All-in-all, it's a great piece of kit and I look forward to someday having a shot in something like a C5 Corvette to break my LS virginity. But until then, if you're thinking about doing an LS swap, please try not to touch things like rotary Mazdas and other JDM heroes. It just doesn't seem right, I'm afraid This piece was part of DriveTribe's America Week, running from July , celebrating everything we love about American car culture! Tim Rodie. Mike Fernie.
Doug F. Carzin Lightz. John Coleman. What makes the LS engine so great? It is ridiculously strong. View gallery image. Image via superstreelonline. Join In Want to add something? Comments 0 Popular Latest. Post sponsored by. Tim Rodie All Polls. The production LS crankshafts are tough pieces with relocated thrust bearings now in the middle of the block and have been proven durable to near quadruple-digit horsepower outputs.
The real shining star of the LS bottom end is the six-bolt main caps. While early LS1s necessitated the additional cap fasteners to hold the somewhat-flexible block in shape, the later LS3 and iron LS platforms were catapulted to god-like status thanks to the Herculean strength of the rigid bottom-end design.
The best part, all LS engines offer the six-bolt cap configuration. No more searching for a four-bolt block or machining a two-bolt block for aftermarket mains. But, if that was the only improvement we would have never seen the wave of LS-swappery that we have. After all, the old-school small-block has the most abundant aftermarket of any engine platform ever produced.
Unless, of course, that engine comes with the single best Chevrolet top end design ever conceived. Then the stars begin to align. In a nutshell, this is what allows them to make obscene power with very little modification. The heads come right out of the factory with a degree valve angle. The new style allows every runner to be symmetrical, and as such, gives every cylinder an equal opportunity for airflow. A stock-ish LS head flows in the neighborhood of cfm—with exceptional low-lift flow—that is well into the territory of pricey aftermarket small-block heads.
The reduction in variation between head bolt torque spec can help with mass manufacturing of engines. Subaru and Toyota are currently facing these kinds of issues with the FA Chevy also raised the camshaft farther away from the crank which allows them to clear a 4-inch stroke crankshaft.
To further increase the strength of the top of the engine block they used a valley plate. The valley plate is a large plate of metal that covers the valley where the lifters reside, increasing the strength of the block by bolting each side of itself onto one metal plate. The pistons are the weakest point in the LS engine.
They are pretty strong, but when you start getting into serious performance, they are the first to fail. All of this combined made the LS engine stronger and smaller than any other GM small-block before it. There are people out there making close to 1, horsepower on stock bottom end LS engines. Chevrolet has produced the LS engine since , and they came in everything rear wheel drive.
Since used LS engines in so many of their cars and trucks, there is a slight overabundance of them which has kept prices fairly low. You can walk into any junkyard in America and find an LS engine within a few minutes.
Replacement parts are also very cheap. The main reason is that Chevrolet is one of the largest manufacturers in the US, and many companies make parts for Chevy products. Although some parts can be expensive, parts are generally dirt cheap compared to high-performance Japanese engines. A great example would be the world famous beater bomb, which is the true meaning of balling-on-a-budget.
Beater bomb is a world famous street racing Fox Body Mustang. He has blown up a few LS engines from spraying a ton of nitrous. Luckily all he has to do is walk into the junkyard with a few hundred dollars to get an LS engine. Since the LS engine came in a variety of automobiles, Chevrolet needed to develop different size engines for different uses. Chevy trucks came with iron-block 4. Car engines came in 5.
There are also options when deciding if you want an iron or aluminum block. The rise of stroker kits has also increased the number of displacement options. The LS7 can be pretty expensive, but you can always buy a stroker ci kit for your LS3. Another popular stroker size is a ci LS1 stroker. The cheapest of the LS engine family is the 5.
As you can imagine, the aftermarket for the Chevy LS has exploded since its massive rise. The most common modification being a high-performance camshaft, which is the best bang-for-buck upgrade you can do on the LS engine.
Companies like Nelson Racing Engines have become extremely popular to do their knowledge of the LS engine. These companies know how to get the best bang for buck performance out of them. From mild builds to high horsepower street cars, to full race cars, companies like NRE can build you one incredible little LS engine for your application.
Chevrolet Performance produces the LSX, the holy grail of Chevy engines, the most powerful being the LSXr crate engine which produces a whopping horsepower and ft-lbs of torque. Chevrolet Performance also produces high strength engine blocks, as well as many other components to hop up your LS engine. The aftermarket also makes a lot of swap kits, making it a breeze to swap a Chevy LS engine into basically any automobile you want.
Chevy knew what they were doing when they designed the LS engines. They designed an engine family that made good horsepower and good torque. How did they do this? They achieved this by using modern computer technology to test different port lengths and designed to find the best performing head design.
You may be surprised by how the port shape, size, and length can affect torque and horsepower ratings. Chevrolet also designed the intake manifold using modern technology. They aimed for the LS engine to produce usable low-end torque and great top-end horsepower. They also focused on small features like the cam size. They made the cam core massive, which means you can easily fit a. Some people even leave the stock heads on and have them worked over, combined with a big cam and many LS engines are making over rwhp with just head work and a cam.
What other engines can you name that produces that much horsepower with just a cam swap? Although this Jeep uses a pretty wild LS setup, it still proves a point.
Would you believe me if I told you that a 5.
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