Well the time has come to start a build thread. This project started with a 2011 Chevy Camaro LS3. I bought this car new off the showroom floor on a Friday afternoon and on Monday the car was on a lift, and the warranty was out the window. Such is the life of a hot rodder. The original tinkering included Vararam cold air intake, Vengeance Racing stage two camshaft and supporting valvetrain, Melling 10296 oil pump, Powerbond underdrive pulley, American Racing 1 7/8” long tube headers, Mike Norris catch can, and Pfadt level three suspension components (toe rods, trailing arms, front/rear sways, end links, differential and cradle bushings). With a mail order tune from Vengeance Racing uploaded with EFI Live. The car went from mild to wild in about three days time.

Like any good build, farmer engineering takes over. You build it. You race it. You break it. You build it again. It’s a constant battle of finding and fixing the weak spots. For me the first week spot that appeared was a lack of traction at the local 1/8 mile drag. The matter what I tried I could not get this car to hook. So naturally the answer was 18 x 10 Forgestar F14’s with Nitto NT05R DR’s. This help a little but then it exposed the next weakness, the factory clutch. It was evident the clutch was not going to hold the power, so I found a great by on a used street slayer duel carbon disc clutch and installed it. A flat out amazing clutch that is performed flawlessly from day one. The next upgrade what’s to swap out the two-piece driveshaft, weak differential and halfshafts. Once again I found a killer by on a driveshaft shop one piece aluminum driveshaft, LPE differential with 4.10 gear, and DSS thousand horsepower rated road race axles. I successfully made it harder than ever to get the car to hook now. ☺ My best 60 foot time was 1.8 but my trap speed was 92 mph. The car definitely had some grunt but I just wasn’t able to put it to ground. Then something bad happened…




I’ve been hanging around with a lot of buddies with Corvettes in these bodies like to do HPDE and road track events. They told me to come give it a try, which I did and was instantly hooked. So for about two years I was hitting local tracks in Southern California in Nevada in a pig of a Camaro making a lot of formidable track cars look bad. And then something really bad happened…




About 18 months ago I was tracking at Streets of Willow. I was on my second session of the morning chasing down a Boss 302 when suddenly the car lost power and developed a loud ticking sound. I limped off the track and shut it down in the pits, got a to the stall, and commenced troubleshooting. No fluid leaking from above, so that was a good sign. Next up I begin pulling spark plugs. I pulled the first plug on the number one cylinder and it was mangled. I knew that meant bad juju. Called for a tow truck (thank you AAA roadside assistance premium) and headed home. At the house, I begin the teardown and troubleshooting. The culprit was immediately identifiable after I removed the driver side valve cover. The intake spring on the number one cylinder had failed allowing the valve to get intimate with the piston causing who knows what kind of carnage in the cylinder. Upon removing all the other spark plugs it looked like the damage was going to be isolated to the number one cylinder. I pulled the driver side head and discovered that the intake valve head broke off, rattled around the cylinder a bit, and then was shoved/pierced back into the cylinder head intake chamber. This dug a big divot in the top of the piston and molten aluminum transited through the head and intake to the other cylinders and out the exhaust. That was mainly superficial and most of it was able to be cleaned up without issue. So now I had a decision to make. Just what do I do for rebuild.











Yep, that's molten aluminum from the #1 piston that went out of the exhaust and collected on the O2 sensors.


If you’ve thought of it I’ve probably considered it. I looked at just about every reputable company related to performance LS engines (Livernois, LPE, TSP, Mast, ATK, Thompson, R.E.D., Scoggin-Dickey, Katech, ERL, and more). I thought about just buying a crate motor from GM and bringing it back to stock. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Something everybody here is all-too-familiar with. First it starts with a itch. The itch begins to burn. Naturally we want to scratch. I just chose to scratch a little harder. Ultimately I settled on ERL to do the short block. I went with the 427 naturally aspirated Super Deck stroker. I wanted to build the car for 50% Street duty and 50% Road track duty. This meant I needed to stay naturally aspirated so I chose that the compression to 11.5 to 1 so I could still use pump gas with a conservative tune. The details of the short block are as follows: ERL machined and prepped block with extended spun ductile iron sleeves and complete blueprinting. It’s sports a Callies Compstar 4 inch stroke crank and rods with ARP 2000 rod bolts. Custom Wiseco 2618 Pistons and custom Total Seal rings. The block also sports billet mains with ARP studs. This combination is built to handle up to 1200 hp, significantly more than the 650 or so I plan to build. I took delivery of the short block yesterday.





So here’s the goals of this build. I’m looking for 550 rear wheel horsepower with the super flat torque curve and a power band between 3000 and 6500 rpm’s with a redline of 7000 or so. The car has to run on pump gas for street duty and will likely get higher octane race fuel for road course duty and the more aggressive tune. There are a couple of bucket list items in addition to the street and road course duty. I want to run the Mojave Mile and I want to run in the Silver State Classic. The latter requiring a very reliable power train and car. And that brings us current.

As the build progresses, I’ll try to coax my wife into taking pictures to post. Admittedly this is not my strong suit but I intend to update this thread as the build progresses over the next few months culminating with tuning on the chassis dyno and ultimately some video footage on the road track. For a teaser, some of the build to come includes: Trick Flow Specialties, Melling, Manton, Katech, Comp, Johnson, Innovate Motorsports, Mocal, Improved Racing, and dare I say MAMOFIED.




Wrinkle Black Stock Valve Covers. Engine should pop with the new paint.





Wrinkle Black Timing Cover.





Some more parts getting ready for paint.




A little look at color contrast with wrinkle black and victory red colors to used on the engine and components.




