It seemed fitting to start a build thread for the car I brought home 13 years ago today. After years of beating the guts out of the stock LS1 in my 2001 Formula, it’s time to upgrade. The stocker did me well running 11.63 @ 116.09 MPH on a 1.459 60’ last year at 3,600 lbs. So it’ll stay on the shelf as a backup engine and may get freshened up while it’s out.

The new combination is a high compression (between 13.5-14:1) E85 burning 377” LS3 based engine with cathedral port heads. The goal is to squeeze everything I can out of it in naturally aspirated form without breaking the bank. So I’m using an LS3 block for the bigger bore and sticking with cathedral port heads. This combination has been in the back of my head for a while and it’s finally time to make it happen. HUGE thanks to Brian Tooley for helping me bring it all together!! You won’t find a better guy or better company in the LS business to get your project on the track.

The new engine:
LS3 block
ARP main studs
Stock 3.622” crank
Callies Compstar 6.125” rods
Clevite rod and main bearings
Wiseco 4.070” bore 12cc dome pistons
Cometic .035” head gaskets
ARP head studs
TEA Stage 2 799 heads reworked by Brian Tooley and matched to the larger bore
Brian Tooley Platinum springs with titanium retainers
Brian Tooley trunnion kit
Brian Tooley hardened pushrods
LS7 lifters
Custom ground cam – still working with Brian to figure out what specs
FAST 102mm intake port matched to heads by Brian Tooley
Nick Williams 102mm throttle body
Kooks Custom Headers 2” primary with 3.5” collectors
*I’m sure there’s plenty I’m forgetting, but it’ll come in time.

Fuel:
Walbro 450 L/HR E85 Pumo
DeatschWerks 78 lb/hr injectors

Trans:
Keeping the 4L60E transmission built by SS Transmission in Alexandria, KY. It’ll likely receive a Sonnax input shaft and drum assembly per their recommendation but the rest should be ready to go. The car currently has an Edge Racing 4,200 stall converter that will be reconfigured by Lenny at Ultimate Converter Concepts and updated with a billet cover. Gotta keep that lockup, they’re all street cars to me.

The other list before the new engine goes in:
Smooth and paint engine bay
Remove rear seat
Remove door bars
Lightweight bumper supports
Remove airbags
Remove the rest of the A/C crap
Remove wipers and washer assembly
Remove power steering pump
Lightweight battery
POSSIBLY fabricate a new aluminum exhaust system to help ditch some weight

Right now I’m waiting on Wiseco for a set of pistons. The heads and cam will be here around the same time and I can get moving on the engine.

I have a long road ahead of me trying to work it in around other shop projects, but my goal is to have it done for its debut at LS Fest. If It doesn’t have a cage by then I guess I’ll be sand bagging the 11.50 index. With any luck I'll have it on the dyno by August to start getting bugs worked out of it. I’ll try to keep pictures coming as I progress.

 

Man that is a clean car! Good luck with it.

 

Following. Super clean car.

 

Thanks guys! Pistons showed up today, so I'm one step closer to a short block. Still waiting on heads, head gaskets, trunions, and camshaft.

 

Got the block back to the house last night so I could start taking measurements and figure out what else needs to be changed when the rotating assembly goes to get balanced.

Cylinder heads showed up at the shop this morning. They look great!

 

A couple updates:

I started checking clearances and putting together a blueprint for the combination. Main clearance worked out to exactly 0.0025" so I'm happy with that. Piston to wall clearance came in right at Wiseco's recommended minimum of 0.0035" though, so I'm going to have the block honed to open that up to about 0.004-0.0045" to be on the safe side.

All of the combustion chambers measured exactly 63cc. So assuming the deck height comes out at 0.000" my compression should be 14.2:1. We'll see where it ends up once I get the rotating assembly in to measure.

 

Minor updates I forgot. I picked up the rotating assembly from being balanced on Friday and my camshaft from Brian showed up today. Aside from the trunions I'm waiting for, it's ready to assemble.

 

This is a neat build can't wait to see it done!

 

Good work! What is your et guesstimate or goal?

 

Thanks guys! I'm not really sure what to expect. I'm guessing it'll be in the bottom 10s.

 

Oh yea I was thinking that and good possibility of 9's since your car already 60ft's real good

 

Mathematically there's no reason it shouldn't go 9s. I like to keep my expectations a bit conservative though. I plan to dial it in on the dyno first and fully expect the first passes to be in the 10.20-10.30 range. From there, good air and some fine tuning in the engine and chassis should be all it takes.

 

I'm with you on all of that. I'm putting together a stock cube LS1 with tfs 215's ported FAST 102 etc. Shooting for high 9's or just 1 pass in the 9's

 

I fitted all the rings tonight. Gapped the top ring at .022" and second at 0.023." At this point I'm ready to clean and assemble the short block.

 

This is as far as I made it tonight. I tried assembling the short block only to get held up by someone else's sloppy mistake. Story of my life it seems. The machine shop that balanced it had to remove the crank reluctor to put tungsten in the counterweight. They must have warped it in the process because I now have 0.040" runout in it and it contacts the block when the crank is at the back of its end play travel. I'm just going to get a new reluctor and have it replaced, not a big money item. Sucks to lose one of my only free weekends to work on it though.

 

Cool build....very clean car as well

 

Update! I finally received a new crank reluctor and had that pressed on. I got time this past weekend to get the short block assembled. It came together nicely. I ended up with about 11 lbs of drag when spinning the entire assembly, so I am happy with that.

Next steps are to check the cam to verify valve events, get it degreed in to where I want it, measure for pushrod length, and check piston to valve clearance.

 

I didn't have a ton of time so I cleaned up some parts and measured for pushrod length tonight. Looks like I'll end up at 7.300 on the intake and 7.275 on the exhaust.

 

What cam specs did y'all end up with?

 

great build looking forward to more pics.