Wait time is excessive, 8-10 weeks, but I suspect they are going to discontinue the GTO kits soon so I figured I'd better get mine while I still can. I have a build thread on LS1GTO.com and my GTO website will have updates eventually too. I go by Rich-Tripower over there.

 

Remember to document it here too.

 

So after a long hard mental struggle with myself I recently put down a deposit on a Magnuson TVS2300 kit. I'll be putting it on "stock", no spin-it-faster pulleys or anything like that.

My car is basically a stock long block but with Comp Pro Magnum 1.8 ratio steel roller rockers, 400lb dual springs and Comp push rods. Bolt ons that will stay are the Kooks stepped headers, Kooks high flow cats and the Magnaflow catback. Bolt ons I'll be losing are the FAST 102 and SLP 25% underdrive crank pulley/balancer. Other things that will be displaced along the way are the DuSpeed intake, Katech bolt down idler pulley and the BMR strut tower brace. I'll also be retaining the LS3 throttle body since in my experience multiple LS2 throttle bodies have proven to be unreliable.

The build will consist of:
-Magnuson TVS2300 kit
-DeatschWerks DW300c fuel pump (I will forego the Magnavolt fuel pump booster included in the TVS kit)
-Cold Case aluminum radiator
-180 degree thermostat
-NGK BR7EF spark plugs (recommended by tuner)
-four corner steam vent kit

I'll be reinstalling the stock crank pulley/balancer and the stock air intake box. I may upgrade the intake at some later date.

Vendor said the wait time is expected to be 8-10 weeks so I may get started on the fuel pump right away since that will be a PITA I suppose. The radiator will wait for the blower install since it will be nice to have the radiator out of the way in order to pin the crank. I bought a right-angle close quarter power drill for that particular job.

An update to the tune will ensue once everything is in place.

How should I store the removed fuel injectors? Just leave them in the FAST and then put it all in a bag and seal it up?

If anyone wants to know the GTO history up to this point visit my website: Rich's Brazen Orange Metallic 2006 Pontiac GTO Preservation and Documentation Website

 

I wish someone would put a Maggie 2650 on a LY6 or L92/LS3. I really wonder what power this big azz blower can supply.

 

Doing some preliminary supporting projects while I wait for the blower kit to arrive which could be a few months yet. Yesterday I took out the old radiator and put in a new 180 thermostat. Today I'll be removing my 25% underdrive pulley and replacing it with the original stock balancer and installing a new Cold Case aluminum radiator. This weekend I will be installing a rear steam vent tube and linking it to the steam vent line at the front. In the next few weeks I'll be installing a DW300 fuel pump and a new fuel filter. After that it will just be a waiting game for the blower kit to arrive.

 

Stock balancer back on, new radiator and thermostat are in and I engineered and installed a 4-corner steam vent system that should work around the TVS2300 intake manifold. The car started up without any codes after all this work so that's a plus.

 

Sounds like you did a lot of the things I did with an old Silverado years ago. The 1.8 rockers are almost as much work as replacing the cam, which would have given much better results. Expensive headers that bring all of the space and money issues that go with them. High flow catback and muffler. Then top it off with a PD blower. I never went with dual springs, but I won't open that can of worms argument here. I did go with hardened pushrods, because you need those for any real upgrade, as well as the boost friendly spark plugs. Knowing what I do now, I would have been so much better off building a turbo kit that it is not even funny. I wish you luck in the build, but know in advance that you will want to kick your own *** later for not doing it differently. This happens to everybody, as we double buy slightly different parts, sell previously bought parts, or change build directions entirely. This is the nature of the hobby. Have fun.

 

You didn't mention it so I'm going to bring it up. Make sure you pin the crank/ balancer. I made that mistake on my first blower build. Three days later driving down the road and my balancer went flying off never to be seen again.......

 

A crank pinning kit is part of the Magnuson TVS2300 kit. The kit pretty much covers everything except additional upgrades you may want to make along the way (such as a better radiator and 4-corner steam vents).

