ls1 build...well kind of

[quote=“psychopjv,post:40,topic:34941"”]

It’s not like he didn’t get the cam he asked for. Again as stated people’s minds change. Cougar said he changed it 4 times. Your car sounds good with the 847 in it. Jeeves car sounds good also and runs great. He’s been saying he wants bigger for awhile. Owner’s preference always plays the biggest role. I went with a mid grind because it was cheap for me and it works damned good for what i want it to do. I’m sure it’ll love the bottle too…

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jeeves laid down 392 on an addmitedly highish dyno if memory serves me correctly. Yes it sounds good. Once you get ANY cam over 220 @.050 it will sound good. It just sucks to know he left a lot on the table, and he’s got an LS6 not an LS1 for crying out loud! I’m sure his car could handle a big cam better than an LS1. I honestly can’t remember the last time I heard someone put in a mildish cam, and not complain that they should have gone bigger a month or two later.

P.S. I don’t have the 847, I have a comp “cookie cutter cam”

This is getting OT a little bit, But I agree with cougerspeed, and I don’t think some others are being logical. There are some things you MUST take in account for running a large “cam only” setup, for discussing street drive ability.

The tune is HUGE, a good tune can remove most of the issues that scare people away form what they can deal with, for living with a large cam everyday use.

In a m6 car talking about “area under the curve” as a negative isn’t logical. Like cougerspeed said, I’m also not trying to be a dick. But I don’t think you have ever drivin a Trex/hellion/MS4/G5X3 setup car. Yes it might feel a little doggy down low, if you lean on it at a low rpm is might surge or buck. But honestly by the time to drive the car out of the shop/garage, and 1/2mile down the road. You learn to drive it a little different and you don’t let it happen, and its fine. After 1 day of seat time you learn it fine. The first time you get caught off guard form a roll, by a “area under the curve” cam car, You go “thats sucks” and do it again form a gear lower. :wink: You have a shit ton of top end power, and say to yourself “whats area under the curve”?

Gears. 3.73s-4.10s make a huge improvement for living with a big cam. Over running your Trex/hellion/MS4/G5X3 with your 3.42s.

[quote=“Studderin,post:42,topic:34941"”]

This is getting OT a little bit, But I agree with cougerspeed, and I don’t think some others are being logical. There are some things you MUST take in account for running a large “cam only” setup, for discussing street drive ability.

The tune is HUGE, a good tune can remove most of the issues that scare people away form what they can deal with, for living with a large cam everyday use.

In a m6 car talking about “area under the curve” as a negative isn’t logical. Like cougerspeed said, I’m also not trying to be a dick. But I don’t think you have ever drivin a Trex/hellion/MS4/G5X3 setup car. Yes it might feel a little doggy down low, if you lean on it at a low rpm is might surge or buck. But honestly by the time to drive the car out of the shop/garage, and 1/2mile down the road. You learn to drive it a little different and you don’t let it happen, and its fine. After 1 day of seat time you learn it fine. The first time you get caught off guard form a roll, by a “area under the curve” cam car, You go “thats sucks” and do it again form a gear lower. :wink: You have a shit ton of top end power, and say to yourself “whats area under the curve”?

Gears. 3.73s-4.10s make a huge improvement for living with a big cam. Over running your Trex/hellion/MS4/G5X3 with your 3.42s.

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Don’t forget that in an auto with a decent stall converter, the slight cam surge is negated too.

[quote=“joelster,post:41,topic:34941"”]

jeeves laid down 392 on an addmitedly highish dyno if memory serves me correctly. Yes it sounds good. Once you get ANY cam over 220 @.050 it will sound good. It just sucks to know he left a lot on the table, and he’s got an LS6 not an LS1 for crying out loud! I’m sure his car could handle a big cam better than an LS1. I honestly can’t remember the last time I heard someone put in a mildish cam, and not complain that they should have gone bigger a month or two later.

P.S. I don’t have the 847, I have a comp “cookie cutter cam”

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i’m not complaining about my cam? i’ve had zero issues with this cam aside from the fact that it makes the motor noisy. I actually thought about going to a smaller cam with different lobe characteristics just to shut it up some. LS6/LS1 the difference isn’t anything to massive contrary to popular belief.

[quote=“psychopjv,post:44,topic:34941"”]

i’m not complaining about my cam? i’ve had zero issues with this cam aside from the fact that it makes the motor noisy. I actually thought about going to a smaller cam with different lobe characteristics just to shut it up some. LS6/LS1 the difference isn’t anything to massive contrary to popular belief.

