LS power vs Pontiac
 

I came across this LS build ( https://www.motortrend.com/how-to/44...84yrjBz_SOgQsE ).
Everyone talks about how great the LS is but i don't see any reason why a Pontiac can't match their power level. With a little effort and a good topend, i feel the same power can be had with roughly the same cam specs as that LS.
I made 620+hp with a cam that's real close and .5 less compression and kre d-ports with only 2 dyno pulls. More pulls/testing and i feel it'd make 640s. Put on a good set of e-heads and theres 10-20hp more imo.
So power wise in my opinion the LS has nothing on us.

The last only advantage when you look at things Apples to Apples is lighter weight and a tad less friction when I look at .
Having to pull the heads to get the lifters out would be a big turn off for me!

The thing with an LS is for less than a 1000 dollars you can get a complete engine, buy a cam and make 500+ crank hp.

When it grenades, go get another.

Also stock truck heads flow like a set of Edelbrocks hard to beat technology.

A bottom end built like Fort Knox also aides the LS in ability to make power reliably. The biggest advantages I see in power production would be sequential port fuel injection and coil near plug ignition. getting timing dead nuts and fueling exactly what is specified for all scenarios really helps tame the street drivability of an engine that could otherwise be considered more of a track build. All of this can be accomplished on a Pontiac build with some $$ and enginuity, and with heads that will flow enough to feed the power level there shouldn't be anything holding you back until you make enough power to stress the block into literally breaking. general consensus is maybe 600-650 on a stock block.

i mean honestly if you are gonna spring for a new engine block, BBC is still king. a basic dart block 555 will put a hurt on any comparable LS or Pontiac engine.

I'm sort of in Steve's camp, I'm a BBC guy, they are robust and easy to make power with off the shelf parts. But I like all engines and enjoy building them all.

The big LS attraction is that these engines are still found in bone yards, sometimes with relatively low miles, and are just a cam swap away from making 500 HP pretty easily. So you can get into the 500hp group without much work and not a horrible amount of money.

The blocks are tremendously strong benefitting from the deep skirt/main cap design Chrysler had decades ago, and they don't have windage to deal with. Way too many to count that do a crank/rod setup in a stock LS block and throw a turbo on making 1500+ HP and the blocks live a long life, and do it with a 5.3 at that. Try that with a stock Pontiac block, lol.

Cylinder heads are another big advantage, as they flow like gangbusters in stock form, compared to a stock Pontiac head it's not even in the same ballpark.

The LS just has decades of advancements to it's advantage. When I was playing with them it became pretty apparent that the LS had a HP per size advantage over the classic iron. 500hp with a 5.7 LS isn't that hard and still very docile, vs classic iron that generally needs more CI to reach those goals and be friendly.

Granted with aftermarket support the Pontiac can be very worthy, but you'll spend 4 times the coin to get it there, with most likely a larger engine needed. Just an aftermarket block alone will set you back $3k.

Just depends on how much you want to spend.

i agree 100%.

i guess in fairness, if the junkyards were littered with good 455 pontiac cores, you could maybe just go pull one, stick a big cam in, and go fairly fast for cheap.

but here's the thing .... they're not :D

if if's and but's were candy and nuts, we'd all have a merry christmas!

:clap2:
Nail on the head right there. I've mentioned this in the past. Just can't go anywhere and grab a low mile Pontiac, stab a cam in and make power. Those days are long gone.

So True. Unfortunately. Butler Performance was one of the first to dip into the LS powered vehicles,
and has done well with those engines.

TV

If your at bolt on N/A level no sence to stray from Pontiac BUT if you desire next level forced induction and beyond then other things make sence.

