The Best LS Engine To Build For Horsepower

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Street Rod Jim is a channel about maintaining, building and appreciating cars. Jim is currently researching and building a Factory Five 33 Hot Rod V2 kit car and will be showing the process as he goes.

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[danielaguirre]

Great video Jim, this really helped me put things into perspective. Maybe the people with all lot of LS experience, already knew, "OR THINK THEY KNOW" everything you touched on in this video, but i am new to the LS scene, and I've been searching for 2-3 weeks now, and have not found anything this informative to a newby. I was looking at the FAST intake, and aftermarket heads, and throttle bodies, and cams, excetera excetera.
Not only is this information overwhelming, but some of these parts are very expensive as you pointed out.Most of the information out there are advertisements! OR shootouts about peak power. This video is very well said, and well put. I know its gonna take money to build a strong and solid engine, but after watching this video, I have a better understanding of where to spend that money.Thank you. I am now a subscriber, and looking forward to your other videos.

[texastootin]

If youre new to LS engines, its all about getting them to breathe. A decent set of headers and a few other bolt on upgrades you can put down 375-400hp no problem. Once you start getting into the bigger cams and heads, they really wake up. A good heads cam exhaust combo can get you 500 or more NA. Also theyre really strong and you can boost fairly high on the stock bottom end without a rebuild. The best thing is theyre cheap and many companies make swap parts for basically any vehicle. My 88 s10 has a stock 6.0 in it and its pretty damn quick for a stock truck motor

[justinrowe]

These reasons alone are why I binge watch everything from Richard Holdner. Real world testing using relatable builds.

[philllsxga.]

You are correct. I watched a video on LS intakes and unless you are making 600 to 800 horsepower the LS 3, 6 or trailblazer intake is just fine.

[EJerk]

Let's not fail to mention that the ls intake is one of the best stock intakes ever built

[MikeMiller-fccc]

Cylinders, CYLINDERS, NOT CHAMBERS. Chambers are are the combustion chambers in the head.

[RustyTunedRacing]

Not sure where your getting the boosted 4.8 vs 6.0 numbers. Stock 4.8 makes 288hp vs 325 on a 6.0 if you add one atmosphere 14.7 psi you would essentially double the horsepower at this rate you have only lost under 100hp from 6.0 to 4.8.

Also a 4.8 can be spun to 8k and on turbo application makes it very favourable. Also usually less than 1/2 the price of a 6.0

[elmarko]

I was thinking of this exact video when watching a PowerNation 4.8 LS build. They got a 4.8 junkyard engine that had internal damage, then they added $1500 in parts to it. They would have been money ahead, just finding a good 6.0 (even if they had to pay $1000 for it), and done a cam and rockers. And the 6.0 would have much more potential for additional power with more modification. It helped show off fancy aftermarket parts, which I think was the goal all along.

[derekrunyan]

Very thorough, well said.
I did however click on this to see a specific parts list for a good LS build . Good points were made here. Would like to add the weight of an oil cooler / turbo piping / intercooler / is also more weight than a good N/A build or most supercharger setups .

[BP-kcdj]

HELL YEAH!! You are a straight shooter. Love it. I have seen so many of these youtubers do exactly what you described. They pump up the 5.3 and 4.8 liters saying that they can hold more adders but never talk about the real value of them. RIGHT ON MAN! I am a new sub for sure!

[autumnjeserich]

It's also worth pointing out most gen 3 truck blocks the 4.8/5.3 is one block, the 6.0 is a different block. A 4.8 5.3 can't be bored out to a 4 inch bore to be a 6.0 since the 6.0 and 5.3 are the same crankshaft. There is some stupid rare 4.8 5.3 6.0 blocks that are typically 99-00 blocks that can be bored out to a 6.0 but they are wicked rare. Where I live you can pull a 5.3 out of the junkyard yourself for a little less than 400 but the 6.0s are just hoarded by the vultures and flipped on fb marketplace for about 2k. I went to the yard at opening for 2 weeks trying to find me a new 6.0 for my truck and they would always be picked by the time I found a car that had it. I got lucky and found out my old 6.0 seized up due to rods and the mains had survived so I'm building it into a 408 stroker.

For those who do buy a 6.0 gen 3 motor. a quick tip on how to make some cheap power out of it is to buy a set of 706 or 862 heads from the junkyard which are readily available, the smaller chamber will bump the compression up a nice bit and make power. I took the liberty of porting mine as well cause I got mine for 60 bucks and if I ruin them oh well I'll go get another set and try again and get better at it.

[kevinredden]

Exactly. People need to understand engines are about the combination of parts you put together to accomplish how you will use the vehicle. You also need to take into account the existing transmission, rear gears, converter, clutch....

[cgray]

Usually don't go for the all talk no action videos, but I really enjoyed this one. Just bought an LQ9 to drop in my 350Z so this was good.

[jaydz]

Richard holdener has great videos on LS Motors I suggest you go there. He has plenty of videos showing differences in motors, intakes, cams and heads. He also provides the charts that you can see the gains from low range RPM and high range RPMs. Common sense when watching like you noticed. You’ll be able to see the RPM band where you usually see yourself driving and you can determine okay which one has the best HP gain in my usual driving

[richfarfugnuven]

Dropping an LQ4 into my 72 C10 with a 4L80E.

[mattward]

Good video. The truck engine/intake is definitely the best for low to mid range street driving and will definitely support power. If anything just port the truck intake and heads in a way to increase port velocity not opening them up so much that you loose low end and now need more mods to make power through in a decent cam nothing too crazy tune it and it will have you pretty happy especially if put in something smaller.

[mattmcgee]

That’s the info these car shows on tv & YouTube fail to mention. Great video

[kczeuchgmail]

Rather than combustion chamber size, think swept volume (displacement)

[crw]

Your thumbnail was misleading, but the information in the video was on point. The average person assumes the same gains you get on a 6.2 or 6.0, you will get on a 5.3 or 4.8 Plus like you pointed out, most horsepower numbers are highlighted at 5k rpms or higher. Unless the engine is being used for a strip or road race application, those numbers are not relevant for regular street applications.

[rubensantiago]

No replacement for displacement. Love this