I have the opportunity to buy this engine from a good friend of mine. He recently opened his own shop and can't justify dumping any more cash or time into a personal project. As far as the machine shop goes, I trust their reputation and know a number of people who have had good experiences with them. The engine is already assembled and he's okay with me paying him once we get the engine to crank and can confirm there aren't any issues. So essentially, there isn't much risk here for me. I'm rather new to the LS platform and was hoping to find reassurance things were done correctly and maybe a couple opinions from the community on power expectations. Thanks in advance!

The intake manifold he's giving me is ACdelco GM p/n 89018187 . Would it be worth it to upgrade this? If so, any recommendations?

I would like to get some good looking fuel rails as well. Recommendations appreciated!

Attached below is the build sheet from the machine shop as well. Below that is the original cam specs (before they changed the lsa to 111)





cam specs before they changed lsa to 111

 

Do you have experience with this machine shop? I research their reputation carefully.

Assuming you're putting it all together as no labor charge for assembly is listed.

The cost to hone seems pretty low as ~$180 to $200 is more typical.

Didn't see anything list to balance rotating assembly. Some folks skip that etc.

I'd probably also consider a new GM 6.0 450hp crate engine despite the extra cost and need for different intake etc.

 

Man, 60 bucks to hone all 8 cylinders is nuts, where is this magical cheap land you live? 6.7% sales tax!

 

haha the engine rebuild was from Dec 2020 in NC. I'm assuming that was still before this crazy inflationary period we're in now.

 

I should have gone into a little more detail here, I have the opportunity to buy this engine from a good friend of mine. He recently opened his own shop and can't justify dumping any more cash or time into a personal project. As far as the machine shop goes, I trust their reputation and know a number of people who have had good experiences with them. The engine is already assembled and he's okay with me paying him once we get the engine to crank and can confirm there aren't any issues. So essentially, there isn't much risk here for me. I'm rather new to the LS platform and was hoping to find reassurance things were done correctly and maybe a couple opinions from the community on power expectations. I appreciate your time!

 

I should have gone into a little more detail here, I have the opportunity to buy this engine from a good friend of mine. He recently opened his own shop and can't justify dumping any more cash or time into a personal project. As far as the machine shop goes, I trust their reputation and know a number of people who have had good experiences with them. The engine is already assembled and he's okay with me paying him once we get the engine to crank and can confirm there aren't any issues. So essentially, there isn't much risk here for me. I'm rather new to the LS platform and was hoping to find reassurance things were done correctly and maybe a couple opinions from the community on power expectations. I appreciate your time!

 

I have the opportunity to buy this engine from a good friend of mine. He recently opened his own shop and can't justify dumping any more cash or time into a personal project. As far as the machine shop goes, I trust their reputation and know a number of people who have had good experiences with them. The engine is already assembled and he's okay with me paying him once we get the engine to crank and can confirm there aren't any issues. So essentially, there isn't much risk here for me. I'm rather new to the LS platform and was hoping to find reassurance things were done correctly and maybe a couple opinions from the community on power expectations. I appreciate your time! (I went ahead and updated my post as well)

 

Seems reasonable to try the engine based on what you've mentioned.

The LS4 intake manifold ACdelco GM p/n 89018187 is garbage. It's about as bad as it gets. It will cost you ~35+ horse power vs a good manifold. Definitely would replace it.

Likewise, a 220/228 cam is pretty small for a 6.0/364

~ 350 whp because I think that LS4 intake is going to really hurt.

 

Depends on goals for real world driveability. I'm running a 227/232 in my 6.2, it's got plenty of power ... and gets 31+ on the highway.

 

The 227/232 in your 6.2 sounds about right A++

There's definitely truth to what you're saying.

Given the vague nature of the use stated and request for hp estimates, I'm guilty of guessing the application is as much performance oriented as daily driver. Try to detail my comments to the degree of information provided or not provided.

Less than a 224/224 in a 5.7 is too small NA for the typical ~3500 pound car as a daily driver. Based on experience racking up 150,000+ miles daily driving LS heads & cam & strokers etc.

However regardless of cam that LS4 intake is a travesty and any cam selected will perform better with a different quality intake manifold.

 

LS4 intakes should be BANNED from anything but a FWD setup, where anything more will puke the tranny....

 

Sorry for making this post such a puzzle for y’all. Appreciate your patience! I’ll elaborate…

My plan is to swap this into a 2600lb BMW e30 for tracking on road courses. Ideally, I would have the drivability to also enjoy on some local, windy, mountain roads. I will not be treating this as a daily driver whatsoever. Nor will I be tracking the car competitively.

I appreciate the heads up on the pitiful intake. I’ll be replacing that immediately. What options would you recommend?

As I digest your questions and reflect further on my goals. I worry that I’ll have the build completely put together and be left wishing I would have done things differently. So once again, thank you for sharing your experience!

 

An E30 swap will be tons of fun. My experience with a similar lightweight car says that you could run a fairly hot cam and be happy with it if you're not worried about parking lot behavior. With that much power in a light car, on the street, you spend all your time at low rpm and tiny throttle openings. That's where a hotter cam sucked for me, but if it's mostly a toy and you're really not doing that, it won't matter.

I had a much wilder cam in mine before I went through the engine last time ... the much maligned GMPP ASA cam. 10 degrees of overlap. It ran fine once the car was above parking lot speeds, and it probably would have run a lot better there if I knew then what I know now about tuning (not much, but more than I did then). I would have been perfectly happy with that cam in the scenarios you describe. The reason I pulled it was that my car *is* a daily, and also does road trip duty. The ASA cam only got about 23 mpg highway. The much milder cam I installed (1.5 degrees overlap) acts a lot better at low speeds, and gets about 8 mpg better mileage. A Miata has a small gas tank, mileage on road trips is important, even neglecting fuel costs.

 

2600 pounds! SWEET! That's a nice light car. Sounds like a fun set up.

92mm TB & 92mm Fast Intake manifold would make a sweet combination in my opinion. If funds allow a Mamo Motorsports ported TB & ported Fast intake manifold would really rock.

Many will say a 102mm TB & 102mm Fast Intake manifold. Those work very well too but tuning can be a little tricky to dial in if using a cable drive TB.

A GM TBSS Intake manifold while ugly will also work really well and be less expensive. It would also need a 90/92mm TB.

 

Wow a Miata? I would imagine those are even lighter than the e30s!

 

Yea I was planning on it being cable driven. I'm a sucker for a nice engine bay so I'll go ahead and grab a Fast 92mm haha. The engine also came with a 92mm TB but I'm not sure of the part number, I'll find out tomorrow. I'm going to start a new thread for the e30 build outlining the rest of my build. I'm piecing together a lot of info between you LS guru's and the e30 community in hopes of things going relatively according to plan. Fingers crossed. Thanks again.