First off, I have never seen an LS1 with the heads off.
Does the block need to be bored to accept the new sleeves?
My confusion comes from the actual spacing between the cylinders. How much space is there between cylinders to accomodate a larger sleeve?

If the block does need to be bored, would that not weaken it?

Maybe simple questions, but I can't visualize this in my mind.

Matt Sr.

<small>[ December 12, 2002, 06:08 PM: Message edited by: Pro Stock John ]</small>

 

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Hunter98TA:
<strong>First off, I have never seen an LS1 with the heads off.
Does the block need to be bored to accept the new sleeves?
My confusion comes from the actual spacing between the cylinders. How much space is there between cylinders to accomodate a larger sleeve?

If the block does need to be bored, would that not weaken it?

Maybe simple questions, but I can't visualize this in my mind.

Matt Sr.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well, here's how my simple mind understands it. I might not be exact, but I think I have the basic idea. Someone correct anything thats wrong, I hate feeding misinformation.

Since the blocks are aluminum, LS1's use some type of stronger material as the cylinder liner. I think it's iron. You can bore out the liner slightly, but taking away too much material will weaken the liner. Now, I believe in the 97-98 LS1s, you could only do a "polishing" of the liners to clean them up. For the later years, I think the material of the liner was altered some, and you can bore the liners slightly (I think out to 382 cid, whatever overbore that equates to). Now, what these guys are doing to make big bore LS1s, is to ditch the stock liner entirely and replace it with a different, stronger material (I believe Ligenfelter was using "Nikasil" or something like that as the liner material in his resleeved blocks). Being that the liner is of stronger material, it can tolerate more of an overbore. Removing the stock sleeves is no small feat, because I believe they are cast into the block during manufacture. I believe what the sponsers do to resleeve a block involves freezing the liner material cold enough to make it contract to a point where it can be removed from the block. And the same must be done for installing the new sleeves. Probably a good reason why resleeved blocks cost a pretty penny. I'm not sure how far off the mark I am, but thats what I had understood it to be from my time reading up on LS1tech.com.

 

I just looked at the CNC that LPE uses to bore the sleeves out and install the Darton liners, these are the wet liners that have been discussed on this forum, you do can own this equipment for 100K. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="gr_eek2.gif" />

 

Let me try to help clarify the process.
The factory sleeve is cast in to the aluminum during block manufacture, and can only be honed .010" oversize regardless of what year block. We go in and machine out the entire factory sleeve, and create new registers to locate the new sleeve. The new sleeve is a wet design, meaning the top half of the sleeve is surrounded by coolant. The new sleeves offer a modular design, which actually creates a new deck surface, that is much thicker than the aluminum that was machined out. The new sleeves use a triple "O" ring to seal the lower part where it presses into the block, eliminating coolant leaks into the oil. The sleeve is able to be machined to a maximum bore size of 4.160"
We sell the conversion for $2750.00 if you supply the block,there is a $600.00 core charge if you need a block.
We have tested this conversion to the 600HP level in LS1's with good results, and our Ecotec race engine uses a similar designed sleeve that regularly sees 1100+ HP ! Overall, this is a very good alternative to a $6000.00 C5R block.

Ed

 

ED,
Do you feel confident that LPE has been able to do away with the leaking bore problems?

 

great information. Thanks everyone!!!
matt Sr.

 

We are also working on this same Darton sleeve setup and yes positive there is no leaking. The only real way for leaks is head gaskets and Darton is having a custom Cometic gasket made for this kit. Also only take these sleeves to 4.125 and should hold a good amount of spray or boost.
Nate@NastyPerformance.com

 

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Nasty N8:
<strong>We are also working on this same Darton sleeve setup and yes positive there is no leaking. The only real way for leaks is head gaskets and Darton is having a custom Cometic gasket made for this kit. Also only take these sleeves to 4.125 and should hold a good amount of spray or boost.
Nate@NastyPerformance.com</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">

 

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Nasty N8:
<strong>We are also working on this same Darton sleeve setup and yes positive there is no leaking. The only real way for leaks is head gaskets and Darton is having a custom Cometic gasket made for this kit. Also only take these sleeves to 4.125 and should hold a good amount of spray or boost.
Nate@NastyPerformance.com</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">First and foremost if your sure there are no leaks why the hell is Darton needed to make a custom head gasket? and how can you be sure there are no leaks without the head gasket? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Confused]" src="images/icons/confused.gif" />

 

We are confident that the leaking issues have been resolved, Darton has added a third "O" ring to the bottom of the sleeve, and added more matierial to the top of the bore so the head gasket has more matierial to seal against.

The next question is how much boost/NOS it wil handle. We are assembling the block that we had at PRI now, and then we plan to do some high boost testing on the engine dyno.

My question: what horsepower level do people honestly want to run these things at? I think a sleeve that lives at the 800-900 hp would be more than strong enough, but what do you guys think?

we will post dyno results when available, probably sometime next week.

