Last November, the Firehawk suffered a painful blow when the #7 cylinder went lean and melted the piston right through. No one was to blame except for my own negligence in not even looking at the tune before I put’er to the wood (alongside TurboLS1SS) after changing the entire fuel system. Classic mistake, it will only happen once. Dammit Bill I told you I should have just kept it in the garage!

Previous to this happening the car made 625RWHP with the D1SC Procharger on a built motor. Myself and as good friend Jason did the work.

So it sat all winter while I procrastinated at the daunting task of actually looking to see what the extent of the damage was. I was hoping for the best, but expecting the worst, so we started pulling it apart to see what was up.



The culprit. (1) MELTED piston! As you can see the damage not only took out the piston but also the cylinder sleeve. RIP LS1. She lived a happy life.







Luckily the cylinder head was not heavily damaged and easily repaired. I did replace the exhaust valve because aluminum had embedded on the seat.

One item to note is that the engine was pristine inside. It hurt to taking it apart know that there was absolutely nothing wrong with it. Bearings were clean (even after the carnage) except for the obvious fresh metal shavings, the cylinders still had all the crosshatch, the piston tops were smooth and clean, cam bearings practically reusable. The engine didn’t burn oil and had practically no signs of significant wear and tear.

On to bigger and better things.

LQ9 Iron Block. Bigger, cheaper, stronger. Can’t go wrong. I considered all the options once I knew I needed a new block. This option won out.

 

Sweet coated pistons. The pistons were first media blasted, prep’d and coated. Bake to perfection at 350F for one hour. Credit to Jason the baker on this one!





New cam or not to new cam, nothing to see here folks move along.



Forged Crank. This was a tough decision. With the large number of people making stupid HP with stock cranks, I was originally planning on using a stocker. But when it came down to it, I just couldn’t put it in the block. All the little voices kept telling me it was a bad idea. Consider it insurance I guess.

 

New Oil pump and timing set. I thought the oil pump would be ok, but upon further examination the aluminum had was caked on the old gears. Oh well, just $$$ right.




After a couple of late nights at the shop, a couple packs of red bull, twizzlers and Pringles we made some progress. Everything went together real nice.



Of course once we got the engine ready for installation there was no stopping, work til the sun comes up.

On the cradle she goes. Shake and Bake!




Pat lending a helping hand




5:30AM photo op.


Would you like boost with your displacement?



Again, Huge credit and thanks to: without you guys this would be impossible!
Jason (J&J) – “I wanna go fast”
Bill (TurboLS1) – “uhhhh”
Jesse (Muscle5.0) – “mad leet skillz”
Pat (psychopjv) – “Just do it”

 

nice build can you post a video of your car i wanna hear that beast again nice job

 

man cant wait to see when its done, what kind of numbers u expectin to throw down?

 

It started last night. Just working out a few kinks. I'll try and grab a vid this evening.


I am expecting between 750 - 800 RWHP. Maybe more if i can get rid of that rubber charge piping...

 

Maybe I missed it but what blower are you using? F1A?

Nice build, almost exactly like mine.

 

Thats a great build, looks good.

 

one hell of a car and setup! I can't believe how much nicer the install goes with the proper room, lifts, and help!

What kind of compression are you running, and does the coating on the pistons effect that?

 

Very nice !

 

Nice build. I also would like to know what kind of blower that is???

 

Great looking car man! I love firehawks

 

looks very good, sux that she went, but as always, when somehing breaks in the LS1 world, just means it needed to be upgraded

 

I have that exact same socket set.

What sort of blower are you running now?
What color is that Camaro?

 

Camaro is the same color as the Firehawk
Navy Blue Metallic

I am a fan of that color
l
l
l
V

 

Nice! Glad you got her together and didnt park her it the corner somewhere and forget about it.

 

Camaro is actually electron blue from a c5 corvette. The Hawk is running an F1C blower. Good times Chuck let's get it tuned and broken in so we can go kick some tail.

 

not to hijack but damn i need some more photos of the ss.

 

YouTube Firehawk Startup Vid


Blower is an F1C. I am still working on a suitable filter.

Basic Build sheet is as follows:
6.0L Block
Billet rods
Forged Crank + Pistons
AFR Heads
Big Blower
2" Kooks Headers
4" exhaust


The coating is a ceramic and very thin. But it won't effect compression, which is about 8.6:1 or so. When i took them out of the oven, by the time i had set them on the top of the stove, the top of the piston was 275F while the aluminum was still at 345F!

The camaro belongs to TurboLS1SS. He was one of the very few that got one of the Hi-Flo turbo kits. His car has almost the same build there as well. :tup:

 

I love this color! Its black at night, pearl during the day!