 

Gee, thanks for all the encouraging words.

The Magnuson TVS2300 kit is very complete and very well designed for this application, not a pieced together pile. Hundreds if not thousands of Magnuson kits have been installed on GTOs with very few having any issues at all and those that have issues are typically those who raise the boost to the moon, which is not part of my plan.

 

All buttoned up from the radiator/thermostat/balancer install. Everything is running fine. The Cold Case radiator appears to hold about 1/2-3/4 gallon more coolant than the stock radiator and it is running about 7-8 cooler than before.

 

Sorry to sound like a buzkill, but if every first build stayed the same these would be very boring forums. You may very well be the guy who does it once and leaves it alone, but that is unusual. Let us say for instance that your first build has all the power you had hoped. Then you start to wonder how much better your suspension could be. Soon you realize that your suspension might have been good enough, but your horsepower mods added weight in ways you did not like. It is a never ending search for better. Luckily, you get to have fun and learn new **** in between traffic tickets.
edit-- The truck I referred to still has the 1.85 rocker arms, Dynatech longtubes, and stock cam with a whipple blower going through an air to air intercooler and fast intake. 20 year old truck with almost 350000 miles and no engine troubles. Terrible combination of install difficulty vs hp gain, but absolutely bulletproof.

 

I've had the car for over 11 years now and have done all kinds of mods to it and have never had the desire to take anything so far it forever alters the car or makes it worse. I've been messing with cars for 45 years and I chose my modifications carefully. In all those years I've yet to actually break anything.

 

Sounds like a solid plan. I've owned three TVS2300's as well as several smaller Magnuson blowers. One of the 2300's had well over 250K miles before needing anything. All I ever did to it was an oil change or two. You'll wear out everything around the blower before it gives you trouble.

You might rethink going back with a stock balancer. A Power Bond balancer is cheap and they don't break. Not everyone has trouble with the stock balancer, but a lot do. I ran a 7 heat range NGK plug for long enough to know I didn't like them. The engine I used them on was an LS3 running a Heartbeat TVS2300 blower at 9.5psi. It had a mild blower cam and all the bolt ons. 660+rwhp. It felt kind of lethargic when out of boost. I switched back to stock LS7/LS9 plugs and was much happier. Plugs with a heat range of 7 do have their place. I think they are overkill on a mildly boosted LS engine though.

Good luck on your project. Sounds like a fun one!

 

Have you looked at the OEM and the Powerbond balancers? They are the same thing. My OEM balancer has less then 30k miles on it.

 

All the stock LS balancers I've looked at were two piece with rubber between the two pieces. The PowerBonds I've seen are all solid one piece. Could yours have already been changed to a PB?

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...oncerns-2.html

 

Solid one piece? Not much of a balancer then, just a pulley. That would be a VERY bad idea. Look up the Powerbond OEM replacement, it is EXACTLY the same as the original one on the LS2 (which is what I'm working on). My balancer has not been changed (except when I removed the one pictured some years ago to put on an SLP underdrive balancer which I just took back off recently), I've had the car most of it's life.

My original balancer:



The image of an OEM replacement Powerbond taken from Summit:


Both are balancers, both are the same item.

 

Stock ls1 pulleys are NOT balancers at all. Why do you think the stock items are not keyed? It is because they are only pulleys. A true balancer would require being keyed to a specific rotation. The only reason for any rubber isolation is to reduce some bit of vibration. None of your pictured items are designed to balance anything. They are just pulleys.

 

You can see the rubber ring in both photos. A balancer doesn't need to be keyed if the engine is internally balanced, its purpose is to absorb vibration and shock to the system.. On old SBC and BBC engines for example they are keyed because they are used to set the timing and as such the balancer has to be properly oriented to the crank. That is not the case on an LS which is computer controlled. Regardless, these are dampers/balancers and do have an outer ring of steel/iron connected to the inner hub by a rubber ring.

 

This ring is rubber.