Budget LS Bangs Out Power

It all started with a salvage yard. LS motor torn down a machine and built up on a total budget of two grand

today. The Horsepower gang steps it up with an induction power upgrade for some serious dyno

proven power. Then it's off to the ultimate outlaw shootout.

The horsepower or cup finals

still blown away that we could build an LS motor for less than two grand

and make 386 horsepower right out of the gate.

Yeah, these LS engines are really impressive and you know, we haven't worked on our LQ four in quite some time. So before we get started on the next phase, we're going to give you a mind refreshing recap to get you back up to speed.

Our visit to certified auto recyclers in northern Alabama was a wise first step. Now they found us a healthy LQ 4 6 L from an 05 GMC truck. And after cleaning it up and packing it up for us, we were ready to tear it down

and clean up the reusable parts.

Then after buddy honed the block, we gave it a bath and everything was ready for assembly.

The only parts were replaced were the bearings gaskets, timing set and plugs.

The factory computer and harness were included in our recycled motor package. But because of our plans to make modifications down the road, we installed a custom harness and computer from hall

engine developments

on the dyno. The motor made an amazing 386 horsepower and 396 ft pounds of torque.

But that was facilitated by the specter intake and long tube headers.

Well, in any event, we're gonna try to step it up today with a trio of performance upgrades that includes a hydraulic roller cam shaft, some stiffer valve springs and approved roller rockers.

It's a package that'll work on just about any LS motor project you got going.

Of course, we all know that the camshaft is the heart of any engine, but it's probably one of the most misunderstood parts too.

So let's go back to basics with some animation and see what this guy's job is and how a change in the profile can change the power outlook.

A typical push rod motor places the cam shaft just above the crank shaft, a chain or belt controlling the timing,

the cam spins once for every two rotations of the crank.

When a piston moves downward in the intake stroke, the intake valve opens to fill the cylinder with the air fuel mix then closes as the piston bottoms out

on the combustion stroke, the piston compresses the mix, the spark plug ignites the fuel,

the exhaust valve opens until the piston completes the exhaust stroke, evacuating the

cylinder.

This event can be modified by changing the stock can to a high performance can with more lift and duration.

Duration refers to how long the C actuated valve stays open. Lyft refers to how far the C

pushes the valve off the seat.

If the intake valve stays open longer and farther into the cylinder, especially the higher RPMs,

there's more combustion and a faster running engine

with rougher idle as a trade off.

Of course, other factors come into play like valve timing and lobe separation which affects the bottom versus higher RPM power. Now, our choice in this upgrade, a comp cams hydraulic roller. Now, the card that comes with a cam provides information such as duration at 50 thousand's lift. Ours is 220 on the intake 224 on the exhaust and that compares to 196 and 201 on a stock cam oh lobe separation. Ours is 112 and that's a really good balance for the street.

Of course, a more aggressive cam shaft puts more stress on the bounce springs.

This is a new generation of comps, Beehive spring with a little more lift capability

and pressure to put more control on the cam. Now, the S LP Rockers have a ratio of 185 compared to a stock 1.7. Now, that means this push ride cup here is closer to the fulcrum, allowing the valve to open up a little bit more.

We get started by removing the coil pack connectors

than the packs themselves.

Now, the valve covers could go

along with the top valve train pieces

up front. Don't let your shoes get wet. Here comes the water pump,

then the balancer,

the spark plugs and now we wanna rotate the engines at number one T DC and align the timing marks before pulling off the cam gear chain and cam plate.

Here's where a cam swap on an LS engine is easier than many others.

The oil pump can stay bolted up. The timing chain doesn't have to go anywhere.

And by rotating the cam shaft pushes the lifters up into the retainers where they're supposed to stay

to further reduce the chance of one falling out though. But he takes his time removing the stock cam.

Then with the new one oiled up, it's ready to go in.

According to comp, the basic operating range of this cam is between 1666 RPM. S

say before we move on, here's an LS engine tip that could save you time and money.

We've learned on the internet that a lot of guys have had oil pressure issues with these motors after building them up and guess what we found out what they were talking about firsthand.

