GM LS - What makes it GREAT? ICONIC ENGINES #12

in the red, white and blue corner we have the world's heavyweight champion who isn't that heavy at all, the pride and joy of General Motors, the blue-collar, tire-shredding pushrod torque monster from Motor City USA , it's the only one. GM LS engine in 1676 Sir Isaac Newton wrote this in one of his letters and said that if I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants, implying that his amazing achievements and discoveries in the field of physics were only possible thanks to the work . and the achievements of the

great

scientists and thinkers who preceded him.

If there was ever an engine to which this quote applies, it is definitely the GM LS engine because the GM LS engine is the direct descendant and modernized and improved version of one of the most relevant. recognizable and influential engine designs of all time an engine that was made for half a century an engine that raised many generations of automobile enthusiasts of course I'm talking about the timeless Chevrolet small block engine now before we continue, There is one thing we have to get out of the way and that is that officially the term LS engine family does not exist,

what

does officially exist within GM is generation three and generation four of GM's small block v8 engine platform.

The first generation is Chevy's original small block generation. to be the LT one and LT four

engines

and the third generation in generation for being a lot of different

engines

, many of which don't even have LS in their names, but today when we say our Senden family in most cases we mean to all engines within general three and four so with that in mind let's go back to history now the original small block Chevy, the generation 1 engine was class leading in many aspects and this explains why it remained on the market for so long; It was introduced in 1955, but was relevant until the 90s.

I mean, very few engines on the planet can boast such a track record; However, in the '90s, the small-bark Chevy design was beginning to show its age and this engine began to struggle to meet emissions, mpg and weight. requirements, so Chevy improved the engine, they introduced the LT 1 and LT 4 generation, but both engines were based heavily on the small box Chevy and were not much of an improvement, some would even say they were a step back and these engines continued. had to fight to meet the weight and emissions mpg requirements, so in the mid-90s, Chevy realized that GM really realized it was time to design an all-new v8 from the ground up, as probably Know, Generation 1 and 2 V8 small block engines are all pushrod.

Engines Unlike an overhead camshaft engine design which has the camshaft positioned above the valves, a pusher engine has the camshaft inside the block and relies on a set of rods that push up and down to open and close the valves, but Even in the early 90s, the pushrod was considered a dinosaur and an arcade design that did not have much of a future and this sentiment was present even at GM, in fact one of the key engineers on the GM LS development team, Mr. Ron Sperry remembers that when he was called into headquarters to work on a new v8 and told that it had a cam in the block, he thought he had done something wrong and that Your career was over, sir.

Ron Sperry taught that because all the key engineers at GM in the 90s were saying v6 this and in mind that and Jim was also considering whether or not to jump on the bandwagon because most of the world's automakers had already moved on to overhead cam in head. designs or were phasing out their pushrod engines, but GM wasn't quite ready to give up their pushrod just yet, so to decide the future of their new v8 Jian carried out some rather sneaky blind tests with their executives themselves, now the blind tests were Conducted in May 1992, they set it up at the secret GN Milford Proving Ground outside of Detroit, Michigan, and that's how the tests went.

Basically, GM gathered a bunch of different executive managers and other GM leaders and gave them pairs of cars to drive. The two cars in the pair were virtually identical from the outside and inside, but

what

they didn't tell the executives is that each of the cars had a different engine, but the most interesting pair of cars were two black Corvettes at the end of the line, one of them. had an LT 4 engine, a pushrod v8, the other had a non-pushrod v8, a Lotus designed all-aluminum twin overhead cam engine, also known as the LT 5 engine, the executives backed both veterans without knowing it. which had which engine at the end of the day, after all the executives had driven both cars, almost all of them came to the same conclusion that they preferred the pushrod Vette, they couldn't get over the fact how instantly the pushrod Vette It started pulling hard as soon as they stepped on the accelerator, on the other hand, they complained that it took some time to finish.

I mean, you have all the Americans who care about high rev limits and engine rev bliss. I judge my car by how quickly it pushes me into the seat after I get in it and this test might have been a little biased because almost all of the test subjects were Americans, on the other hand it was also a good test because the test subjects from the test were also the target audience. but the important thing is that the test decided the future of the v8, the pushrod is here to stay, it would not get on the bandwagon and all this thanks to a lot of blind tests by a group of managers, but thanks to this today we have the engine.