Ed

 

gasket for the Larger bore size and one specificly for there sleeves. No leaking.
Nate

 

Ed or Nate the o-rings what are they made of I am guessing rubber? Also what are the head gaskets made of? I am very curious to see how much power these motors will handle.I am not sure which sleeved block you guys are talking about but if its the one where the deck surface is completely machined won't that take away from the block strength? Please let me know thanks.

 

Ok first and foremost, you aren't talking about a lot of material to the naked eye. Going from 3.900 to 4.125 means that you are removing .225 that is less than one quarter of an inch per cylinder total. That means .1125 per side. To give you an idea. That is about the thickness of two dimes.

As for sleeving. it is done all the time. A wet sleeve is used every day in the world of diesel engines. Most diesels use this exact design. And it has been successful for many many years.

The cast in liner design is used in most outboards and other two cycle applications. My buddies shop does re-sleeves on outboards all day long. Both systems have their merits, but the Darton design to mee sound much better since you make your own deck, and it makes repair much simpler, also the problem that many shop have of dropped sleeves goes away.

As for the gaskets, keep in mind LS1 gaskets were never designed for that bore size. So custom gaskets, are required if the bore opening isn't big enough. You don't want the gasket in the cylinder bore. And, since most gaskets have a fire ring around the bore made of stainless steel you can't exactly just trim it out.

Typically what has been done in the ls1 is to remove the thin factory liner with a thicker liner, and then bore to the required size. You only limit is due to the bore spacing. You want to to leave an adequate ammount of material in the sleeve wall so as not to weaken the cylinder.

 

So does this mean that if you go with the biggest all bore engine available now, (393ci?) that there is no room for overboring in case of a needed rebuild or would you have to re-resleeve the block.

If that is not possible then I guess you need a whole new block? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Confused]" src="images/icons/confused.gif" />

 

Baddmood - The "O" rings are just standard rubber rings, 3 of them about 1 inch up from the bottom of the sleeve. This is the sleeve that requires the entire deck to be removed, but the new sleeves are a modular design, which, when all 4 sleeves are installed, creates a new deck, that is approx. 1/2 inch thick, steel, as opposed to the 1/4-3/8" thick cast aluminum that was machined out. I feel that the new deck is actually stronger than the original, and in dyno testing, we have seen that it hold up well, but we have only tested up to about 600hp.

We use MLS Cometic head gaskets, which I believe have been accepted as the best available by pretty much everybody, and I think we will find any shortcomings of the gasket, or sleeve, or combination of the two when we apply some serious boost to this combination.

Flyinbluedream - due to the modular design, you can press out a damaged sleeve and replace it with a new one, racers can actually carry pre-honed sleeves to the track, and replace them between rounds if need be.

Hope this helps,
Ed

 

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Hunter98TA:
<strong>
If the block does need to be bored, would that not weaken it?

Matt Sr.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Matt our ARE LS1 blocks have been tested to over 900rwhp with no coolant leaks or dropped sleeves. We went 8.92@155 all year long in a 3250lb 98 Camaro with a powerglide.

We have been doing this a long time (I think the first to ever sleeve an LS1 back in late 98) and our last 2 years we nailed it. Our sleeve boring and installation process is working great and we are going to stick with our design.

Our 4.100 Big-Bore blocks sell for $2350 (+ core) fully machined and ready to go.

Dave
www.agostino-racing.com

 

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Ed Potter @ LPE:
<strong>Baddmood - we have seen that it hold up well, but we have only tested up to about 600hp.

Ed</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Ed, You know we work with numbers all day, something as this is so important i could have swore you mentioned 450-500 flywheel HP at PRI??? Or did you re-check your numbers when you got back to the shop?

What head gaskets we're you using on the test mule because I was taking some measurmeants on the BigBore cometic gasket and it appears it wouldn't work on that deck surface without possible issues.

Dave
www.agostino-racing

 

Ed thanks for the info on the sleeves and deck surface.One other thing I was thinking about last night was the head must be holding the inner and outer walls from moving is this correct? If so I would like to know if you foresee any problems with long term use because the LS1 blocks are a little weak to begin with IMO thanks!

 

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by BaddMood:
<strong>Ed thanks for the info on the sleeves and deck surface.One other thing I was thinking about last night was the head must be holding the inner and outer walls from moving is this correct? If so I would like to know if you foresee any problems with long term use because the LS1 blocks are a little weak to begin with IMO thanks!</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Still Waiting Ed? 2 threads same question. if you are going to bitch at me answer my questions!!!!

 

BaddMood - The sleeves create a deck. The cylinder heads seal against that deck, along with the case of the original block. Think about it this way. The cylinders are sandwiched between the block and the heads. As I stated in my post a wet sleeve design is used in most big engines (Caterpillar, Detroit Deisel, etc...). You're biggest issue with big bore motors has been the sleeves dropping or leaking. This eliminates that. There are plenty of LS1 blocks with eleveated power levels which have had no long term issues in this configuration. This sleeve design simply reduces or eliminates one of the past issues, and in fact it increases deck strength which actually makes things stronger. Not weaker.