LQ9 shortblock (pistons/rods/crank unassembled), cam bearings already installed, fresh hone on bores
$300

Piston rings, main bearings, rod bearings, machining rods for ARP bolts
$335

ARP rod bolts (new)
$90

ARP head bolts (new)
$120

Oversized intake and exhaust valve, adhesive sandpaper, junk ls1 head for flycutting
$95

799 heads, shaved .030 (used)
$450

PAC 1518 springs (new, before their price increase)
$190

LS7 lifters (used)
$55

Used cam, oil pump, new racetronix fuel pump kit, new 42lb injectors (bought together in classifieds)
$650

Hardened Pushrods (used)
$70

head gaskets
$75

oil pan gasket and LS6 valley cover (bought together in classified bnib)
$80

New rear main seal, crank seal, and rear and front cover gaskets
$70

Then you gotta add your various fluids, cleaners, plastigauge, etc which I really didn't keep track of, but is normal in every build. Total of the listed above parts is $2580 without include oil, cleaning supplies, coolant, tools you don't have (I had just about all I needed and was able to borrow ones I did need), etc. Everything else you usually need I just swapped from my other motor (sensors, intake, exhaust, etc).

I made 400whp (399.89, lol) in the middle of summer, through a 9", and with 50 miles on the engine. I've run a best of 11.8@117mph in 1300DA. And, it's an all around fun car. She has about 700 miles, doesn't burn any oil, and still holding 45 psi at idle. I think if money is tight for you, and you just want to get the car back on the road, a build similar to mine is right up your alley.

 

Well.. I bought the Lq4 in hopes of learning to do this stuff myself, and I may still for the belair, but from what i've been reading on here about jasper engines, about boost applications, and in talking with people about this engine, and the setup I was going for (remember this is part of a whole powertrain swap. Once I finished the engine I'd have to get a built 80E, the harness, driveshaft, and crossmember for that, then a rearend, new full exhaust, and fuel pump/sending unit.) I just don't trust it.

If I did the swap at the house I'd have to find a way to get a now immobile car up a very steep hill out of the garage and onto either a flatbed or a uhaul trailer and get it the ~ 1.5 hours across town to MTI to be tuned before I could even start it. A flatbed's gonna be VERY costly for that trip. It's not the end of the world but it presents itself as a problem.

The point that I lost faith in the LQ4 that I have was when I read on another LQ4 build thread about crank scouring and compared his internal pics to mine...coupled with some reports from the LT guys about the unreliability of jasper engines. So I thought ok I'll just rebuild it, but then I see a 408 stroker kit is about $3k, well a shortlbock is that much.. a longblock about $8500 and includes pretty much everything I need. Then I said "well that's too much." I could PROBABLY have that by feb. but.. I don't know that I could write a check for $8500 for something that isn't complete and will sit in my garage for another 6-8 months after.

I had a wreck in the car last thursday.. someone rearended me. That's part of the reason for the sudden perspective change I think. I didn't report it because I was already running late and it didn't severely damage her car. My car needs a new rear bumper now, it's broken in one place, and every day I drive to work I get really nervous in that area. People panic stop there, and my efforts to widen the gap in front of me does nothing to stop people from tailgating me.

What if I do all this and someone does that and totals the car? It's not even worth the price of the engine.

This car is such a roller coaster for me. something I both love and hate at the same time.

The car actually runs and drives now. It has a CEL that comes and goes based on ambient temp outside for the AIR pump. I ignore it, but I have to get the CEL to go away before I renew my tag for emissions. The reason I want to replace the engine is because the car's VERY slow.. it cuts out and hesitates a lot. I "lose races" to people where it should never happen. Weird stuff like full size pickups, nissan 4 runners, yesterday it was a buick lesabre with a handicap tag. The engine makes a lot of noise. Attempts to diagnose it have pretty much concluded it's an old 136k mile ls1 that's been abused, probably has some compression issues, worn out valvetrain.. and would be best suited to be rebuilt. I thought a good Lq4 would be a good alternative route. I can buy an Ls1 crate new from pace for $5k. I was hoping I could beat it price and performance with the LQ4 build.

 

Pal, my 220k-mile, crackhead-owned (no joke) Z28 you see in my signature ran 11's and I daily drove it when I bought it 3.5 years ago. Needless to say I eventually blew that motor out of sheer fun with a dry 150-shot and swapped a fresher one in. With your money, I would be running in the 9's in it and DDing the **** out of it. Yes, it is still my daily driver, and now runs 11's on motor all day long.

That being said, I venture to say that you have your mind set on problems rather than solutions. I know it sounds harsh, but re-reading your last posts will verify that very quickly. Pardon my French, but **** what people tell you. For that matter, you can even forget what I say after you read this, but like the countless folks that have said it before me: the internet is loaded with 99% garbage.

