Best of Both Worlds: Building A GM Smallblock With A Modern LS Top - Horesepower S14, E7

Nowadays horsepower wise it's the

best

of

both

worlds

for you chevys, when the ls engine came out in 97 it was a major milestone for GM and a huge departure from tried and tested small blocks like the 350. Of course, over the years. I've seen some of the cool modifications you can do on this new age pushrod v8. The 1997 c5 was acclaimed because the corvette car was always intended to be a completely new vehicle from the ground up with an all new engine, the ls1 rated at 345. horsepower, this innovative gen 3 was a white and black with almost nothing in common with previous generations, in addition, it launched an entire family of high-performance LS engines, such as the 500-horsepower LS7, built with components that just a few years ago were considered racing only.

Shout out to chevy's first v8, the aluminum block ls was a triumph of

modern

technology and the large displacement small block, of course, as everyone knows, although you can't interchange parts between the ls and the small blocks of the previous generation until now, that's what the old school kids are going to do. I love this, we're going to show you how to build an engine that's an old small block on the bottom and on top. The secret is here in this Motown ls iron block from world products. Now they raise the platform height to ls es 9240 so you can.

You can run any aftermarket LS intake manifold you want once the heads are on, now this is where the real magic happened. They designed the block to accept the bolt pattern of the ls cylinder head and water jackets. Now you can make more horsepower in a small block and have performance. advantage in certain classes of racing that require a distributor-driven ignition system. Now here's something else that's really cool: The engine mount and oil pan are faithful to the original small block, so putting these things in GM's early muscle or race cars is easy for the Bottom End to do. small block standard on our engine, we're going with the Crower 4340 forged crankshaft, a set of their lightweight maxi connecting rods and we'll make them with these inverted dome pistons.

Now the camshaft is custom built with offset cams. for the motown block and we'll tell you more about this later, but I can tell you that these bottom end components will make our small block 380 cubic inches. Now here are the top ls world war falcon cylinder heads. Victor junior aircraft intake and an efi configuration created by hal. You can leave the block bare or already machined like ours so we can start

building

the engine. Now I can fit your crankshaft which has a stroke of 3.562 inches. Take a look at the machining work Crower did on this thing, there isn't a sharp edge anywhere, it's that attention to detail that makes a big difference.

Then we can check the final game and we are fine here with a free space of 5000 and before installing all the main elements. caps, it's always a good idea to use a piece of plastic gauge to make sure we have the correct bearing clearance and at three thousandths we're good here too, the block uses four extended main bolts and you can get them two ways, nodular or as these 1045 bills and to keep them in place securely a combination of bolts and studs with nuts now the torque specs are 100 foot pounds for the internal fasteners 70 for the external ones well now we are making some progress and here it is Where old and new literally come together, these pistons are completely smooth and that coating on the skirt is to prevent scratches.

Now we're hanging them with floating pins on a set of Crower small-block Chevy rods. Our ring sets come from a total seal and need to be filed to fit now, since this engine will be used on the street, we are setting the top gap at 18 and the bottom gap at 15. These pistons come with dual oilers. pin, dual valve reliefs and flat domes and give us a 10 to 1 compression ratio. Our custom made camshaft for the Motown LS block comes from comp cams and has some pretty unique features on the back, they include a gear distributor drive all lobes are based on an ls profile and journal size let's say it fits on a standard small block chevy cam bearing.

Now at the top they even include an eccentric for a fuel pump. Now when it comes to lubricating a hydraulic roller camshaft and gluing it, there are two different ways to do it. On a hydraulic roller camshaft, a molle-based lubricant is fine on the distributor gear, but not on the journals and lobes. Here you can grease the cam off the engine and get dirty or carefully install the cam and grease the lobes through the lifter holes and the journals will get oil when you prime the engine the double roller timing chain is made for the block chevy small original.

