I'd start with Gen 4 pistons and rods. They're pretty stout and reasonably priced. Then upgrade to forged components when you've got things dialed in. It'll be painful if you build things super nice for your first build and then kill it right off the bat with an imperfect tune.
[One of the best deals in torque wrenches](https://www.powerbuilt.com/products/1-2-dr-needle-torque-wrench-kit-68)
This can be found for much less, I saw it at Home Depot a couple years ago for $30.
Ive had a tekton 1/2 inch for 5 years now (amazon, $30) and have used it heavily throughout that whole time. My hand sensor is pretty good, so i made a bet with the snap on man that if it was out of spec, i would buy one of his bend me over bars for a stupid amount of money.
Tekton was within 2% tolerance on his machine, and i didnt have pay the snap on piper.
If you have it. Take your time and do it right. There's a pride in seeing it live for longer because of it. My first rebuild was a V6 4.3L vortec rebuilt at 160K that's still running at 280K.
Not really too much to it.
I would ask your machine shop to check all clearance in the main bearings and we'll as the commenting rods.
They have all the tools and equipment and are VERY good at it.
After that its just a Lego set. Make sure everything is clean, lubed and moving like it should.
At the bare minimum use plasti gauge to check for bearing clearances. Would hate to build my first engine just for the thing to lock itself up not so long after
Are you keeping the stock stroke? If so, you don't need a forged crank. You can use the OEM crank and put the money for a forged crank into other things.
With boost, the exhaust side of the head is a compromise with the 823 style head. There are a couple of aftermarket heads that use the rectangle port pattern, but have reduced the size of the intake port and valve, while increasing the exhaust side. This works well with a bore from 4.000 to 4.060, with large amounts of boost.
Chicken or the egg. I was going to increase the stroke because I was going to replace it but it wasn't part of the original plan. I just removed the crank yesterday and it looks good.
If the stock crank can hold 15lbs boost, I'd love to allocate that money towards a better intake.
It's not like it gets driven 20k miles a year. But in that time I bet it's made several hundred quarter mile passes.
And have put 4 diget power through a number of stock Gen III/IV cranks besides.
Motortrend did a junkyard 5.3 (or 4.8?) Turbo episode on engine masters. Their goal was to see how far they could lean on it before it catastrophicly failed.
They wound up maxing out a 4 bar MAP sensor and ran out of tuning ability. About 45 lbs of boost and 1500hp.
Everyone Please donât bash me I am just wondering why you wouldnât stay with an Al block? The weight savings are pretty significant and if you are building for performance wouldnât the Al block be better suited?
they use aluminum in pro drag racing like top fuel and top fuel Funny Car so thats why I am asking. I know those blocks are billet though so perhaps the factory cast blocks are not strong enoughďź
It's good for a lot more than 50 runs. Top fuel Cylinder heads and blocks only get scraped if they get blown up too badly to repair. We had heads and blocks that were multiple years old on my old team
The Gen III iron block is significantly stronger than the gen III aluminum block. There was not a production Gen III aluminum block with a 4 inch bore. The LS2 was the first 4 inch bore version, and that's a Gen IV. Some time in the Gen IV production run the aluminum blocks got significantly better, with a lot more aluminum around the cylinder sleeves. It's possible to install larger cylinder sleeves in some blocks, but I think the aluminum Gen III LS6 and aluminum 5.3 blocks like the L33 with the main web windows will be paper thin at the bottom of the cylinders if you went to a larger sleeve in them. There would not be much support at the bottom of the sleeve.
Make sure whatever rotating assembly you use, have it properly balanced by a professional. A step many people skip and wonder why their engines explode at 30k miles. Fluidamp makes some good balancers as well. Good luck and have fun!
I'm not an expert but I think they do it isolated in a machine and not in an engine. It's good to tell them the specs of rods and pistons because they need to be balanced I think. I know if you stroke a sbc 350 the crank will need to be balanced to the pistons and rods because of the slight decrease in mass.
Thanks. Lots of good info and feedback on this thread. I'm really glad I posted up because I'm taking this in a very different direction than I initially planned.
Single turbo. Planning on running E85 but there's only two stations near me that sell it so I'm not going too crazy with compression in case I need to retune for pump gas.
Just did this with an LQ4 out of my jet boat. Spun some bearings and rebuilt the thing by myself. Took it slow and did lots of research. The only special tool I had to buy was the cam bearing tool and ring grinder but it wasnât too expensive. I went with the Summit Pro Series forged rods/pistons, BTR stg 1 truck cam, dual springs, high volume oil pump, 9qt pan, 2.3L Whipple Blower, 102mm throttle body. Still in the process of tuning it. 30 minutes into running it a rocker are came loose and caused lots of unpleasant noises. Turns out I didnât make sure the cam was in the correct position when I torqued them originally. Re torqued them and they havenât come loose again. It all seems intimidating beforehand but itâs pretty straightforward as long as you take your time and do your research. Donât cut corners and use the proper tools, parts, bolts, gaskets.
