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I called LE a few times and emailed. No reply. Although I was told I may have had the wrong number, wish he updated his site. I think someone gave it to me but I never got around to calling him back.
The lt1 head is nothing more than a SBC D-port head. Any competent machine shop who builds performance/race engines will be able to port them as good as any internet star.
The lt1 head is nothing more than a SBC D-port head. Any competent machine shop who builds performance/race engines will be able to port them as good as any internet star.
While that is possibly true, I would place my bets on someone who has ported 100s of sets and honed his skills on them for decades now. I met Lloyd through an old friend of his and has been porting heads that I know of since the late 80s/early 90s. Some people want to claim he is just some internet start, but his stuff works very well and his work is both consistent in quality and very affordible.
It's not "possibly true." It is true. However, because traditional SBC's are going away there may come a day where LE may be about the only one left in the world who ports them. I've been familiar with his work since the early 2000's. Not impressed. Especially when it came to QC and the cam grinding goon he had early on who was responsible for getting himself banned on every car forum and ******* up more valvetrains than can be counted. Boy went as far as to blame Comp R lifters for his shitty grinds.
It's not "possibly true." It is true. However, because traditional SBC's are going away there may come a day where LE may be about the only one left in the world who ports them. I've been familiar with his work since the early 2000's. Not impressed. Especially when it came to QC and the cam grinding goon he had early on who was responsible for getting himself banned on every car forum and ******* up more valvetrains than can be counted. Boy went as far as to blame Comp R lifters for his shitty grinds.
Well Comp R lifters have and always will be JUNK along with most things Comp cams. I had a Comp XFI grind that killed a set of Morels even with the specified springs. The Pac1218s used in the earlier days were also overhyped garbage, so that did not help the situation either. There are only a couple of companies even making lifters and cams worth buying now and Comp is not on that list.
As for head work, if I for some reason could not use Lloyd the next in line would be Eric Weingartner or Chad Spiers.
My Lloyd Elliot hand ported offshore castings flow more than the AFR 190cc CNC Vortecs do and make over 500 hp despite a small 218/228 @ 0.050 cam. I have yet to see a 500 hp engine using those AFRs. There are alot of LT1 combinations with Lloyds heads and cams making over 500 hp that Karl Ellwein has built and has full writeups on as well. Karl somehow makes them work great, so maybe those other combinations that you claim performed poorly or blew up had other issues. Keep in mind I have been doing this since 2000 myself.
They had valvetrain issues and ran poorly at the track. There was a comparison made by one member here between LE and AI with two comparable heads/cam packages and the AI setup was superior with both dyno and track numbers. I don't trust just dyno numbers, and I have a perfectly good set of Comp R's that were used for two years, revved to 6500rpm daily with a GM847 cam and have virtually no wear on the rollers. They are "junk" if they are misused. There's a thread evidencing just that on cz28.com by the cam grinding goon who said the same thing, but could not explain why, nor could he explain what the retaining clip on the lifter plunger was used for. Contemplating selling them if you're interested.
I have an XFI292 cam right now. I hope I'm one of the lucky ones and it lasts!
My Lloyd Elliot hand ported offshore castings flow more than the AFR 190cc CNC Vortecs do and make over 500 hp despite a small 218/228 @ 0.050 cam.
Congrats. By your dyno standards you are making 80 more HP with that smog legal cam than I made with my LPE 211/219 with LT4 cast ported heads. Not only that, you're making just a few hp shy as what I was making with my mild SR 396. Please take it to the track. With 500hp (I'm assuming motor) you should be low 11's or high 10's in good air... with a smog legal cam, and I am assuming N/A. With the mild idle that thing has it's a real sleeper!
As for head work, if I for some reason could not use Lloyd the next in line would be Eric Weingartner or Chad Spiers.
Is Chad Spiers better, worse, or about the same as LE's work?