Next is the lifters, now I like to wash them in a clean parts washer to get rid of the junk and have them clean when they go in the lifter holes now after blowing them with air we can soak them in oil and use this time to finish the bottom end and for that old moroso chevy block including the pickup and high volume oil pump and then this gasket with compression stops from our fall pro kit a six quart street strip oil pan finally this one oil filter adapter we got from mr gasket now once we turn this on we're going to turn the engine back upright and we're going to start from the top end so make sure they're not going anywhere.

We're back with our LS hybrid engine built using a world block designed to accept tried and tested small block bottom end parts. We hung ls style pistons on stock rods and installed a custom cam with ls lobes and small block compatible add-ons now, in case you're wondering why build an engine like this, we'll consider that the bottom end of the small block will handle a lot more power than the one most engine manufacturers give you and the top end ls. It is famous for its breathing characteristics, so the power potential is really there and this will be an engine that will sit in the original engine mounts of many classic cars.

Hey, what a talking point at the car show, too bad they can't see it. how these full roller lifters install directly into the block instead of the heads like on the oels, you also won't see the special valley cover we bolt on with the block which is actually a spacer that straddles the top of the block and anchors the top. of the heads also has a mounting location for the small block distributor. We load our Warhawk heads with a set of manly stainless steel valves measuring 208 intake and 160 exhaust, and, by the way, we hold them in place with some dual balance springs.

These heads with 64 or 72cc combustion chambers we chose 64 to keep the compression ratio at 10 to 1. These heads have the same 15 degree centerline and rocker arm attachment angles. 255 intake channels. 87cc exhaust ports. The pushrod length is 8,200 inches and we knew at the beginning that's because all of these parts are designed to work together as a high-end engine package. A little mounting lubricant on the pushrods and valve stems prevents premature wear. Now these heads are also designed to use originals. L style rocker arms and that's the route we're going plus we're going to use the stock valve covers to bolt it on now when it comes to the intake manifold you have a few options and we went with victor junior single.

The aircraft intake has a base rpm range of 3,500 to 7,000 and accepts a standard four-barrel, square-board carburetor. Well, we'll use the carburetor on the dyno later, when we put the engine in the Camaro, we probably will. switch to a throttle body injection system like this one, theirs comes with a wiring harness fuel pump ecm and

best

of all it is loaded with a prom that is calibrated to match your engine to maintain the water flowing through our hybrid. We'll be using this Summit electric water pump and following it up with this Ati super shock. If you've been following this build, you've probably noticed that there is no outlet on the intake manifold or the front of the block, so how are we going to circulate water through this?

Well it's pretty simple, removed the freeze plug on the front of the cylinder head and installed this adapter plate, it's threaded for a three quarter pipe fitting that will go to the fittings, now the line will go from there to this moroso remote thermostat housing that accepts a standard small block water neck to power this hybrid. If we are installing a msd pro billet distributor and beat a holley hp that flows 750 cffs, go ahead, none of the usual horsepower predictions here are uncharted territory for However, so far so good and after the period of usual warm-up, we're ready for our initial run at 6000 rpm, 542 horsepower, 496 pound-feet of torque at 51.

Wow, we're still going up in horsepower before a pool at 6,500, though let's see what They make two degrees of synchronization, what do you think I think he picked her up lost? I don't think he recovered, but we'll see. Wow, 504 lb-ft, that's a nice little engine, hey, we'll keep playing with it. Wait a while to see if we get more, but you know it's a really strong ending to this little block of the new old world. Say what type of muffler you want on your street machine, unless it's an off-road vehicle like that Mustang track car. You've got to have something and a lot of options these days, so we thought it'd be cool to look inside the design of various Cherry Bomb mufflers at different price points and then use our engine dyno to see how much horsepower they unleash in comparison.

In fact, this is a replacement or original muffler. The exhaust enters here, flows through this large perforated tube and returns through smaller gas holes that control the sound before traveling through another perforated tube and exits. Pretty restrictive design and I'll tell you we'll use a couple of these for our baseline. We are using one of our trusty mule engines for all carbureted racing. Now the exhaust notes are going to sound different on a vehicle than they do here on the dyno, but we're going to measure the decibel levels while we're measuring horsepower up to six thousand dollars, okay guys, ready to go, let's do it, since Matt Graves brought us all the silencers, we decided to let him stay and watch us play silently at 107 decibels with an average peak power of 472. cherry bomb has been disturbing the p since 1968 thanks to its first silencer, the flow of the glass pack is now directed through these vents here into the fiberglass material that reduces the high decibels now you get that famous popping sound because Well, there's nothing disconcerting inside, let's try a couple of these next.