Mocal 25 row external oil cooler will include -10 Race Flux, fittings, lines, and Improved Racing Thermostatic LS Oil Cooler Adapter.





Improved Racing 212 degree Thermostatic LS Oil Cooler Adapter.





Improved Racing Crank Scraper for 4" stroke crank. Claimed 2-3% improvement in horsepower by shedding the rotating weight of the oil.





New ZL-1 fuel pump to keep the volume and pressure where it needs to be.





New ARH Off-road Pipes with extra bung welded in for Innovate Motorsports DLG-1 Dual Wideband AFR's.


I welcome your feedback. Stay tuned as the build continues…

 

Awesome!
You are in good hands with Tony, do you have most of the details
HCI worked out yet?

 

The all motor man is watching this one!! Go be a good one!

 

Asking for details right after the teaser? You Sir, are impatient. Ah, why not throw a little more out? Heads are TFS 255s worked by Tony. Cam is a Comp grind also spec'd by Tony based off our discussions. I'll hold that close for now. Intake, unfortunately, is waiting for one of these companies to release a viable, under hood alternative, to the FAST. In the short term, its the stock LS3 manifold. Hoping it doesn't choke it off too much...

I am very happy with my dealings with Tony thus far! He obviously has a great reputation for his work and he has made himself one of the most available people I have ever dealt with in the industry. I swear he never sleeps! For those that may not be in the know, he left AFR and started up full time with his own company (link in my sig below). If you're looking for support building your next LS, and I'm not talking about just getting heads and intake porting, seriously give him a look.

 

Got to love an all motor build. These are becoming more rare than that purple unicorn people keep talking about.

 

Thread updated on post one with some more photos and parts being added.

 

Just porting the Melling 10296 pump for the build. Cleaned the inlet and outlet for better flow and less cavitation at high RPM. Just one of many upgrades to the to improve lubrication and promote longevity of the motor.

 

Well, as often happens, the plan has changed a bit. Looks like I'll be moving to a FAST LSXR 102 ported by Tony Mamo using my stock TB (also Mamofied). The plus side this is going to free up the stove-pipe I was going to have with the stock manifold. What I need to know is what style injector to use for the LSXR using the stock LS3 fuel rail. I know they need to be longer and FAST makes spacers but I don't want to go that route. I'd rather have the proper length injector that keeps the nozzle as close to the intake port as possible. Considering Deatschwerks 65 lb injectors and thinking they would be EV14 60mm long.

Comments on DW and whether this is the right style of injector? I've got a call into them and waiting to hear back. Thanks.

 

For HR Cam to 6500 RPM MAMMOFIED FAST is your best option.
I would recommend the V-Max Velocity Ring to eliminate the
Step/Gap between the Stock 90 MM TB & the entrance to the
FAST 102, otherwise reversion can occur especially at idle
And low speed with larger cams making it harder to tune.
Relatively inexpensive ~ $50.00.
I will be using one with my MAMMOFIED LS2 TB until I switch
To the NW 102. difference between 90-102 TB ~ 8 RWHP @
~550 RWHP. Also Hinson a forum vendor is having a sale on
Many types & sizes of injectors.

 

I'll touch base with Tony about the Velocity Ring. He's porting my TB so perhaps it won't be necessary.

Got a good deal on some Fuel Injector Connection 60 lb long injectors that should fit the factory rail without spacers.

Also started fitting the Improved Racing Crank scraper. It's designed around around the Manley Rotating assembly so it has required significant modification to work. I'll post some pictures later when I get them off my phone.

 

I got my eye on this one.

 

If improved racing makes a pan baffle for your app, I would suggest that also since you track your car. They make incredible products. I have the crank scraper, pan baffle, and oil cooler adapter, all plumbed together with race flux lines. You wont be disappointed with the quality or performance of their products.

 

Can you tell us where you had interference? Was it on the rods or the crankshaft counter weights? Center counterweights only, other anywhere else?

The funny thing is one customer with a 4.000" Callies Compstar said everything fit perfectly, while several other customers said it didn't. We'd like to update our design to clear the Callies or design an additional model for it if the changes would be too much of a compromise on other crankshafts.

Thanks for any feedback!

 

I can shoot you some pictures and a video link if you want but the short story is as follows.

Compstar rods are .850" wide so none of them cleared the cutouts. This was the single biggest area of concern. With crank end play and a suggested .020 minimum clearance (.040 recommended) there was a lot of material that had to be removed for each rod. I did this with a hand file mainly with some help from an air grinder.

There were no issues with overall rod throw so that is good.

Counterweights clear fine everywhere except on the front counterweight which is a little close for comfort along the front face.

So you should relief cut for the rods and shave a little off the front counterweight area (I don't have the exact measurement for the front area but a safe bet would be about .030).

Travis

 

Awesome, thanks. I think we will most likely have to make a "wide rod" version and "narrow rod" version.

 

No problem. Keep churning out the cool stuff for us.

 

Great build Travis, I see you went with Superdeck block instead of dry sleeve. Do you have future plans to run some boost ?

Is Superdeck block required special coolant ?

 

Mahdi,

I only wanted to to the block once since it is the foundation for everything after I wanted the strength and the option to increase the cylinder pressure down the road. Probably should have went 6 bolt but I was already over budget so this was the trade off.

ERL said standard coolant is ok *** is Evans Waterless. Thinking about making the switch but still researching as it's pricey to do so.

Travis

 

Looks a little pissed about being down for so long.





Because... RACE CAR!





New ZL-1 pump to feed the new fuel hungry motor.





Starting the cut on the perfectly good floor pan to access the fuel pump.





When your older and had your car apart for awhile you need important reminders from time to time.





New FIC 60b 3 bar flow matched injectors. Plenty of capacity for the new power goals.

 

Nice looking parts!!