Forum Member’s ‘Freshening Up’ of LSX 454 Is Mouthwatering
Thread will show that sometimes it’s better to take matters into your own hands when it comes to building an LS. Especially an LSX.
As you can imagine here at LS1Tech, we have quite a few forum members with bad-ass builds. This one is coming all the way from Melbourne, Australia. Those who are familiar with the LS platform know that the Aussies know a thing or two about building a pushrod V8. Thanks to forum member Mickyinks for sharing his sweet build with us. Let’s see what it’s all about.
According to his post titled “LSX 454 freshen up,” this was his first post or thread on the forum. However, he had learned a lot from the forum before ever making the post. Unfortunately, his 2007 Holden VE HSV Senator (a car we sadly never received stateside) was experiencing some bad blow by oil issues and he thought this would be the perfect opportunity to change up the engine. This car was far from babied. In actuality, it was driven hard constantly, including track days and roll racing on a regular basis. Supposedly, after breaking down the engine, it was discovered that “ultimately, a bad tune washing the bores, causing hot spots on the bores, made me rebuild.”
As you might imagine, sometimes builds like this can get a little bit out of hand and not everything always goes according to plan. Supposedly, since he pulled the motor, the car was “off the road for 1 1.5 years.” due to a slow engine builder he trusted. After having multiple issues with different tuners and builders, he decided he was going to take matters into his own hands. If you can’t find a way to get work done correctly, you might as well do it yourself. “I’ve come up with a plan for all future engine works and tunes, I’m going to do it. Don’t care if I blow an engine or two while I learn to tune, at least I know ill be trying 100 percent.”
You have to appreciate this man’s determination. However, we do understand his reasoning. Imagine going to “one of the best in the business and they charge you $1300 and it leads to a rebuild.” Most of us would be livid. However, after doing the work and tuning himself, he finally got the car dialed in. On its first dyno run, he made 664 WHP and the dyno tech let him know the LSX engine still had more power to give.
He does have big goals with the engine of making 670-700 WHP. His plans to reach this goal is E85 for fueling. This will give the engine that extra kick it needs. This thread is on-going and Mickyinks posts updates on a regular basis. If more details about this engine build interest you, definitely look through the original post. It features 14+ pages of information on the build including the full spec sheet for the LSX 454.
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