I am thinking of going faster next year with my inferior and obsolete Ford. Did I mention it was NA?

So, you are implying that the LS1, a pushrod engine, is developmentally 10 years ahead of Ford's DOHC engine?? I just want to get this straight.

 

the DOHC argument is a mute point, considering the first DOHC was back in 1907 or somethin like that if I remember right. And each engine has it's issues I think ford tends to rush it's products out to the line too soon and ends up having more QC issues and recalls, ex: the head cooling issues in the 03 cobras.

 

This DOHC stuff is coming full circle, thanks to GM's Brutes: ls1,2,6,7. GM has shown the world that the overhead valve push rod motor is far from done in. In fact most manufactures are returning to the cheaper simpler push motors. Same with front wheel drive, it's basically done with. Now, am I bashing Ford, no, as I have had a stang and a Fairlane and few other Fords.
Robert

 

In todays engine world, the reality is that the complexitys of modern design go far beyond what parts are bolted onto and into an engine, or how many valves a particular manufacturer has chosen to incorporate into his design.

Each of the designs have their strong and weak points. What makes an LS1 a remarkable engine is not in the stuff you can see, not the parts that were bolted into it, but rather how well the engineers understood HOW the air would move thru it, and how well they incorporated that into the finished product. The swirl and tumble that they were able to achieve while still retaining very high total flow in a 2 valve head is what makes an LS1 great IMO. Physically small, light, fuel efficient, capable of large cubes and big power and inexpensive to produce are the hallmarks of the LS1 IMO.

The 4 valve mustang heads are very, very good too. They give up some in the combustion chamber design ( you can't manipulate valve heads to arrive at a better chamber design ) in order to realize the greater flow potential of 4 valves. This method also works very well. It does have it's drawbacks however. It's physically larger and heavier. It's more expensive to manufacture and more expensive to mod. It DOES flow very well however.

What makes an engine technically superior in today's world IMO is NOT how many cylinders it has, nor how many valves it has, nor any of the other variable timing devices, dropping of cylinders, coil on cylinder, plastic intakes, titanium rods etc, etc. do dad stuff they bolt on. "Technically advanced" is quite differant than "complex" you know ? It's in how well the designers understood airflow and how to mix gasoline with it to create the smallest fuel droplets they can while still filling the cylinders completely at all engine speeds. Many manufacturers have designed engines that meet these criteria. The LS1 does it with a smaller, lighter,simpler, less expensive, easier to work on package. To me that means "technically advanced". Not the only game in town for sure, but one of the cutting edge leaders for sure.

 

rookierls, do you mean moot point? Are you implying that a pushrod engine is more technologically advanced than an overhead cam engine? It doesn't matter when it was first introduced. Formula one engines are overhead cam engines for a reason.

Robert56, contending that automakers are returning to pushrods because such engines are "easier and cheaper to produce", does not help your case if you're defending the point that pushrod engines are "10 years ahead". Besides, which auto makers are dropping OHC engines and introducing new pushrod designs?

I am staying with pushrods because that's what I know and they are cheap to mod. But I don't think it is superior to an OHC configuration. The SBF has been around since '62; it's very old technology. There's no way to put lipstick on that ugly fact. Heads are the key to performance and LSI's have a very good design. But let's not go crazy here.

 

Very well said.
Robert

 

Put it this way, on the V-8 scene, is anyone introducing new overhead cam engines in normal production cars? formula one has a bankroll that would allow a one race engine, but for average joe to have a dependable high reving dual over head cam V-8? SBCs have been the drag racers choice for the most part for 49 years, that should tell us something, they don't use formula one engines. Ok, I am talking in circles, sort of. Now Ford has a good package with the blower as the kicker, whereas, the lsx's do the same without.
Robert

 

I don't see a limit to chamber configuration with an OHC, but maybe I misunderstood your point. More importantly, designers don't have to limit port and runner design to go around pushrods. OHC engines are inherently superior in configuration, that's why you see them on all Formula 1 engines. Which, in my book, are the ultimate racing engines. If we are now talking about "smaller, simpler" in reference to mass production and not "most advanced" then you have changed the original point. That would be a different discussion: If we want smaller, simpler, lighter, cheaper, that would be a SBF, right? Well, at least it's smaller and lighter, it's pretty hard to get cheaper than a SBC. SBC's have efficiency of scale and interchangeability -and those qualities are significant.

 

I love my ls1(gen III) in my truck, but I also love my SBF. I challenge any LS1 to make the power that my little motor makes with the same cubes and compression.

