There were 400 trucks registered but around 100 showed up do to a line of really mean storms. My nephew went and said that of every truck with an engine swap probably 90% had LS engines. Looks like the SBC has lost the belly button title to the new challenger.
The SBC will still reign as the lowest-cost-installed V8 option. Amortizing something over more than half a century has its advantages. Consider the "LS" engine hit the showroom floor twenty years ago. As I recall, a friend of mine paid HUGE money for an LS1/4L60E out of a wrecked Z28 a decade ago.
I have four used small blocks, here in my shop. Two four bolts, and two two bolts. Would have been cheaper to overhaul, and go with them, but, if your going to hotrod,...HOTROD! Steve.
The LS is just a new generation SBC, so the Belly Button is alive and well. Personally, I prefer the old mouse motors.
Actually, the only similarity between the "LS" design, and a gen. one or two, small block is they both are V-8s, and have a cam, in the block. Sure, GM refers to the first "LS" engine as the gen. three, but, zero parts interchange. Don't get me wrong, I still love the old school small block. However, Hot Rodding to me has always meant getting the most streetable horsepower, for the buck. Nothing comes close to these modern engines. And, speaking of "LS", engines...The gen. four, and five, are improved tremendously, from the gen. three. Steve.
Go ahead Steve, crush my dreams. I have plans to install a measly 325 cubic inch Gen III... which, if I am lucky, will barely squeeze out 1HP/CI bone stock, with a bit more than 1LB-FT/CI. In a ride that may very well tip the scales at under a ton-and-a-half. Destined for the slow-lane I guess.
Someday, when I get to it (not in the next 5 years or more) I will be doing a bottom up restoration on THE American Muscle Car, the 1973 Gremlin X. It was my first car and it's time for an upgrade from the 304 AMC V8 to a modern GM V8. The lines, the shape, the creativity it took to create such an amazing vehicle.. well.. I get tears in my eyes... Everyone talk amongst yourselves! I can't wait to get started, but the 5 AD's take precedence. I need to get to work! By then it will be Gen 99!
No intent to "crush dreams", here. You forget, I'm a gen. three'er, myself. Well... with a few upgrades... Alot of guys put down, VVT, in the later generation engines. Not me. As you well know, Mike, VVT allows you to go from a docile grocery getter economy car, to a full out dragster without stopping to change the cam at the strip. If someone had told me back in, say 1979, that GM would come out with an engine like this, I would have thought they were smoking something besides tobacco. Now...,DOD, I would probably disable that. At least until gas gets back to 4 bucks. Steve. P.S. Mike, I'm trying to convince my brother to put at least a 5.3, into his mid-eightys G-body.
Steve, I was (of course) just busting your chops. Penny will be just fine with a 5.3. And don't 'dis' Active Fuel Management too much. It lets my ~425 horsepower 6.0 liter G8 (curb weight just a whisker shy of 4,000 lbs) knock down 24 mpg's on the highway, and almost always 20 mpg around town. All that with a driver who appears to get free tires AND premium fuel. The 'LS' motor IS the new SBC. The GEN III is probably easiest to swap, and when GM doesn't offer a 6L80E behind it's turn-key motors, you know there is too much complexity involved. Not that a 4L60E (or -65, or -70 or even -75) is a slouch.
There are two camps on this subject and it's easy to see a valid argument for each. Just google GM LS9 and look at the pics at the top of the column. Two from Jeg's: LS9 for $20,099.35 and a 350 for $1499.99. For the guy with a budget, and that covers most of us, the choice is obvious. For the guy that craves the power then the LS is one that can set him back in the seat, idle at the grocery store with the a/c on, and still get over 20mpg. We have a 70 Camaro in the shop where the factory Eaton blower has been replaced with a Whipple along with a few other mods and it has a dyno tag showing 900hp and idles smooth. Now it is a puny wimp compared to the twin turbo ones. Creative ones with the knowledge and tools can get an LS3 and get 400+ hp out of it for probably the same or even fewer bucks that a 350 built to the same specs and get close to twice the miles per gallon. There is no winner arguing about the best way to go but there is now a definite choice that can be made where 20 years ago there wasn't. As for my 34 Chevy 5W coupe it's getting an 03 Mercury Marauder DOHC 32 valve engine with electronic stack injectors---all for looks and MAYBE 20 mpg. To each his own.
Evan, There is no doubt a fresh, out-of-the-crate LS-anything is not going to be cheap. For the thin of wallet, a 5.3 liter out of a junkyard is a good alternative. The 6.0 and 6.2 liter mills command silly money. But I agree, to each his own.