Congrats. By your dyno standards you are making 80 more HP with that smog legal cam than I made with my LPE 211/219 with LT4 cast ported heads. Not only that, you're making just a few hp shy as what I was making with my mild SR 396. Please take it to the track. With 500hp (I'm assuming motor) you should be low 11's or high 10's in good air... with a smog legal cam, and I am assuming N/A. With the mild idle that thing has it's a real sleeper!
Is Chad Spiers better, worse, or about the same as LE's work?
My engine is in something that has the aerodynamics of a brick, 1-ton driveline (4L85E and 10.5" full float 14-bolt with 3.73s), and ran across the scales at 6,940 lbs with a full tank of gas and my ~250 lbs self in it. I can still spin the heavy 30.5" tall, 10 ply LT tires on it nearly effortlessly in 1st gear and have run some 0-60 is in the 6-6.5 second range in it. 11:1 383 makes loads of low-midrange torque which is why I chose the cam I did. It runs strongest on E85 as well. It might run a mid-low 14 on a good day.
My cam could probably pass smog, but it has 61.5* of overlap at 0.006 due to its 108 LSA. It is not a Hotcam rather a custom grind. It is 271/284 @ 0.006, 218/228 @ 0.050, and with a 1.7 rocker it has 0.578" lift and is degreed in on a 106 ICL. Definitely has a bit of idle chop to it at 750 rpm as well. The lobe profile is somewhat slow and old because I wanted something easy on the the valvetrain, that might last 100K and could for minutes at a time at higher rpm when towing.
Chad Spiers has some excellent CNC work but you are going to pay for it. I have seen alot of his epoxy work as well for all out class racing. He can make the a 23* head flow like crazy but as I said, better have deep pockets.
My $.02 about "internet" claims about issues with Comp or other companies like LE is Operator/installer error being the primary cause of a reported problem
Have run Comp 875R lifters without any issues
Have had Comp 850's in current 383 for at least 45k mi as well as a XFI cam
My heads were ported by a shop in SoCal. no longer in bizz, with Ferra 2.02/1.60 valves and have performed well. My build is CA smog restricted so cam is small (466)
Only part fail was Comp 918 springs but I dodged the piston to valve boom as a result.
Only contact I have had with LE is about springs to replace the 918's. He sold me the Lunati set and was very responsive to any email ? I had. He even sent me .500 valve stem seals as my heads were cut down originally for Comp 987 springs.
As far as what heads/cam packages for LT1 that performed better, AI appeared to have the most chatter about their results, but they were not OMG more than other non AI combos.
IMHO a motor making about 400hp and more TQ to the wheels and does not burn a drop of oil and has been down the track 100's of times and passes CA smog, to me, is a decent build. Mine just happens to have Comp lifters and cam. YMMV.
It runs strongest on E85 as well. It might run a mid-low 14 on a good day.
Ah. Now things are starting to make sense.
Chad Spiers has some excellent CNC work but you are going to pay for it. I have seen alot of his epoxy work as well for all out class racing. He can make the a 23* head flow like crazy but as I said, better have deep pockets.
Pay for quality. I can respect that as long as references check out. Would much rather do that then pay for hit/miss.
My 383 hauls around this and half the time it has a heavy trailer hanging on the back. 1/4 mile would be so skewed compared to a F-car or Corvette it would not even make sense to use that as a performance matrix. It did make 412 hp and 430 tq through the heavy duty driveline in 2nd gear with the converter locked. Given the driveshaft has a critical speed around 120 mph and I have the governor kicking in at the ~112 mph speed rating on the tires, did not even make sense to try to make a 3rd gear pull either. 3rd gear pull would have stopped ~1,000 rpm short of peak hp. Another reason the cam is so small for a 383 build. 0-90 mph it will hit peak HP 2x and I only rev it to peak now. 6,000-6,200 rpm is as high as I have turned it but no real need given how much midrange torque it has. I just upshift it at 5,500 and let it fall back to where it is making over 500 ft/lbs @ 3,500. It is still carrying decent power out there, but it peaks about 5,500-5,600 and I have been shifting it at 5,500 because a couple of tenths does not really matter given the application. When I tuned it, ended up pulling the timing back from 35* total to 31* total despite losing 3-5 ft/lbs and matching hp here or there and fattened it up to 12.0-12.5:1 to keep it cool when it is asked to run hard for an extended period of time. I am down 10 ft/lbs and 10 hp from what it can make, but for its use, not the end of the world to me. Durability and longevity over all out power.