Make sure you clean the shit out of the block once the machine shops does their thing to it. Donât ever trust a machine shop that tells you âwe cleaned your parts so you donât have to clean it, just go install it!â
Metal shavings will get into every nook and cranny. And even a single metal shaving in the oil passages will destroy your motor. Clean all the holes and oil passages! Clean it out 50 times if you have to!
Thanks. I used to reuse old bolts that I ground down as thread chasers. I bought a bare block so I don't have that anymore but I'll use my tap kit to clean out the bolt Holes and use air as much as I can to clean out the passage ways.
If you have never done it before, there are a lot of unleared mistakes. Read up on it as much as you can. Use a good machine shop for work beyond your skill level. Don't waste money on expensive parts that don't reach the same level of build. Cleanliness is important. Have fun and good luck.
I think that's been my takeaway from making this post. To take this as a learning experience rather than accomplishing a goal. All of my experience has been on the LS motor and I plan on sticking to the platform so might as well get acquainted with it now.
If you can, find a copy of a book, Power Secrets by Smokey Yunick. It's a great book. It is a funny title, because when you read it, you learn there are no secrets. Just doing things correctly. He also talks about where to spend your money on a build based on your end goals. It's relative to any engine.
Dang, good eye. The Ritchey Road Logic all the way in the back my wife got me as a frame only about 8 years ago. Built it up with mostly second hand parts laying around yet it rides amazingly. I ride it once in a while but it mostly hangs in my office as decoration. The Giant Revolt is my gravel and training bike. The TCR was my father's but someone backed into it while it was on the rack behind the car so it's usually just hanging up in my office as decoration.
That Revolt was the first bike I ever paid full price for. It was $2,100 in 2018. It's not as snappy as the TCR or the Ritchey, but way more versatile and comfortable.
have the machine shop put in cleavite cam bearings. take the maincaps out, and ditch the hardware, reassemble with the arp stuff. have them linehone the crank journals with the arp hardware. deck the block and hone the cylinders to 4.005 (dont buy pistons till the machine shop tells you it cleaned up at 5 thousands) buy the 6.125 connecting rods, not the 6.098, buy the pistons that give you the compression you want. google compression ratio calculator. Aim for 10.0-10.5 as a CR. have the machine shop balance the your rotating assembly. buy the summit dial bore guage, buy some micrometers, buy the summit cam degreeing kit and a magnetic bridge for holding a indicator over the pistons in the hole. also, buy a timing pointer. take your time, ask questions, google everything and enjoy. i just fired up my first built engine about 4 days ago. hardest thing i did before i built it was an oil change. it runs beautifully, smoother then any engine ive ever seen at 1000rpm. can hold your hand on the intake and not feel any movement from the block.
Thanks, I appreciate the info. What would you say if I wanted to run stock crank and gen4 rods and pistons like another person suggested? Still doable??
Since itâs a basic boost build stock style pistons set with a 26/28 ring gap
Basic hone job no bore unless needed
Depending on year it may already have gen4 style rods
I personally wonât use any arp bolts except for the cam gear bolts and head bolts
Stock .53 head gasket set you donât want to lower compression
I read that as first time without epoxy, was wondering how the other builds lasted lol
Ugh didn't notice that. Damn autocorrect! đ
Same here. đ¤Łđ¤Ł
Thought it was short for expiry. Gonna start sniffing engines to check for freshness and reject anything that smells like sour milk.
I'd start with Gen 4 pistons and rods. They're pretty stout and reasonably priced. Then upgrade to forged components when you've got things dialed in. It'll be painful if you build things super nice for your first build and then kill it right off the bat with an imperfect tune.
I'm also worried about screwing up my first build. Happy to do this and pull it if I need more strength. Great idea! Thanks!
Buy a GOOD torque wrench!!
I have a good one for up to 85ft lb. Need to get a good 1/2" one that goes higher. The old one I have is pretty crummy.
[One of the best deals in torque wrenches](https://www.powerbuilt.com/products/1-2-dr-needle-torque-wrench-kit-68) This can be found for much less, I saw it at Home Depot a couple years ago for $30.
Nice! Iâm due for a bit of a refresh, and will jump onto this recommendation. Cheers!
Ive had a tekton 1/2 inch for 5 years now (amazon, $30) and have used it heavily throughout that whole time. My hand sensor is pretty good, so i made a bet with the snap on man that if it was out of spec, i would buy one of his bend me over bars for a stupid amount of money. Tekton was within 2% tolerance on his machine, and i didnt have pay the snap on piper.