 

Practical powerplants for the masses are a different issue. If you want to go fast for less, which is what it's all about for most of us, I can't see anything better than a Fox body. That's why I bought one (okay, two) and I haven't regretted it. Of course, there's not much status in owning one. Oh well, can't have everything.

 

Now I am a Chevy man mostly, and when I took my son to the drags a while back he saw your car run, and he stated that's what he wants. I told him it's a fast easly modded car that is affordable, and to go for it.
Robert

 

I wasn't referring to OHC versus in-block cams designs when I was talking about chamber designs, I was referring to 4 valve heads versus 2 valve heads. Regardless of who manufactures them, when most of the combustion chamber is made up of valve heads it limits what can be done with chamber design. That was my only point about that.

No but they DO have to limit car/engine bay designs to go around the physically larger engine. This means higher hoodlines ( worse aerodynamics ), more weight ( worse gas mileage, and degraded handling ) etc. You can't just judge an engine on it's merits as it sits on a test stand. You have to factor in it's impact on the rest of the car. Advanced design also means how well it works in the real world where it will spend it's life doing the job it was intended to do. And how long it can do it. Road racers are blowing up a hell of alot of mod motors, the LS1 has been proven to be bullet proof. ORR has been very unfriendly to mod motors as well. I know a guy who drives his daily driver C5 to almost every ORR event, runs in the 150 class, which means 6000 rpms for 10-40 minutes at a time, and he's got almost 40 events on the car as well as 90,000+ miles and it still runs perfectly. You simply can't do that with a mod motor. Which is the better design ?

And they are inherently inferior in packaging/cost/weight etc. In F1 the most important design criteria is flow, flow, flow. As I already admitted, 4 valve heads flow more than do 2 valve heads generally speaking, that's why they use them. I'm not sure how this argument relates to our cars however ? I don't think you'd like an F1 engine in your 'Stang would you ? 7000 rpm idle speeds, no torque, short life, not to mention the astronomical purchase price etc would soon have you wanting your 5.0 back. An F1 engine and an LS1 or a modular motor were designed to do 2 differant things. When you say "this" or "that" engine is "technically" better you have to add in "at what ?" to give it meaning. When you say that xxx motor is more advanced, you have to remember that more advanced doesn't always mean better at the job it was intended for. A F1 engine is more advanced than a boat anchor too, but if your trying to hold a boat in place the anchor is the better choice. The F1 engine is more advanced than a mod motor or LS1, but if your trying to drive your car to the grocery store today, then to the drag strip tomorrow, and then on a long trip next weekend, and road racing the week after etc. the F1 engine is a bad choice though advanced it might be When I talk of the LS1 being advanced I'm referring to not only the engine itself, but of the idea from which it originated. Don't you think that GM engineers spent as much or more time with flow dynamics, CAD, and in real world testing to get this 2 valve headed motor to perform like it does as did fomoco on their 4 valve heads? Of course they did, and that is one of the things that make it advanced. It's the port/intake/combustion chamber sizes and shapes as well as other things that make it advanced. Putting 2 more valves per cylinder in it wouldn't make it more advanced, just more complex. The engine cu. in. would have to get smaller to fit the cars, or the cars would have to get bigger to fit the engine. They would have to cut the $$ spent on other area's of the car like Ford did to keep the price point down. Such as smaller brakes, cheaper wheels, smaller tires,a T5 tranny, use a rear suspension design from the 70's etc.

In the context of this discussion ( as I understand it ) the LS1 is the more advanced engine design between it and the 4 valve mod motors. Not more complex, just a more advanced design. I believe it does the job that both it and the mod motors were intended to do, better than the mod motor does. This doesn't at all mean I don't think the mod motors aren't great engines, I just believe that the LS1 is better. It makes as much or more power, it has a much better torque curve, it's lighter, smaller, cheaper, easier to mod, easier to work on, has lower emissions, gets better fuel economy etc. and it doesn't do this thru more parts, more complex assembly, but rather thru a design that's superior for the job it was intended to do. I've heard a Cobra owner actually say that his car would be perfect .... if it came with an LS1

[quote]If we are now talking about "smaller, simpler" in reference to mass production and not "most advanced" then you have changed the original point.[quote]

We are talking about most advanced, but not having anything to do with mass production. We're talking about an advanced design that does it's job better than do other advanced designs trying to do the very same job.