I love that old sound. It is rated at 129 decibels and 480 horsepower, which is a gain of 8 over stock. Cherry Bomb's economical turbo muffler is similar to the above and quiet as one. but it has three larger drill pipes to release more flow. Let's give this one a try on the dyno neck, a little quieter than the glass package and a few less horsepower, but still five above baseline, the smaller the muffler body, less sound control. You will get Cherry Bomb's extreme muffler just use this offset wing to deflect the sound making it their loudest muffler. It is now ideal for racing and extreme street use.

The professional muffler here also uses an offset wing but also has additional sound. chambers and a longer design to control more sound tell you what we see what we get with a pair of these next very quiet at 118 dbs four ponies and some changes to the original horsepower finally the cherry bomb vortex now uses all the principles of the other mufflers and these flow dividers here that push the exhaust through these holes drilled through steel wool and fiberglass to eliminate that hum that we all hate, but at the same time there is as much flow here as the which you get in a four inch tube, so this one is made for total flow and total sound control, let's try them, it's not a big surprise that the vortex allowed the most power: 480.4 horsepower,while several decibels quieter than the glass pack, so while the cherry bombs outperformed the original mufflers in the horsepower department, the best performers were the newer vortex and glass pack retro, so how do you want it to politely pass in front of the other cars or disturb the piece at the same time you call?

I guess we'll be right back. You're watching horsepower for a DVD copy of this episode just go to powerblocktv.com and order your copy for just 5.95 plus shipping and start receiving your own horsepower collection right to your door from the block. energy. Well it's time for hot parts and here's a new version of a good old carburetor that caught our attention is called the sv1 from Pro Systems and it uses this great unique venturi design for improved atomization over the traditional four barrel. They claim you'll get quicker throttle response, quicker shift pick-ups, and harder launches now that you have it. them for gasoline, alcohol and e85 with a variety of flow rates up to 2600 cffs also with a variety of price tags here is a cool, stylish and functional way to dress up your dashboard it is a dakota digital instrument system now in addition to your regular gauges like oil pressure and water temperature, it even has a built-in 0-60 timer, a quarter mile timer, and high speed and rpm reminders.

Now you can even set your high and low warning points on the gauges to let you know if you have a problem at that moment. They come with all shipping units and even a teal faceplate, if you don't like blue they are a direct fit and pretty much in your budget with prices starting at $525, why would anyone want to trade in a new torque? Converter from your 2010 Camaro, well how about a five to seven tenths improvement in your eighth miles? That's what recent testing has shown with this high performance torque converter 6l80e, it has a billet cover, special needle bearings inside and of course it is furnace reinforced, but what is it?

The price of those best track times, well, how about $900? The only place you want one of these is on your zz crate engine. This dui comes from performance dealers and features a melonized gear running hydraulic roller camshafts plus an optimized timing curve to give you more power throughout the rpm range now with this fifty thousand volt coil and dyna module you get a longer spark duration so you can open the spark plugs at 55 thousand for a complete combustion, does this pique your interest? You can get one for about $300. If the camshaft is the brain of an engine, then it is the transmission system that puts the power of the brain into action.

Jaisal's belt drive is the most precise and durable you can get, just ask. The best racing teams that use them operate without lubrication and spin with less friction than chains or gear drive systems. Their systems come with an aluminum top drive pulley with a high torque drive tooth configuration and an alloy steel crank pulley. Now you can get your system with this standard one piece top drive pulley or upgrade to one that is fully adjustable either way, they have them for a variety of big and small block applications with prices starting at around 700. Well, It's time for us to start producing the Lights because we're getting out of here.

See you next time.