kreb wrote:
Yeah, but he's upping the ante with a supercharger and intercooler, so that's got to eat into the weight differential some. He's gone through a couple of transmissions too, which makes me wonder if the Gertrag is going to hold up, or if he'll need to adapt a (heavy) t56. There's the chance that Like Kurt, he'll end up saying "Wow, I could have had a V8!"
At $400 a pop from the junkyard, he could go through 7 of them before he gets to the cost of a new T56, or at least four of them for the cost of a used T56. Weight is about the same, I think he said it was in the neighborhood of 130lbs, which is what a T56 weighs.
His first trans was broken from the junkyard with a seized pivot, his second was chewed up due to grinding gears because his original flywheel was incorrectly machined so the clutch release was overtraveling. None of the failures have been pure race-related.
No $1200 stock-long-block LS is going to give you 400whp (he claims more whp than an F430, which dyno over 400whp). An LS2 will get you about 360whp. An LS3 might be above 400whp, but that's a $5000+ engine, used.
I feel like there's some benefit in running a factory sealed long block that can be slammed in place. No cam swap, no head swap, no messing around. You get factory tolerances, factory tune, and factory build quality.
I'd bet he's got a better hp:weight:dollar:reliability ratio with a $1200 long block and $2000 supercharger than he would with an LS-based combo.