Quote:
Originally Posted by Formulajones
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.
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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
if if's and but's were candy and nuts, we'd all have a merry christmas!