When we first fired up our LQ four, we had plenty of oil pressure.

Then a few minutes later, the second time we fired it, that pressure mysteriously went away.

It took buddy some inside investigation to find the fix

build on a budget horsepower projects that save you time and money.

The problem was here in the oil pickup. Now we removed it to double check the O ring which was fine until we reinstalled it on the engine due to the bolt locations. we had to pry the pickup forward to meet up with the pump. Apparently that was distorting our O ring and allowing air to get by.

To fix this. We elongated this bolt hole and enlarge this one.

This allowed to pick up the center itself on the pump allowing the O ring to seal and now we have good oil pressure.

Good

horsepower is back with the finale of our L twofour valve train upgrade

with a steady flow of compressed air to keep our valves closed.

But he puts a special tool in place that's made especially for the LS.

Then snugs it down to tighten up the stock springs.

That way he can remove the locks,

pull out the old springs

and drop in the new ones.

Now he can replace the locks and we're done with the tool.

Finally, a few taps of the hammer to make double sure the locks are secure.

Of course, the real advantage of these Beehive springs is in their design taller than stock and they've got a wider base for stability

and the narrow end is where most of the movement occurs during opening and closing of the valves. Now, we still gonna reuse our stock retainers. Yeah, we're gonna save a few bucks so we can keep the retainers in the locks. All right. Now, you can use those new Titanium retainers and save a little weight though.

We're also reusing these perfectly good push rods and we wanna push down a little bit and make sure the lifter goes down on the cam again.

Now

that done,

we can put this plate on

and move on to the new rockers.

These S LP rockers are self aligning

and since the stock lifters are hydraulic, no valve lashing is required,

we just tighten the rockers to 22 ft pounds.

Well, finally, the computer's ready.

Now, before we started this phase of the project, we gave a call to Hal told them our plans, sent the box back to them, they reprogrammed it, rushed it back and

now we're ready to make some horsepower.

Let's look at that last one on our graph here. Of course, the green line represents torque which came on pretty strong at the beginning, fell off a little bit and then peaked at about 5300 RPM. S of course, the white line is our horsepower. We got that 411 at about 5500 RPM.

Ok, buddy. Let's look at one of those earlier screens. This is one of our baseline runs from a few weeks ago.

Of course, the motor was made for truck use and you can see here it's making plenty of low end torque up here at a 4300 RPM where it peaks out

the white lines horsepower again

and it peaks at 5600 just like on that last run where we made 25 more horsepower than this.

Well, there's always a little bit of trade off of horsepower and torque when you do a performance cam swap.

But that's it for our LFO project for now. Coming up, we're gonna take you to a race that's got our name on it. It's the horsepower or

Sco World finals. We'll see you there.

Hey, from the house of hook to your house. We're back in South Carolina for the Horsepower

Orsa

Finals.

Yeah. And first we're gonna see what it took. One of the hottest racers in easy street to make it here fighting for his first championship.

Is that Steve Jackson? It is awesome.

If there's a chance to be working on a car racing, a car tuning a car, driving a car, I'm in it ever since I was could walk and talk. All I wanna do is race cars. Say hello to Steve Jackson. This year's most remarkable rookie in the radio tire easy street class

here in the season finale of heads up eight mile drag racing.

He's on the verge of a world title

a long way from the

pressing season debut. Months ago,

we qualified bad. We went out first round and everybody was laughing at us and stuff and

kind of licked my wounds all the way home. And I said, well, we got a couple of weeks off to the next race. This isn't gonna happen again.

Well, it didn't. Steve went on to win an astounding five races in a row.

Even after changing from his pro charger to Nitrous, then back to the pro charger.

A lot of people know

how to go fast and you gotta know how to win.

Dang good driver.

He's a nut

and the boy is smart now, Steve is the motivator. Uh, he keeps you going, he's gonna drive you and put you to the, to the limit. It's really hard to find a group of guys who like racing as much as I do that are willing to put in the hours that it takes.

It's an amazing thing to be part of his life and

part of his hobby and be here with him. It's very exciting and I love it.