Wonder, it's the GM LS. We have this engine in its beautiful simplicity instead of a much more complicated and perhaps less successful package, but another key thing that happened right after the blind tests is that GM appointed the right person for the job. from importing some kind of golden boy from I don't know the UK in OE or Germany or whatever to design an overly complex engine worked very well on paper, we have done something totally different, they appointed mr. ed Werner as chief engineer and this is the important thing about Mr. Koerner, he is not a person who sees cars and engines as a ticket to earn a salary, for him cars and engines are a passion because mr.

Ed Corner is a true car enthusiast and not just a car enthusiast, he is a veteran racing car owner, so if you want that engine that will please gas lovers for centuries, you better You get a gasoline enthusiast to design it and that's exactly what GM did. and here is a display that proves that GM LS was designed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts, so this is the bell pattern of the LS engine, why am I showing you this? Who cares about this? But actually, you do care and it's important because this is it. one of these biggest reasons why the LS and you became so popular and the hood pattern of the LS is the same basic hood pattern as the small block Chevy, so what does that mean? compatible with all the older transmissions that came in the Chevrolet small block and means that swapping an LS for all the cool old chassis is made really easy and straightforward for enthusiasts.

GM really had nothing to gain from this other than making swapping easier for enthusiasts and here we have Exhibit B, these are the lift guides for the LS engine and there is another part of the engine designed to make life easier for enthusiasts. Now the GM LS engine has a restricted design and that means that in theory when you want to change the cams you have to remove the heads from the engine and that's a lot of work and nobody wants to do that, but the engine designers realized That enthusiasts would change the cams frequently, so they decided to make their lives easier: the guides work.

To catch the lifters in the up position, all you have to do is take the lifters out of rocker mode and crank the motor. several times and the lifter guides will then engage in the up position allowing the can to be changed without removing the heads and this shows that the LS engine was designed with the needs of the enthusiast in mind. This is extremely beautiful and extremely rare in the world of modern engines, but what happens when you hire a race car driver to design your engine but the credit can't go to sir. Koerner only because the engineering team he assembled was a veritable list of who's who when it comes to incredible experience in all aspects of engine design and included names like Allen Heyman Jim Missoula Ron Sperry Bill Compton Brian Kaminski John Lewis Stan Turek and many had really good engine designers, so it was no wonder the GM LS turned out so well.

The LS engine debuted in the form of the LS1 in the engine bay of the Corvette c5 in 1997 and just after its launch. had a

great

impact because in the same year the ls1, awarded the word Engine of the Year, ed corner received the award on behalf of the entire design team and remembers that all the designers, including himself, could not believe that a new pushrod engine won the award, but even Ward couldn't ignore the beautiful simplicity and genius design of the LS engine. In the years that followed, the Ellis family also spawned a bunch of different truck engines, like the LRD LM DIY LC and the L Q, some of which are actually very good starting points for different types of projects.

The fourth generation appears in 2005 and further refined the amazing LS formula by improving the intake and exhaust manifold designs and a bunch of other little things. It also introduced larger bore sizes and brought new technologies to the table like on-demand displacement and variable valve timing. 2006 saw the introduction of the Corvette 0-6 c6 and along with it the 505 horsepower 708 and the giant a7 engine, it was followed shortly after by what is probably the most common. choice for changes today, 6.2 liter ls3 engine after that, we had the horsepower monsters, the supercharged LS and Ellis engines, in 2014 the new generation of the Corvette c7 was launched with a new lt1 engine that marked the unfortunate but inevitable phaseout of the LS, however, the The LS will survive for three more years in full-size pickup trucks and vans from G M and T finally ended for the LS in 2017.

LS engines range in displacement from 4.8 to 700 meters, so they are quite large v8 engines, but the good thing is that although they have a large displacement, they are not large in physical size due to their pushrod design, they do not have the number of parts, the size and the complexity typically associated with dual overhead cam engines, so an LS is almost always going to be smaller than any dual overhead cam V8 engine and this is great because it means they can fit virtually anywhere . Its small physical size is one of the reasons the LS became such a popular swap: the engine block has cylinder banks opposite at a 90-degree angle and comes in both iron and aluminum, which is really cool because when you build an LS engine you can choose between an iron and as a woman in black you want obscene amounts of boost you can choose whatever iron block you want.