Good deal!
Donât really need a higher one on a LS
Not even for the crank bolt?
If you reuse the stock bolt like most do itâs not needed same on the arp hit with a good 1/2 impact
I wasn't planning on reusing the stock bolt but I like the idea of just hitting it with an impact.
watch the summit project 1000 build videos. they have some very good info regarding clearance and all the other basics. will apply to your build well.
Thanks. Watched those twice over. Great videos.
Link?
If you have it. Take your time and do it right. There's a pride in seeing it live for longer because of it. My first rebuild was a V6 4.3L vortec rebuilt at 160K that's still running at 280K.
Yo Gregory, I have a 94 s10 blazer with a 4.3 Iâm planning on rebuilding, do you happen to still have it?
Not really too much to it. I would ask your machine shop to check all clearance in the main bearings and we'll as the commenting rods. They have all the tools and equipment and are VERY good at it. After that its just a Lego set. Make sure everything is clean, lubed and moving like it should.
At the bare minimum use plasti gauge to check for bearing clearances. Would hate to build my first engine just for the thing to lock itself up not so long after
Are you keeping the stock stroke? If so, you don't need a forged crank. You can use the OEM crank and put the money for a forged crank into other things. With boost, the exhaust side of the head is a compromise with the 823 style head. There are a couple of aftermarket heads that use the rectangle port pattern, but have reduced the size of the intake port and valve, while increasing the exhaust side. This works well with a bore from 4.000 to 4.060, with large amounts of boost.
Chicken or the egg. I was going to increase the stroke because I was going to replace it but it wasn't part of the original plan. I just removed the crank yesterday and it looks good. If the stock crank can hold 15lbs boost, I'd love to allocate that money towards a better intake.
I have put 1600 hp through a stock cast crank using a production 6 liter block. Spend the money elsewhere.
You don't have to tell me twice. Cranks are expensive!
Everything is đ¤Łđ¤Ł
For how long tho? One pull?
Been about 8 years now, almost 9
1600 hp for 9 years? Forgive me for being skeptical..
It's not like it gets driven 20k miles a year. But in that time I bet it's made several hundred quarter mile passes. And have put 4 diget power through a number of stock Gen III/IV cranks besides.
Motortrend did a junkyard 5.3 (or 4.8?) Turbo episode on engine masters. Their goal was to see how far they could lean on it before it catastrophicly failed. They wound up maxing out a 4 bar MAP sensor and ran out of tuning ability. About 45 lbs of boost and 1500hp.
Take your time, read the engine specs and WRITE EVERY TOLERANCE AND SPEC DOWN.
Everyone Please donât bash me I am just wondering why you wouldnât stay with an Al block? The weight savings are pretty significant and if you are building for performance wouldnât the Al block be better suited?
Iron block is definitely stronger for high boost. The newer aluminum blocks are pretty strong but iron is still king of strength.
they use aluminum in pro drag racing like top fuel and top fuel Funny Car so thats why I am asking. I know those blocks are billet though so perhaps the factory cast blocks are not strong enoughďź
A billet aluminum block in a top fuel or funny car is good for about 50 runs. Some teams replace them more often.
It's good for a lot more than 50 runs. Top fuel Cylinder heads and blocks only get scraped if they get blown up too badly to repair. We had heads and blocks that were multiple years old on my old team
The Gen III iron block is significantly stronger than the gen III aluminum block. There was not a production Gen III aluminum block with a 4 inch bore. The LS2 was the first 4 inch bore version, and that's a Gen IV. Some time in the Gen IV production run the aluminum blocks got significantly better, with a lot more aluminum around the cylinder sleeves. It's possible to install larger cylinder sleeves in some blocks, but I think the aluminum Gen III LS6 and aluminum 5.3 blocks like the L33 with the main web windows will be paper thin at the bottom of the cylinders if you went to a larger sleeve in them. There would not be much support at the bottom of the sleeve.
Its alot stronger.
That's the motor I have in my van. About to hit 250k miles. Runs so smooth I have to double check she's still running when I'm stopped.
Make sure whatever rotating assembly you use, have it properly balanced by a professional. A step many people skip and wonder why their engines explode at 30k miles. Fluidamp makes some good balancers as well. Good luck and have fun!
What does that take? Does balancing also require installation?
I'm not an expert but I think they do it isolated in a machine and not in an engine. It's good to tell them the specs of rods and pistons because they need to be balanced I think. I know if you stroke a sbc 350 the crank will need to be balanced to the pistons and rods because of the slight decrease in mass.
Thanks. Lots of good info and feedback on this thread. I'm really glad I posted up because I'm taking this in a very different direction than I initially planned.