I think all we need to do is go around today. We should start the championship up, but

that's not how we look at it. We come out here to race. Uh, we wanna win the race and I wanna set the record for the end of the day.

You know, one of the coolest things about racing my favorite part

is the burnout.

Here we go. Let's get it done.

All that's not what we,

one we need it. The

radio tire is kind of like a hockey puck on ice. It's hard tracks, cold. We piled about 10,000 pounds in the back of the car,

took some power out when we try to get the car to move. If it'll move about 10 ft,

I believe we can put whatever we want to.

That was good.

But again, the Mustang stumbles on this first critical round of qualifying.

Uh Right now we're in the crapper.

Not exactly, Steve does have championship sewed up,

but it's a long way to the final weekend. Win light.

The finals are coming up. Stay with us.

Hey, welcome back. Now, just in case you wanna drop an LS engine into your classic muscle car, check this out, Henman headers and BRP Hot Rods have joined forces to create this muscle rod kit which allows dropping an LS engine into your ride a painless process without a lot of trial

there. Now, this kit is designed for second generation F bodies and it includes a set of mid length headers, transmission, cross member plus engine frame and transmission mounts. Now, all the mounts have Urethane bushings and they wrap this kit up with all grade eight hardware.

Here's an LS upgrade that got our attention. It's an LSX multi piece component intake from fast made to deliver more horsepower without sacrificing, drivability or low end torque. It's got injector ports for nitrous and it will accept a larger throttle body for more fuel flow. How much more power though?

Well, we're gonna find out next week when we installed this one on our LS motor

right now though. We gotta go to the races.

Italian wings,

lemon pepper wings, barbecued wings, all kind of wings. You got it. We winging it, baby. We winging, we wing

it.

Welcome back to Horsepower Horse for finals at the house of

right now to check out some of the outrageous qualifying runs leading to eliminations. Today,

the track was cold. The winds were gusting

and for some, the eight mile path to the finish line was tricky turf. Literally

24 of the fastest 10, 5 outlaw cars in the country came to compete

and while a few racers had headaches figuring out the track,

others had a heyday running through the record books

here in Saturday's round two qualifying. Chuck S

does the undoable

a 4, 18 et at 100 and 83 miles an hour in his supercharged Camaro

Tim Lynch may have lost the record but he found the formula for consistent runs

here knocking out points. Champ Joe Newsham in the semis setting up a showdown with

S in the finals

and with a better reaction time, Lynch lays down just enough to win by 16/1000 of a second.

Uh I didn't think the numbers were possible this weekend, but the air and the track cooperated and, uh, we put a hell of a show on for everybody.

You could hear the sound of records falling all weekend.

Well, this time it was a tour

Jeff Cooner had been, will standing his way to the semifinals

and then to beat Darren Hoyle with a 486 to win the events.

A

wild weekend. Probably the best race I've been to all year.

Oh, and what about the easy street rookie from Georgia,

that young racing junkie? Hoping his pro

charge pony helps add a six straight win to his points championship.

No matter what happens today. I'm so proud of him. There couldn't be any more.

I couldn't be any more proud

and there was plenty to be proud of as Jackson and his mustang rode their way through each round of eliminations

with just enough horsepower and luck to win and earn a spot in the finals.

Then a funny thing happened on the way back from the burnout.

You guys radioed to me when I was backing up and said it's broke, it's popping out the exhaust, shut it off. And I said, hell, no, it's already broke.

I said I'm gonna make him out running.

We got to the finals,

broken exhaust out.

We're happy. We had a good year. I hate it. We missed six in a row. That was gonna be my

perfect end of my season. But, uh, we're still happy with it. It's just fun. We're fortunate to be able to do what we enjoy. You know,

not everybody. People in Iraq aren't drag racing tonight.

Next week on horsepower, we take our budget LS motor to a new power level with an EF I induction upgrade.

Can we break the 500 horse barrier this time?

Gotta watch and see.

Then you've heard about the environmental advantages of E 85 fuel. We'll show you how to convert your carb to burn it and crank out some eye opening horsepower numbers all next week here on horsepower TV.