For a lighter engine for a lightweight race car, you can use an aluminum block. All the cars that came with an LS engine had a woman's box and almost all of the trucks had iron blocks, except for some of the newer trucks that also received a woman and blacks, but no. Don't be fooled, the aluminum block is not significantly weaker than the iron block when it comes to the LS. The aluminum blocks are also really very strong and can handle really high amounts of boost and this is because the LS block design is really good and very rigid unlike the previous versions, the generation 1, integration 2 LS engines , generation 3 and 4, they have a Y shaped block, this means it is a v8 block with a very deep skirt and this is cool because it allowed the engineers to design six cross bolted main bearing caps for boats, it has four bolts vertically located and two horizontally located bolts that bolt the main bearing cap from the sides of the block and this

makes

the main bearing area extremely strong, in addition to this the block was designed to accommodate very long head bolts this increased and improved clamping forces and minimized potential cylinder bore distortion when it comes to the internals, we are aware of the Ayran cast crankshaft and almost all OS engines except the supercharged LSA and LS9 engines which employ a forging. steel crankshaft as in all real muscle car engines the crankshaft has, of course, a false crossplane design and is responsible for the great Baroni soundtrack of the LS the connecting rods are forged from steel powderMetal with fractured caps Fractured caps are good because they prevent the connecting rod cap from moving or sliding during high loads;

However, there is a disadvantage in that the fractured cap rods cannot be reconstructed by changing their size. Also, the rods on the LS aren't really known for being incredibly strong, so if you're interested in significantly increasing the power of the LS engine, it's often a good idea to say goodbye to the rigid rods and get some forged ones. the aftermarket. An exception to the powder metal rods is the LS 7 engine, which has some very fancy and exotic titanium rods, in fact it was the first American engine. Made a mass produced engine to employ titanium rods and while they are lighter they may seem like a very good option for upgrading to a different LS engine, you really can't use the LS 7 titanium rods in any other LS without having something personalized.

Pistons Speaking of pistons, all pistons in all LS engines are cast except in the supercharged LS 9 where they are forged as far as the cylinder heads are concerned, they are all made of aluminum with one exception, the lq4 truck engine which used Ayran cylinder heads. but this engine was phased out in the year 2000 and after 2000 all our engines use aluminum cylinder heads as we know the operating system is a pushrod engine, which means we have some pushrods, rocker arms and some Hydraulic roller lifters that work together to open and close. The valves we have two valves per cylinder for a total of 16 valves for the entire Engine.

The generation 3 and 4 LS engines managed to improve the generation 1 and 2 small case design by using a larger camshaft journal, which not only increased strength but also improved valvetrain dynamics in regards to camshaft profiles, durability and awareness. If there are a wide variety of different profiles on the different LS engines, listing them all here and talking about all of them would make this video 3 hours long, so we won't do that, but what I will tell you is that there is good news and you can swap trees of cams between the different LS engines, for example, you can use the high-lift hydration cams from the LS 7 and swap them for a different LS engine, but keep in mind that in many cases you also need to change the cam sensor. as a timing gear to get things going when it comes to the intake ports, we have different shapes and designs of intake ports between different LS engines and here you can see the intake ports as well as the engines they come on, talking honestly from juni vos. a little bit redundant, you could sum up the whole tuning thing in one sentence, whatever you want to do, you can do it and you could sum it all up in that one sentence because DLS pretty much has it all, they have a strong stock block like us.

I've already mentioned that it's very stiff and very strong from the factory it's ready for big amounts of power it's ready for boost it's ready for nitrous it's ready for whatever you want anyway and even if you run out of performance with the stock block which honestly It's not easy to do, there are aftermarket blocks available with true main bearing lubrication priority, meaning the oil domains are before the valve train, which is great for very high performance applications, so You can have a whole market of different types of Ellis blocks to choose from. the heads drop a lot of air even on the stock model, the LS is often credited with being absolutely incredible when it comes to airflow for a two valve pushrod engine and even the stock ls3 headers for example can flow about three hundred CFM, that's its maximum flow. and that's pretty awesome, that means you have more than enough airflow to support all kinds of mods and even if you run out of airflow you can move the heads around or you can choose from a wide variety of different castings on the market of accessories and different types of CNC Port, so anything you may need is available in the aftermarket.