The low RPM torque of the Pontiac is what hooked me in 1976 I would rather have 500hp at 5000rpm then 650hp at 7000rpm

That's just me

LS engines are easy to beat. We heard about an old customer with a beautiful 64 GTO inquiring about having an LS engine built when he maxed out his Butler Performance 461. I reached out to talk him off the ledge. He ended up with a maintenance friendly seven second pump gas Pontiac engine. We've seen the engine twice in seven years. The link below is a video of his car.


https://fb.watch/9zski6WQQ0/

There’s a good thread on Facebook where Pontiac’s are making over 800 hp with a stick block and steel heads! SCREW A Chevy!
A lot of well known Pontiac guys are in on the conversation, Voycey, gaydosh, McCartney, etc!
I will recheck spelling of names…..sorry!

GTO George

I agree cost and availability is the real advantage that the LS has. But if you have a pontiac engine already why would someone switch it out? I see guys switching and it makes no sense to me.

If you're going to go big block then BBF is the way to go, BBC have too many disadvantages compared to the BBF (except cost i guess)

Road and Track seemed to have a different opinion in 1998.

https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-cul...am-ws6-review/

"The First LS1-Powered Pontiac Trans Am Was a Monster"

Butler has always been a great businessman. He keeps the Traditional Pontiac Engine work AND he plugs into 1998+ Pontiacs and lots of Chevy work.
A Smart Family.

I find the title of the Road & Track article humorous. (see above)

Tom V.

Cost is the first thing that comes to my mind.

Absolutely you can make power with Pontiac, plenty of aftermarket support. But what does it cost to get you where you want to be? Especially if you want to convert to EFI.

EFI is also part of the decision making for a lot of people from the swaps I've done.

Starting from scratch with a Pontiac engine, any dinosaur engine really, I usually end up spending $10k minimum for a solid rebuild with all new parts for something that makes decent power. Probably more now with the current situation we're in.

A lot of guys see an LS in the yard for $800 that might have 80k miles on it. Sometimes you can score that with an overdrive transmission to boot.
I've done these swaps. I can buy a computer, tuned, and brand new conversion harness (not a hacked together 20 year old used harness) for $1500-ish. Depending on the car there are various mount kits for a few hundred, and I usually spend about $1000 on a complete fuel system to support carb or EFI, which I would do with any classic engine build anyway so that really doesn't figure in.
A few other odds and ends and I'm still way under a complete engine rebuild.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not an LS fan boy much these days and quite honestly I'm tired of seeing them in any classic every time I turn around. Just from playing with them for 10 years or so, and the ease of availability right now, I see the reasoning behind it.

700 HP is easy with LS.
403 cubes -- 707 HP.

https://www.enginelabs.com/engine-te...ild-with-ffre/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdC_VYG7oAg

What if they added 60 more cubes?

Here is another.
LS 7 454 820 HP pump gas naturally ASP / solid roller cam. @ 48 seconds into the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUGGGnjjGXo

Many applications when the client wants north of 600 HP they move to forced induction anyway.

Yeah I touched on that earlier. They make fantastic power for their size. Something I found right off the bat with my first LS back in 97. Just a cam swap and some headers/exhaust and I put down just over 400 RWHP with a little 5.7 and still got 27 mpg with the silly thing and daily drove it over 100k miles.

Here's an example of one of my own that touches on what I meant in post 17.

This blazer was my daily for years. Transmission started slipping so my first thought was perfect time to stick an overdrive in it, since it's my daily, right?

Looking at costs to buy and rebuild one, I started looking at LS swaps in the boneyard. There was a 2005 6.0 with it's 4L80E offered to me for $1200 and it only had 79k miles on it. Well that's a no brainer....DUH!!!

So the swap began. Fuel system, conversion harness, and about $4000 total I had a complete LS swap in my daily blazer that knocked down 21 mpg highway and ran circles around the old 350 I pulled out.

In fact, here it is at the track running 14.30's. I never touched the engine, not even headers. And that's coming out soft because it had a habit of snapping the pinion off the truck 12 bolt.
It weighed 5300 lbs. without me in it, had 33" tires on it, and 3.73 gears. Friggin hilarious. Poor SS camaro owner didn't know what hit him.


https://youtu.be/msgSc3S-yHA