The problems you see out of these motors are experienced by the unlikely few who have probably bought a shitty motor, with shitty parts, and skimped on precautionary items. Contrast that to the vast amounts of people on here who actually run 408s in daily drivers and love the hell out of their cars. Don't be afraid to do what you want to do and get over this whole "buying new because I don't trust old" fetish. If everyone had that mentality, nobody would even own these cars...

That being said, if I was in your situation, I would build the hell out of that LQ4, learn useful skills from the experience, and have a badass car to drive to and from work and eat Mustangs with.

My $0.02...

Ilya

*EDIT* Also wanted to note that too many guys on here tend to sway their opinions towards parts that are way overpriced for the task they are intended to do. I hate to say it, but LS1Tech is also filled with fluff and you have to take everyone's word with a grain of salt. There are hundreds of threads telling an OP that they need to use this part and that part to make power and reliability and drop huge coin, when they themselves run in the high 12's. Then there are the few guys who are willing to make do with (or "test," if that's your word preference ) cheaper parts, and have a much faster/more reliable/more fun car, without refinancing their house.

My other $0.02... (I guess that makes $0.04)

 

I've been boucing back and forth on what I want to do with my car as well. I, recently, made up my mind and started buying stuff. It made it a lot easier for me to stay on track once I started buying parts to go build what I wanted. I have $6000 in the setup below.

-LQ4 Short block (stock w/80k)
-PRC LS6 Stg 2.5 heads
-233\239 TSP Cam
-LS7 Lifters
-LS2 Timing Set
-FAST 102/102
-Performabuilt Lv2 4L60E
-Yank SS4000

Plus a few other parts. I bought everything off of the classifieds. None of it was purchased new. I purchased most of it together. Came out of a low-11 second car.

 

Thanks guys, but I think I've made my decision on this.

I'm going to just drive the car as is, fix what breaks when it breaks, focus on paying off my truck for the next couple years, then consider selling this for something I can finance.

If the engine or transmission dies in the meantime, I guess I'll have to do something, but I seriously doubt it will be this.

I can still use the LQ4 in the belair, a simple cam swap should open it up to ~350hp and that should be more than enough for that car. Also, since it's a very low HP rating, I won't need to do a lot of the other upgrades required for the camaro.

For the curious, the setup I was HOPING to do in the camaro would have been a TSP 370, flat top weiscos, callies I beam rods, callies compstatr crank, ARP bolts, fast 102/102 the best head for my setup (I hadn't decided, going with flat tops changed comperssion, so that wasn't set in stone) and an ati procharger D1SC... ~10-15psi all in front of a built 80E, and a rearend of.. some kind. I knew the 10 bolt wouldn't be long with such a setup.

You can imagine, the longblock on that ran about $8500, fast 102s/102 would be probably another $1000 or so, injectors oil pan windage tray lots of other bits n pieces including fuel system would probably run close to $2k there, 80E $3-4k after being built and getting the converter, adapter harness, crossmember and driveshaft, rearend $2-3k depending on what I went with, then the ati unit ~$7500. Using the maximums in that equation, I'd have $26,000 in a car that has a damaged hood, broken front passenger fender, broken front and rear bumpers, 2 power window motors that don't work, missing a seat, and a bcm that cuts out any time you look at the glovebox door wrong.

And I'd have been 1 accident from losing it all and getting a check for $4500 from insurance.

I guess I was already looking at this from a cynical standpoint financially, but having the wreck sort of put it a bit clearer. All it takes is one person in my 62 miles of commuting every day to not pay attention (myself included) and it's all for nothing.

It's not that I don't have the money (well I don't HAVE the money.. but I can save and spend..) I'm just the kind of guy that if I don't do something exactly how I want I'll be disappointed. I'm usually better off doing nothing than cutting corners on it. The value of the car is really the problem here.

 

OK so.. after some "soul searching" and some dicking around here on the site, talking to people, running numbers, cursing my own decisions, and spending a good amount of work hours on craigslist (and slowly recovering from the "my car could be totaled" mindset after my wreck) I think this project is back on.

I spoke with MTI about having the bottom end of this Lq4 torn down and rebuilt with new bearings and rodbolts.

I can't make up my mind if it's worth the $800 or so to do this however. I can either roll with the motor as is on the bottom end it has, then, if it blows up in my face.. rebuild the Ls1 I pulled out and drop it back in.. or source another Lq4 block to replace it. Chances are if it would fail it'd most likely be from bad rings or from a spun bearing.

either way, neither of those events would cause head or valve damage, so the heads would be salvageable.

I've also done some diagnostics on the current condition of the car, trying to determine how far this has to go, to determine what it's worth. I can pick up a C5 for ~$14k right now (I don't have that money but.. I could save for a while) that may or may not need engine work, or I can stick with this car.