Furthermore, the LS has been in production for quite a long time - twenty years, in fact - and was produced in large quantities in many different vehicles, which means that the LS is easy to source and is available, plus almost any mechanic's shop is familiar with it. the LS, so it's easy to rebuild, but let's say you don't want to get it, you don't want to mess with rebuilds, there's a solution for that too. GM offers great off the shelf, built to spec, perfect engines from GM themselves and you just go there, pay, take the engine and install it and there will be no more rebuilding or any of that hassle, and when you look at the prices on these Motors Honestly, they are pretty cheap.

I know they may not seem cheap at first glance, but if you were to compare this with the prices of some flagship engines from, say, some European brands, you will see that in fact the big LS engines are very affordable for the market. amount of power you get from them and also companies like a.m. for example make all-inclusive plug-and-play standalone ECU kits for crate engines, all you have to do is install the engine you know, connect lots of connectors and You're all set, there's a fully adjustable setup and you're ready to take the LS into the stratosphere, but the neo s is also affordable.

You can use the original engines, the matched camshaft and different parts so you know Pretty affordable package that will still work even in NA or upgraded applications, so like I said, it really is all there, everything is accessible. The aftermarket is amazing. The engine platform developed well. The engineers did their homework and this explains why it is so popular. engine why it is such a popular swap and people might frown and say just another LS swap but let's face it, enthusiasts want to get the most bang for their buck, they want to have fun, enthusiasts don't want to impress people in the comments section and that is why many choose the LS, it really gives you a lot of power and even if you are interested in really high levels of boost, well beyond 650 horsepower, it is quite easy to do it with the LS, plus , the only thing you really need to replace is the cast.

Honestly, the rods are pretty much the only type of weak link in this engine and once you get rid of them and put in some forged pistons, the crankshaft can stay pretty much forever even though it's cast from the original nodular. The iron crankshaft can take 1000 horsepower like a champ all day long, so with the rods and pistons replaced, 1000 horsepower becomes an easy, honest, cool thing when it comes to camshafts. and boost is that the original cams on the LS3, for example, and on some other LS. The engines are also quite suitable for boosting, there is no need to change the stock cams until you start aiming for quite high power levels, which means that the intermediate and old boost levels are totally fine with the stock stops, on the other hand , when it comes to NA Tuning, it all starts with the camshaft and is the usual route for any tune when it comes to the LS, its intake cams, exhaust and some remappings, and the good news is that the LS is also quite responsive fine to any tuning, as long as you use the right one. parts and proper fitment, the only other type of weak link when it comes to the LS engine is the lubrication system and the fact that it supplies and pumps oil to the valve train before taking it to the main bearings, but this really is a concern only for extreme powers and for all intermediate versions this is really not a factor and if you are looking for more power you can add security and avoid headaches by simply upgrading the oil pump and there we have it, that's it when it comes.

For the LS, it's an engine that's abundantly available, reliable, powerful, lightweight, compact, and has an incredible aftermarket. I mean, what more could you ask for? The only thing it can't do is fit in the engine bay of a Civic okay, it can do that too so yeah that's it when it comes to the LS. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, informative and somewhat entertaining and now it's time to end the video with what we always end with the

iconic

engine videos and that's a little embarrassing, but this time it's not only embarrassing, it's the longest rap so far and it's also the fourth american spirit, but i also want to say that i'm a guy with a slavic accent living in europe rapping about an american v8 pushrod.

Honestly, I never expected things. to get this weird, but they did it and I don't really care, let's do it. I'm a pushrod v8 and fools think I'm a dinosaur but they can't even imagine the power I have in store. I am the result of the dedication of a golden generation and my birth is an act of divine creation when you reach the race track and an unfair final boss, the game is rigged and the finish line I am always the first to cross, so stop your little meanie. Hate, you gotta go home before it's too late, put your fork, any kind of box in your tail, between your legs, I wasn't even running, you never beat me, so stop lying in the nets, my cars They are red, white, blue, I leave entries in the dust.

This is the land of the free and in v8 we trust you.