paying for the name when u get afr's, $1799 seems like alot for lt1 heads yo

were yours assembled and everything?

You don't need big $ heads to run fast with your LT1 (although they are nice). Like I said, look at the LE (Lloyd Elliot) and AI (Advanced Inductions) offerings. The LE setups are somewhere around $800-1000 I believe and you get your stockers worked to hell and a matched cam and accessories, ntm usually they don't typically run a monster cam to get good numbers. You can do 400-420rwhp with a supported setup on stock cubes. Like I said, go read up on LS1tech a bit in the LT1-LT4 forums...tons of info

last time i checked lloyd elliots site dissappeared.. cuz i was gunna do the 1LE thing he had

i take it back..site changed names... its now http://www.elliottsportworks.com/lt1.html

There are a bunch of great way to build an engine but lets remember that this engine has over 100K mi on it plus some... Without the bottom end being in good working order the heads aren't gonna do as much for you, sure any after market head will do better then your current set, even if at this point you rebuilt your heads it would be better then what you have now, remember worn out parts in engines mean lower compression, oil getting in areas it shouldn't, air in areas that shouldn't have air in them. Get the bottom end solid and squared away before moving on. You can do a cam on stock head and get varying results or take the shady tree mechanic way out of it and get a set of 1.6 rockers... not sure if I'm right but I believe the LTs had 1.5 it will gain you more air which in turn can be more power. In the LS world if you change the rockers from the stock 1.7 to a 1.85 you pick up around 22hp and 34tq not to shabby. Real difference in changing a cam isn't as much to to with absolute lift numbers, it also have a lot.. a lot to do with duration and LSA these I am not explaining in detail...google the shits. A cam will be more time consuming, a lot more labor intensive FUKIN OPTI SPARK BS ......nightmare. Traditionally you pull the heads when you swap the cam, unlike the LS series of engine that have cool little trays for the lifters to tuck into with one rotation after the push rods are pulled, the LTs aren't so nice. SOooo this leads me to my next point. If you already are going to have the heads off for the cam swap, you might as well wait until you have the heads for it, so you only spend money once on gaskets, fluids, studs...etc...!

If you wanted to do a really good rebuild kit for the bottom end, I just heard about this a week ago, its a 383 stroker kit that Eagle just started making that utilizes the LS crank, 4.375in stroke size....now your asking ok what does this mean to me. Bore size stays the same, meaning less machine shop work to the block and saved money overall being these kits cost in the same ballpark as what your looking at now. In the segment I read Eagle is stating a gained 64hp and 94tq from just the new internals with a stock block, heads and cam, the accompanying dyno graph stated the dead stock LT1 had 294hp from what I could make out in the pics, deff #'s from an engine dyno and not a chassis dyno but its worth looking into either way.

Also for your head search, look into TEA they are out of Talmage, OH no they are in no relation to Summit Racing at all. They have a website, I don't know it off hand but when you get to it your looking for 350 SBC head reverse cooling, I don't believe they listed them as an LT1 head but thats what it is.

I HATE TYPING......damn I'm bored, ya damn

lol i said i was going to do a full motor rebuild sabo... no point in just putting new cam and heads on with a low compression cyl 8, and oil leaks all over the board. my only worry is when i go to put teh cam bearings in...making sure the oil holes line up properly.. anyways i'll for sure have to get the whole thing rebuilt.

Ok....looking into that new stroker kit would be worth while though, 4.375 stoke lmao....it be a damn torque monster. Cam oiling is a good point but most experienced shops will do all that, Howard at Bman Machine, I have used a number of time with good results asides for one, not explaining it, it could be considered a common mistake and they fixed it at their expense. Another would be the place Gary got his block work and prep done at, can't remember the shop name but its in Girard thats all I remember, I can ask G about it, see if he remembers.

crank n sleeve i thought.. anyways my buddy uses the same place i think, he's never had any complaints... i was gunna do the work to the motor myself, but lacking tools i'll just have the machine shop do it since i don't build motors on a regular basis its not worth getting all of the tools needed to do it. and for another 3-400 bucks i can have a professional do it who is liable? thats probably the route i'll choose. i'm assuming the new motor rebuild would just crush my 4l60E, which means i need to either put stronger internals in it or just get a new trans...

poopy trannys.... thats what scares me the most... lol

Yea the trans is always the weakest link it always seems, especially the electronically controlled GM ones, I'm truly shocked that I never had any issues with the on in the SS becuase oh some 14+ bottles haha. You can find decent trans shops that aren't to expensive, look around but there goes another 1000-1800 depending on where you go. For good street manners don't go past a 3300 stall speed converter.....anything past a 2500rpm converter will mean bad joojoo for your fuel economy. 3300 would lose you around 1mpg

yea... i wasn't planning on going too high... i dunno... i really need to do more research before i actually do this... i wonder if that old trans of mine will hold up at all with the new motor?

LSXhilarating wrote: Another would be the place Gary got his block work and prep done at, can't remember the shop name but its in Girard thats all I remember, I can ask G about it, see if he remembers...

fbirdformula wrote:crank n sleeve i thought..

That would be them. Well more accurately, HIM. It's just 1 guy down there, but he gets shit done fast and he is very meticulous, of course, that line of work requires you to be. He's the one who assembled and milled my heads. To make sure he was doing everything right, he asked me for my cam specs and he was constantly on the phone with Thunder Racing for all the real technical shit to make sure everything was how it should be. Jerry Wietz has been in the business for years, but as of two years ago, mine were only the second set of LS heads that he's ever worked on. I put 3700 miles on that motor last year and didn't have any problems..

fbirdformula wrote:i'm assuming the new motor rebuild would just crush my 4l60E, which means i need to either put stronger internals in it or just get a new trans...