Worst case, I put all this money in this car, it turns out to be a dud, I sell it as a roller for $3-3500 and walk away, save up, buy that vette anyway.

So here's what I'm looking at on the table if I don't have the bottom end rebuilt:

Another thread on this engine HERE talks about an alternative to my L92/Ls3 route. The guy's argument is that my compression needs to get up from these sorry dished pistons to make any reasonable power.

I like the idea, if nothing else other than the familiarity of gen III top end vs the "unknown territory" for me of the L92 heads. The cost is the same.

so my parts breakdown for my "next purchase" would be cam, oil pump, o ring, timing cover seal, crank seal on timing chain cover, lifters, and lifter trays.

Again right at about $850, the cost of the engine rebuild.

THIS is the cam I think he's talking about.

Texas Speed 233/239 .595"/.603" Camshaft

I'm assuming 114 LSA in this case?

 

The TSP 233/239 is a 112LSA. It's got a pretty wicked sounding idle! That's what's in the engine that's going in my car. I posted my setup a few posts above.

I've heard nothing but good things about that cam. It's aggressive enough for a strip car, but mild enough for a street car. Basically, it's an awesome street/strip cam... lol.

 

I had a little visit this afternoon from the parts ferry.







More to come. Just getting my stuff together.

 

i so agree with Rushin, also blackss00 pretty much the same build im doing , and i dont plan to spend anywhere near what a new built short block cost,im looking for 450 range, and i drive and beat the hell out of my car, the hunt for my lq4 starts today so if any of you guys have any good leads hit me up,

 

I got mine from car-part.com or rather..from a junkyard in Cartersville GA listed on car-part.com.

Total price was $650. Very much on the low side.

 

Looking good so far. I think you'll like this direction as far as dollar for hp is concerned. I'm sending my driveshaft out tomorrow to get rebalanced as I've been having a high speed vibration since I've put it back together and have narrowed it down to the shaft (two sets of wheels do it, axles are good, and no vibration on jackstands with driveshaft removed, plus the only thing changed besides the engine was the driveshaft slip yoke was replaced). I still need a clutch too, as the LS7 doesn't like 6000 rpm dumps (although I'm sure it would do fine on the street with this power).

Your cam is just a little smaller than mine, looks good and I think you'll like it. What heads you going with?

 

I was originally gonna do L92s, but I'm leaning toward ls6 heads. Dunno why. just more comfortable with the cathedral ports, even if the rectangle port does give you a bigger intake, it's uncharted territory, and I think the ls6 heads will do just fine. It may be a few months before I can get those though. Quite a pretty penny there.

 

Keep your eye on the classifieds...there's a couple guys there that I think have slavage yards and will pull the 799 heads (same as 243's) off some of the newer 4.8's and 5.3's that come in. I got mine for $365 shipped.

I think the ls6's will work better for you with an LQ4. With the dished pistons, the l92's will have a SCR pretty close to a stock LQ4 (around 9.5:1). The ls6's will bring it to around a stock LS1 SCR (around 10:1). If you mill the heads, l92's would probably work out better, but then you'd have to flycut more than likely (not very hard with engine out of car).

 

Yea, I was talking to TSP about getting some of their stage 3 Ls6 heads and having them milled .010. Should give me a compression about 11 from what Jake told me over the phone. It's close to $2k for the heads though. I may be able to get em machined cheaper locally, not sure yet.

I'm not even gonna attempt a flycut. If the .010 requires that I'll have to change my plans.

 

Maybe he thought it was a flat top piston. A .010 cut won't give you 11:1 on an LQ4. I have my heads cut .030 and have 10.8:1 factoring in my flycuts. It would be aroun 11.2-3:1 if it were a flat top piston with .030.

 

yea, but my engine is overboard .020. The pistons are stock "type" dished pistons though. Doesn't that change it?

I would be ok in the high 10s. TBH I don't care as long as it reaches my power goals. and runs no pump fuel obv.

 

I'm showing with a 4.020 bore, -7cc dish, l92 headgaskets, and 62-63cc heads as about 10.5:1, which is not bad at all with that cam. DCR will be around 7.9:1

 

Well, as long as it doesn't hinder my power numbers, it won't matter to me really. I guess the only reason I really need to be aware of the compression is to figure in for future mods and/or boost applications, which I can't imagine using this cam and those heads would be the best route for that anyway, but I'm not planning to boost, so I won't worry about it.

I haven't decided anything set in stone on the top end really, I just knew I had to make a decision on the cam before I moved forward. This seems like a good all around cam, so it works either way.

 

TSP ported Ls6 oil pump, to go with that O-ring in the other shot.

December will probably see lifters and lifter trays, perhaps valley tray. (chewing on going ls6 pvc while i'm in here..)

 

good inform...i have thought about 5.3 swap..Keep it up