LT1 and SM465

[JEBSR]

Heads will bolt up, but this is a reverse cooling engine, so they won't work. The bore and stroke are the same. Intake bolt pattern is different.

This is exactly what I opted to do after my research. I am taking the money from selling my LT-1 and buying a good set of heads and a better induction system. Cheaper and more power easier.

 

[slyguy_22]

The lt1 is an extrodinary motor for camaros, vettes, and hot rods. not very usefull for our type of sport. The lt1 is a very over looked motor that has alot of aftermarket products available and is a very reliable motor with some minor upgrades. But as i stated above not good for our sport! The power that those motors cameout with was great as i have a 96 z28 camaro and i love that car. ford mustangs had no chance for out of the box preformance. it sent a (stock) camaro done the strip at 13.90 et. With a lil tweaking (intake port and good exhaust with slicks) you can run in the low 12's.
Mustangs only recently built a stock mustang with the help of rausch racing to finnaly compete with what chevy accomplished over 15 years ago!! How crazy is that! And dont even get me started on the Ls1/ls2 blocks. Bottom line lt1's are great cheap motors but not designed or easily modified to work in the offroad world. If you want good power with fuel injection i would find build a 350tbi with good intake and heads or a 454 tbi with good heads & intake. Or if you want to be different like me build a 400sbc with tbi! Good luck!

 

[chris12]

Does anyone know of a kit for this motor to just run the Alternator and Power Steering

 

[jac6695]

Not that I am aware of. You can look around for a serpentine setup from a Corvette. It moves all of the accessories up higher for more frame clearance.

My LT1 is in a 77 frame, and with the A/C delete pulley, I only needed a small notch in the frame. Not a big deal at all.

 

[jac6695]

Btw, before I did my swap, I did a lot of reading and research on http://impalassforum.com/ (which apparently has a new layout now, so not sure how much of the archive has been moved), http://www.camaroz28.com/ , http://shbox.com/page/index.html (lots of great F Body info there, shoebox is a genius), and http://home.comcast.net/~spudmanmike/scrapbook.pdf (Mike is a nice guy, and documented a nice LT1 swap into a 86 Monte, with some good tech tips there as well). If I think of more, I will pass them along. BTW, both the Impala and Camaro sites have GM parts guys that frequent the forums and pass along discounts to members of the forums. Might have to do some searching to find there contact info.

 

[jac6695]

Here is an A/C delete pulley on Ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/94-9...5826233QQihZ024QQcategoryZ33543QQcmdZViewItem

 

[vortec]

the old rumor is that gm underrated the advertised power of the LT engines, among others. having driven plenty of LT1 f-bodies and vettes, i can believe that. i even drove one chevelle with an LT1 in place of the factory 396 and can't complain. not as much grunt as a 396, but more responsive and lighter.

gm had legal issues over the reverse cooling patent:
http://www.evanscooling.com/evansvsgm/nytimes.htm
the LS engine heads are easy to modify for reverse cooling, and supposedly they intended to use it at one point.

i've heard some people whine about LT engines overheating, but it's usually their own bad maintenance; not keeping the air out of the cooling system.

It would be tempting to put in the time and money and make it work offroad for the novelty, if nothing else. personally, i'd rather drop it into my dd c1500.