Probably. But the rear will go before the tranny will, if not around the same time. Honestly, there are numerous, numerous ways you can go with your build, Shawn. But if it was my car, I would focus on building a solid foundation first. Upgrading all of the cheap, stamped steel garbage that makes up the rear suspension and replacing it with components from a reputable company like BMR or Spohn will not only help you knock .2-.3's off of your time (even with what you have now). Rear lower control arms, heavy-duty torque arm, adjustable panhard bar, adjustable rear shocks, etc. I'd also buy an aluminum drivshaft, drop a few pounds and free up some horsepower to the wheels that were lost with that heavy factory installed steel turd. Drop a few pounds off the 'bird wherever you can (remove the backseat, get a fiberglass hood, etc.) Get some used, stock aluminum 16's (since you never had them to begin with) and pony up for some drag radials. Nittos, BFG's, whatever. The BFG's will give you more bite, but the Nittos will last longer. It's up to you, just depends on how much racing you plan on doing..

With the power you're making now, your trans and rear should hold up fine for awhile as long as the tranny isn't slipping or the rear end isn't whining or anything. For the time being I would continue with the bolt-ons, and play with things like tire pressure, practicing my launch, keeping the engine cool between runs (icing the intake, avoid hot-lapping) and learning how to do a proper bunout in the 'box are all things I would be doing if I were you. So..

1. Upgrade suspension.
2. Continue with the bolt-ons.
3. Bullet-proof the transmission and upgrade to a higher stall converter while you're at it.
4. Replace the weak 10 bolt with a much stronger unit, like a Moser 12 bolt. But if you want to do things on the cheap, swap in a junkyard 9" or an 8.8".

...then build your motor. I hope this helps..

yea.. i know all of this... i've just accepted the plain fact this will take at least 3 more years if not longer.... ah well.. hopes and dreams down the shitter yet again lol

fbirdformula wrote:yea.. i know all of this...

Sure you did.. that's why you asked!

fbirdformula wrote:i've just accepted the plain fact this will take at least 3 more years if not longer.... ah well.. hopes and dreams down the shitter yet again lol

Maybe because you're trying to do too much too fast? Ever think that a lot of people around here do it in steps? I told you how, I mapped it out for you. Most of those bolt ons are in like the $100-$250 range new, if you now how to shop. Try buying used shit, RS Beast told you to go to LS1tech.com They have a used parts section, you could save even more money..

hmmm.... so there are so many combinations of builds i dunno what to do.... my goal is somewhere around 450-500whp... obviously after doing some research i'm gunna need a forged bottom end.. and that 383 stroker kits only 100 more, and like about 300 to get machined? so i'll probably go that route... i'll keep checking Ebay and other sites for a cheap rear end that'll hold the power... an 8.8 or a moser 12 will proabably be my best bet... the only problem is a 8.8 is outta a ford and will need to have stuff welded on that i can't do. anyways that'll take care of the rear end, as for the trans...who knows yet. but back to the motor... what would 500 or so whp put me at on the track if i hooked? something like mid high 11's? just a guess

LSXhilarating wrote:Yea the trans is always the weakest link it always seems, especially the electronically controlled GM ones

and gm wonders why no one wants to build cavaliers or cobalts.... not thats the only reason

Drewboi The statement about the trans being the weakest link could pertain to any automatic or manual transmission in any make, model or year of car. Specifically what I was stating is the trans in his car which is a 4L60E are prone for having electronic complications. Even strong parts are not ready for a mistimed shift sequence.
Cavaliers = car that was never meant to be a performance vehicle in any way, shape or form
Cobalts = good entry level performance vehicle (in the SS supercharged and turbocharged versions)
Lets be clear with what I am trying to say here, if you modify anything above and beyond an extra 40-50hp above factory you could expect any vehicle to have drive line issues, be it a GM vehicle or not. Now some with the added power will maintain for a longer period of time then others but all will eventually break from the sustained abuse.

These internal components are known to be strong enough to maintain 500-550hp without any issues BUT


combine that with the electronic control and your just waiting for disaster, >>notice the t-bar of plastic in this picture, see the connections on the ends, those to linear actuators if not in sync with each other with a (I can't remember right not the time spacing) but if its off by a little there goes your bands, shaft and gear sets. In all new GM models they use a program called torque modulation, which in turn can properly control aspects of the of its operation to safe guard against mistimed actuators.


Now I know someone with some know how here or prior experience with 4L60E's might chime in and say they have seen cars making much less power then 500hp that have blown apart, broke or straight up shit canned a 4L60E....this is due to Torque Converter issues because even though the trans gears and bands can maintain those power levels the factory TC can't.

I feel like I forgot something......

i'll for sure be putting a larger TC in.... don't wanna go outrageously large thought, buti want something around the 3000 range. that and i was thinking manual valve bodies? they make some nice shift kits up at summit i may put in, or have someone put in forme

oh..and on most of hte ls1tech pages bout the lt1 rear ends... i've read the rear ends go first in most cases... and they usually hold to low 12's.... so who knows. i'll probably just do the motor...snap something...fix it...snap something...fix it.. and then i'll have everything hopefully