at what point should you go forged internals?
 

i was trying to search on this and a bunch of stuff came up but nothing i needed. at the track ill shift at about 6600 but dont ever get up that high on the street. what kind of power level at the wheels shoudl i start to think about going with a built bottom end?

good question, i dont have the answer unfortunately. Id assume once you start forced induction, like Nitrous, supercharger, turbo, etc a built bottom end would be in your best interest.

i plan to stick with heads and cam with stock cubes (or close to it). maybe looking to make 450-470 rwhp when its all said and done

Right after it blows up. Or better yet, just before.

+1 :judge:

:stupid:

:)

I hear the following often by reputable builders
LS1's:

stock crank is good for 1000hp
stock pistons/rods good to about 500RWHP ~ 575/600 crank HP
YMMV

knowing what cam u have, you shouldnt need to take it too high. 6800 max, but then your issue wouldnt be whether your internals are forged---it would be a matter of whether or not your rod bolts will withstand it...which im sure they wont. I think thats all you would really need to do along with new bearings for added piece of mind IMHO.
Nino

It depends on usage. Are you doing track days on a road course? Or only a handful of drag strip runs? And the state of tune. Running 14:1 compression, on a road race course for 3 hours at a time. Forged pistons changed every race or so.

Maybe 50 drags strip runs with 11:1 compression, stock knock detectors, street gas? Stock pistons are probably fine.

Point, it is not the peak power (which is irrelevant for this discussion anyway), peak torque, peak revs, peak temps (although the last three all play apart), it is the duty cycle those will be at.

P.S.
The trade off really comes when you are trying for the lightest piston, with the most aggressive cam, the most revs, the highest cylinder pressures...which require tradeoffs.

thanks guys. i wont see any track time until i get a rear end but then again it will not be very often after that. highest compression i will see is about 10.8:1 as well

i would say for you that it is when that motor goes kaboom you might as well get a new motor with forged internals, other than that run it and have fun with it.

most of the stock internals are actually pretty strong. If this is your weekend driver i would say go till it blows...just make sure when you rebuild that its all forged. Forged parts have a way of finding the weak links in a motor...

when you break a piston. ask me how i know :cry: .

s1 headed tr224 cammed motor, rebuilt stock bottom end with good hardware. took a chunk outta number 7 after tagging the limiter pretty good in a race. they were flycut stock pistons so they were weakened by that and just couldnt take 7k rpm. no big deal, breaking stuff is racing. scat rods and diamond pistons going in right now so no worries.