AI appeared to have the most chatter about their results, but they were not OMG more than other non AI combos.
The individual in question ran a 12.09 @ 118 with LE setup and an 11.86 @ 120.2 with the AI setup. That's pretty good "OMG" significant difference. Person is also the one who found out after pulling the heads that every valve guide was broken. It was found out instead of using new guides LE installed liners, then broached them to size. It was well rumored the heads were taken to a NAPA store to be refurbished after the port job. This is only one of many stories to be told back in the day, my good man.
Originally Posted by Fast355
My 383 hauls around this and half the time it has a heavy trailer hanging on the back. 1/4 mile would be so skewed compared to a F-car or Corvette it would not even make sense to use that as a performance matrix. It did make 412 hp and 430 tq through the heavy duty driveline in 2nd gear with the converter locked. Given the driveshaft has a critical speed around 120 mph and I have the governor kicking in at the ~112 mph speed rating on the tires, did not even make sense to try to make a 3rd gear pull either. 3rd gear pull would have stopped ~1,000 rpm short of peak hp. Another reason the cam is so small for a 383 build. 0-90 mph it will hit peak HP 2x and I only rev it to peak now. 6,000-6,200 rpm is as high as I have turned it but no real need given how much midrange torque it has. I just upshift it at 5,500 and let it fall back to where it is making over 500 ft/lbs @ 3,500. It is still carrying decent power out there, but it peaks about 5,500-5,600 and I have been shifting it at 5,500 because a couple of tenths does not really matter given the application. When I tuned it, ended up pulling the timing back from 35* total to 31* total despite losing 3-5 ft/lbs and matching hp here or there and fattened it up to 12.0-12.5:1 to keep it cool when it is asked to run hard for an extended period of time. I am down 10 ft/lbs and 10 hp from what it can make, but for its use, not the end of the world to me. Durability and longevity over all out power.
Congrats. By your dyno standards you are making 80 more HP with that smog legal cam than I made with my LPE 211/219 with LT4 cast ported heads. Not only that, you're making just a few hp shy as what I was making with my mild SR 396. Please take it to the track. With 500hp (I'm assuming motor) you should be low 11's or high 10's in good air... with a smog legal cam, and I am assuming N/A. With the mild idle that thing has it's a real sleeper!
Is Chad Spiers better, worse, or about the same as LE's work?
Chad is very good but he is more specialized than Lloyd. People know LE for the LT1 stuff but he ports a pretty wide variety of cylinder heads where as Chad tends to stick to 23* sbc stuff. Not sure either of them is better than the other from what Ive seen.
The individual in question ran a 12.09 @ 118 with LE setup and an 11.86 @ 120.2 with the AI setup. That's pretty good "OMG" significant difference. Person is also the one who found out after pulling the heads that every valve guide was broken. It was found out instead of using new guides LE installed liners, then broached them to size. It was well rumored the heads were taken to a NAPA store to be refurbished after the port job. This is only one of many stories to be told back in the day, my good man.
If you're happy, I'm happy!
I havent heard that about Lloyd but that sucks if he did that. Also those ET numbers are close enough to be caused by weather change tbh.
Depending on what thread by who some 20 years ago running what setup....there were several "variables" (track, weather, car weight, etc). AI, LE CE all had some stout 1/4 mi times.
First time I ever heard anything bad about LE....of course if it's in an internet forum post it must be true.....right?
Dyno numbers back up the ET's. Made 405rwhp with LE and 430 with the AI setup. Poor bastard never broke into the 11's in the many times running with the LE setup at the track.
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