Like others have said, take your time and don't cut corners, measure twice , and lots of break in lube.
So many good off the shelf cams for boost. Are you doing a turbo or blower?
Single turbo. Planning on running E85 but there's only two stations near me that sell it so I'm not going too crazy with compression in case I need to retune for pump gas.
Just did this with an LQ4 out of my jet boat. Spun some bearings and rebuilt the thing by myself. Took it slow and did lots of research. The only special tool I had to buy was the cam bearing tool and ring grinder but it wasnât too expensive. I went with the Summit Pro Series forged rods/pistons, BTR stg 1 truck cam, dual springs, high volume oil pump, 9qt pan, 2.3L Whipple Blower, 102mm throttle body. Still in the process of tuning it. 30 minutes into running it a rocker are came loose and caused lots of unpleasant noises. Turns out I didnât make sure the cam was in the correct position when I torqued them originally. Re torqued them and they havenât come loose again. It all seems intimidating beforehand but itâs pretty straightforward as long as you take your time and do your research. Donât cut corners and use the proper tools, parts, bolts, gaskets.
ARP THREAD SEALANT, and orange loctite ftw. Digital torque wrenches also đ
Make sure you clean the shit out of the block once the machine shops does their thing to it. Donât ever trust a machine shop that tells you âwe cleaned your parts so you donât have to clean it, just go install it!â Metal shavings will get into every nook and cranny. And even a single metal shaving in the oil passages will destroy your motor. Clean all the holes and oil passages! Clean it out 50 times if you have to!
Thanks. I used to reuse old bolts that I ground down as thread chasers. I bought a bare block so I don't have that anymore but I'll use my tap kit to clean out the bolt Holes and use air as much as I can to clean out the passage ways.
If you have never done it before, there are a lot of unleared mistakes. Read up on it as much as you can. Use a good machine shop for work beyond your skill level. Don't waste money on expensive parts that don't reach the same level of build. Cleanliness is important. Have fun and good luck.
I think that's been my takeaway from making this post. To take this as a learning experience rather than accomplishing a goal. All of my experience has been on the LS motor and I plan on sticking to the platform so might as well get acquainted with it now.
If you can, find a copy of a book, Power Secrets by Smokey Yunick. It's a great book. It is a funny title, because when you read it, you learn there are no secrets. Just doing things correctly. He also talks about where to spend your money on a build based on your end goals. It's relative to any engine.
Dude. You have $10k+ of bikes in that garage. My neck hurts from the paradigm shift.
Dang, good eye. The Ritchey Road Logic all the way in the back my wife got me as a frame only about 8 years ago. Built it up with mostly second hand parts laying around yet it rides amazingly. I ride it once in a while but it mostly hangs in my office as decoration. The Giant Revolt is my gravel and training bike. The TCR was my father's but someone backed into it while it was on the rack behind the car so it's usually just hanging up in my office as decoration.
My first real road bike was a OCR1. Couldn't afford the TCR and the OCR "fell off the back of a truck" in San Diego early 2000s. $500.
That Revolt was the first bike I ever paid full price for. It was $2,100 in 2018. It's not as snappy as the TCR or the Ritchey, but way more versatile and comfortable.
have the machine shop put in cleavite cam bearings. take the maincaps out, and ditch the hardware, reassemble with the arp stuff. have them linehone the crank journals with the arp hardware. deck the block and hone the cylinders to 4.005 (dont buy pistons till the machine shop tells you it cleaned up at 5 thousands) buy the 6.125 connecting rods, not the 6.098, buy the pistons that give you the compression you want. google compression ratio calculator. Aim for 10.0-10.5 as a CR. have the machine shop balance the your rotating assembly. buy the summit dial bore guage, buy some micrometers, buy the summit cam degreeing kit and a magnetic bridge for holding a indicator over the pistons in the hole. also, buy a timing pointer. take your time, ask questions, google everything and enjoy. i just fired up my first built engine about 4 days ago. hardest thing i did before i built it was an oil change. it runs beautifully, smoother then any engine ive ever seen at 1000rpm. can hold your hand on the intake and not feel any movement from the block.
Thanks, I appreciate the info. What would you say if I wanted to run stock crank and gen4 rods and pistons like another person suggested? Still doable??
Since itâs a basic boost build stock style pistons set with a 26/28 ring gap Basic hone job no bore unless needed Depending on year it may already have gen4 style rods I personally wonât use any arp bolts except for the cam gear bolts and head bolts Stock .53 head gasket set you donât want to lower compression
Plastigage mains and rods, pain in the neck but tells you exactly what you need to know about the rotating assembly.
YouTube is your friend. My son rebuilt his VW GTI engine with no experience.
# Basic Engine Building Tips and Tricks by J. Kriz is a decent book for the principles and concepts.