If you think about it the LS1 is even simpler and lighter than the SBC AND the SBF. No distributor to pull out when taking the intake off, you can change the oil pump without pulling the pan off. Almost all of the gaskets are re-usable etc. Fundamentally it's very simple. All part of it's advanced design The car they put the engine in makes it more difficult to work on than it needs to be, but that's no fault of the motor. If you put a pencil eraser up the butthole of a Wolverine, it would be hard to work on too

 

We'll have to agree to disagree. Aren't the Cadillac engines OHC? Only Chevy has retained the pushrods. Ford is getting a lot of power out of far less displacement (4.6 liters). As far as Formula one, race teams are going to use the best configuration going and we both know what that is. If pushrod engines were more advanced (better), they'd use them. How can you get a better indicator of inherent design? Of course, we don't use engines that turn 19,000 rpm on the street, but that is not the issue. The issue was which design is most "advanced" -not which application is better.


If we are referring to practical application; as far as easy to work on... I look at the Camaroes with the engines sitting way back in a very cramped compartment. By my reckonning the Chevy is as hard, or harder, to work-on than the cammer and much harder than my fox. But I must admit, I have actually worked on neither. I just looked at the compartments of both and figured I'd stay obsolete. My wife has a cammer GT, but I never have to work on it! It seems to be maintenence free after 110,000 miles.

 

You are a wise man. Have him give me a call.

 

It seems to me, after seeing so many of your cars at the track, that there are many LT1 cars that run as well as the LS1 cars. I presume they need more mods to accomplish that, but when you factor in the higher cost of the later model LS1 car, aren't you guys dollars ahead to go with the LT1's? Or am I wrong?

 

Not much higher cost... I picked up my 99 LS1 T/A for $10,000 out the door including tax and license. so it's not too bad you can find some good deals.

 

It took you long enough to reply haha ! yes I suppose we'll just have to accept that the other disagrees. I can live with that I just don't believe that 4 valves are necessarily more advanced than 2, nor 2 cams more advanced than 1, nor 4 cams more advanced than 2 etc. What I really think qualifys an engine as advanced is contained in it's flow management characteristics, efficiency of fuel use, inherant resistance to fuel knock qualitys etc. Oh well, I DO respect your opinions just the same

PS my dad had a 1965 Ford P/U with a 292 V8 in it that he used working in the woods hauling everything in the world and it finally died at 240,000 miles. I used to drive a '71 Ranchero with a 302 in it and it was a great car. It ran for almost 60,000 miles AFTER I first heard rod knock upon cold startup ! I'm really not anti-Ford like it might appear. Currently at work I'm putting heads on a 5.4L Triton in a Ford F250 and am installing a Ford V10 into a motorhome so I'm no stranger to any Ford stuff. The V10 has less than 100 miles on it, has never even been sold yet and has a bad valve in it

 

I don't really see many LT1 cars running with the LS1's. Some are though. Ellis's car ran pretty hard for not much $$ outlay back when it was up and going. Should be pretty impressive when he gets it going again, which I believe will be before very long. Jakes car also runs pretty good. Sardog just moved away not too long ago and was running 11.1 @ 126 on his mildly cammed ( 231/236 ) ported stock headed M6 WS6. He was lightened up pretty well however. There's not many LS1 cars in our team that would be what you'd call heavily modded except for the turbo cars. I don't know if you'd be dollars ahead or not ? I think you'd be $$ ahead to buy an LT1 car with a blown motor and throw a nasty BBC in there though

 

I think I aleady told you that the cammers take-up too much room, so you were preaching to the choir, to an extent. I just have to stick up for the Fords once in a while on this site. A Camaro owner I was talking to in staging lanes was complaining about the high cost of modding an LS1. Since I cannot always put the car with the names, if you could give me an explanation of basic mods needed to put an LS1, 6 speed in the 12.50 range that would be interesting. How about the 12.00 range?

 

I was just trying to have a healthy debate as opposed to some of the pointless drivel that we sometimes witness They are both awesome engines and we're very lucky to have such choices. As far as high costs of modding I only have my BBC to compare it and it's more expensive than that haha !. As far mods needed for certain et's I ran a 13.14 @ 111 mph on a 2.2 60 ft. when mine was bonestock.It is a particularly strong example however. I've never launched it hard so don't know what it's capable of, but with stickys and a 1.6 60 ft it probably would've done a 12.5 with nothing more than tires, although the stock weak *** rear end might have blown up first The hp for the 12.00 range is easily attainable with headers and a cam since 400 rwhp is so easy to get. It seems more of the modding money is spent on rear end/clutch stuff than hp stuff ?

Hey you should put an LS1 in your '89 ...........