The cylinder walls in my 5.3 at 3mm over are thicker than most all early sbc blocks are std. I had them sonic checked and they were way thick. I never even bothered to fill this thing either. We'll see what breaks first, I bet it's a head gasket or piston before the block. Valvetrain failure would be the next thing I think, but who knows. All bets are off with this kind of power.

 

Just curious but with the 1200/1000 on the dyno was that on race gas or what exactly. I am actually in the process of building a 427 or so LSX with twin 76mm turbos and wanting what you put down on pump gas and then 1500/1200 on 110.

 

E85

 

Made any passes yet? How much rear gear did you end up with?

 

All the tracks in this region are closed til April. I'm anxious. Gears will depend on the class and tire size. It has 3.90 in it for now with 30" tires, MPH was 188 on the dyno at 8500, with a tight stator for testing. If I have to run a shorter tire, I'll regear it. I could turn it a little harder if I need to.

 

Looking at the dyno sheet looks like yours peaked at the same rpm as mine. I was thinking 500 rpm above peak for a shift point. I want to run 148-150 in the 1/8. I have 33" tall tires and I have a 4.86 = 145 mph and a 4.30=164 mph I also have a 3.50 that I will try with the spray. Trying to keep the rpm 7200 to 7400 Thats what i thinking right now with running the glide.

 

Sounds like you got it all figured out. 150 in the 1/8 with a 7400 rpm motor will definitely be a feat. Must be a light ass car with a 500+ inch motor. My car will never go that fast in the 1/8. What's your converter slip %.

FWIW, my peak numbers depend on where I set the gain on my EBC. Some of the graphs kept climbing to 8500 when I lifted, and the dyno RPM does not perfectly match the actual RPM on my data logs, they never do.

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I'm more concerned about what the engine will take, not what it can make. The turbo will move enough air at enough pressure to make more than this little engine will take. I didn't dyno the car to find out how much power it would make, because I don't care. I need good fast control of the manifold pressure so I can actually get the car down the track on a small tire. I didn't even tune the Lambda during this dyno session because I prefer to leave it rich and slowly lean on it. Lambda was as low as .69 at these power levels. Nor did I touch the timing. I only wanted to set the gain and play with the EBC. I don't need a dyno to tune an EFI car, trust me.

For what it's worth, shortly before the transmission started making noise, I did try a dyno pull at 24 psi, I aborted the run early because the car actually lifted the front tires a foot in the air on the dyno. No I don't have video. When I go back, the shop owner said he will have another set of rings in the floor closer to the front of the car. I'm positive that run would have been over 1400 whp. Again, like you said, doesn't matter.

You must have one bad 408 LS to go 150 in the 1/8. Much props from me. I'd like to see more details of the build. I know altitude plays a big role, but I'd love to go 140 in the 1/8 and another 35 or so on the back, keep in mind my minimum weight is 3400#. The 2000 Mustang I built went 1.014, 3.017, 4.664 @ 149.61, 6.075, 7.252 @ 192.88 on one of it's best hits, at 2645#.

 

Seeing your build and the numbers really make me think. Why is it that people dont use the 5.3 more often? Seems like everyone has to have a 6.0 for there build. Around here you can pick up a complete 5.3 drop out for around $500. So for a street build and not needing to make over a 1000hp it seems like a 5.3 would be a very good choice. Can the stock 5.3 crank hold the same amount of power as the 6.0? some people have said they are good for 900-1000hp.

 

Most all 5.3, 5.7 LS1 and 6.0 use the exact same crank; casting # 12552216. I'm not sure what the infatuation is with the 6.0 and bigger LSx motors. It seems to me the smaller cube LSx motors offer a few advantages by way of head gasket seal, cylinder wall stiffness and piston height/ring packaging. Obviously more cubes is going to have more power potential, but how much is needed? W2W went in the 6's many years ago with a 352 cid LSx.

I have to admit my main motivation to go small cubes was class rules. I get a 150# weight break for being under 364 cid. I wanted to make sure I was well below that using shelf parts; so I had a choice of either a 5.7 alum or 5.3 iron. I chose the latter. If I had no limitations on cid (wasn't building to run within a certain class), I would probably have a 400+ cid engine with twins on it. The engineers at PTE were gracious enough to review the rules for my class and they agreed that the small cid big single offered the most potential, given the weight penalties of building bigger cid and/or twins. So that's what I did.

 

Aaron it's good to see you found the problem and got it fixed. We are building another turbo car for '09. I'm helping a friend in Denver with a '98 F-body for USP Limited Street. We have the budget and have some good people helping out. With a little luck we should be testing in March or April.

 

Can't wait to see what you're building. I know it'll be a bad motha. Let me know if I can help out in any way, as if you'd need it; regardless, I'd be happy to help.

 

Even in non turbo, non power adder applications. A couple of the magazines have dynoed "5.3 drop out" motors with cam and headers into the 400hp range. With cnc'ed heads in the 425-450 hp range.

Even this "8 crate motors in the same car at the dragstrip thrash" article that hotrod did:
http://www.gmperformanceparts.com/_res/pdf/MagazineArticles/HotRod_CrateMotorComparo.pdf

they have the LS327 which is a carbed version of a truck/SUV 5.3L with a 196/201 duration, 0.476"/0.479" lift cam at an underated at 327hp/347tq and it makes the 3386lb test car run [email protected]. We all know that you pretty much have to ignore just about any resultant HP calculation based on ET and use the ones based on MPH, the same goes for below.

Using the HP calculator and the Weight, ET and MPH here:
http://s-series.org/htm/calc/hpcalc.htm

It comes up with:

RWHP from MPH: 311.81

Break HP from MPH: 374.17

This site has a little more in depth in the multiple formulas used and multiple formula calculators:
http://www.stealth316.com/2-calc-hp-et-mph.htm

Using the LRT formula and MPH and Weight: 320 hp

Using the Patrick Hale and MPH and Weight: 312 hp

Using the Geoffrey Fox and MPH and Weight: 328 hp

Either way, I digress, the point is that even a 5.3L pulled out of a truck, with a real cam, and boring normal asperation would smoke the little LS327's crate doors off. To the tune of low 12's all day long in any normal weight car that hooked.

edit: oh BTW, looking at the test you will see it did it slightly quicker and at the identical MPH/weight but for $2310 less (list) than the ZZ4 350 small block!

 

Thanks for the offer. Since we are running a BS3, I'm sure i will have a bunch of questions. The car is at the chassis shop getting a 25.2 cage, once that is done i will start posting a few pictures of our progress.

 

Why 25.2 and not 25.5? You running a little turbo and no cooler? Can't wait to see pics.

 

are the sfi cage specs in the NHRA rule book or is there another book fo those?

 

If you want specifics, you have to buy a book from SFI for about $40. Unless you can find a nice local chassis builder or inspector who will answer your questions. NHRA will tell you to call SFI.

There's a little info on SFI's site http://www.sfifoundation.com/

 

Thanks.

 

25.5 is good to 7.50, 25.2 is good to 6.00. since this is a new build we decided just to do the 25.2 and be done with it. The owner wants to run local stuff with the small turbo and put the big turbo on it for out of state races.