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I’m just saying that i’ve seen so many times where people get kinda scared about picking a cam and they go conservative. Then once it’s in there they realize that a big lope is no big deal, and they wish they would have went bigger. As far as the LS6 differences, I was just saying it could handle it better, I know it has better heads.

True lots of people do go the bigger is better route.

i speak from experience… 2k isn’t going to be enough. don’t go cheap just because you only have 2k, save the money until you have more to spend on higher quality/efficiency per dollar. i only wanted to spend 1500 to go through my stock axle instaed of the 2500 for the moser 12-bolt like everyone said. after i shattered the stocker the 3rd time i ended up with a built moser 12-bolt anyway and spent 6000 instead of the 2500 to start with. LISTEN TO THESE GUYS, DON’T LEARN THE HARD WAY LIKE I DID

good read here also, about the negatives of moding your car.
http://www.ls1tech.com/forums/showthread.php?t=625715&page=1&pp=20

yah i have the money I just am not sure if I want to go and drop XXXX amount into my car to make it go go go…I’m thinking about AFR205’s/cam/ls6 intake with my spray…we will see we will see

If you can spend that much then that would be a good way to go. I personally think that there are some decent heads for much less than the AFRs but they are top notch if you want to pay for them. The only thing to decide on is the cam then. Some people act like others are bashing the Trex or other “big” cams. That isn’t the case at all (at least from me)…it just depends on what YOU want. All I’m saying is don’t make your car the way you think others want it to be. Take some time and decide what you want it to be like. Once you know exactly what your goals are THEN people can tell you how to best make it that way. You should just also take the time to know the possible down sides to every option. The drivability of a Trex type cam certainly is a possible downside depending on what you want. Yes good tuning can make a huge difference but also, everyone has different thresholds to what annoys them when they have to drive it every day. Could be perfect for some and others would hate it. Also with a cam that big and such steep ramps, there is definitely more possible maintenance down the road with the valve train. To a lot of people it’s a perfectly worthwhile trade off…some not.

Btw I also have a C5 and will be doing heads/cam myself. It is my personal preference to not go to a cam that requires revving out to 7000 rpm. I don’t want to worry about changing my springs for a long time. I don’t want it to sound or act like a track car. I don’t think it’s wrong to go “big” if that’s what you want but it isn’t what I want. I’ll be shooting for 425-450 rwhp and that will be good enough for me. I don’t think I’ll be going any bigger than 230 on the duration of my cam and probably just under .600 lift to keep the ramp rates down some. I my engine to peak around 6000 rpm instead of 7000 which means I’ll need the intake valve closing at around 39-40* ABDC. You should also keep your dynamic compression up around 8.5-8.7 on 93 octane and that will help you with your lower end torque if you do go big on the cam. If I do decide I want more down the road then I’ll buy a charger for it and it’ll still drive almost stock till you’re on it. 425-450 rwhp will be far from having bragging rights around here (or anywhere else) but that’s not what I’m interested in anyway and with a good matched setup and good tires that hook it should run 11’s no problem and that’ll make me plenty happy :slight_smile:

Also if you plan to make some good power and then put some tires on that will hook up, you’re going to break some shit. The first thing I’m doing (before any other mods) probably when I put the AR headers on is pull the rear end, differential, torque tube and put a better clutch in, a hardened left hand output shaft, and a support brace on the rear end. There are guys with stock power in the C5’s that have dropped the hammer at only 2500 rpm at the track with good tires and destroyed their whole rear driveline. I don’t want to deal with that. It would be nice to make a ton of power but not if it snaps and you have to call a flat bed and then spend $5000 to make it hold up.

It would be pretty boring if everyone did the same things anyway. Good luck with what ever you decide to do with it. :beer2:

if i ever got another c5, i’d start from the diff, do up all the weak stuff until i got to the front. then go crazy :tup:

But only if it was more cost-effective in the name of speed compared to a depreciating c6 at the time.

Some really good info in this thread guys. I agree alot depends on how you want it to act best thing to do is find people with similar setups you are interested in and drive them around. A GREAT TUNE IS KEY. If you really dont want to dump alot of money into the car dont buy afr heads im sure they are great but totally unnecessary IMO. About upgrading the rest of the drivetrain thats on you but if you wait just dont drive it hard from a stop and you should be fine. Also gears is a MUST if you get a big cam. Good luck on you quest and let me know if you have any other specific questions.

[quote=“cougarspeed,post:52,topic:34941"”]

dont buy afr heads im sure they are great but totally unnecessary IMO.

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They are great, and not totally unnecessary if you want a “nice” daily driver with lots of torque and good manors

Cougar is right, if you’re not sure what you want then the best way to find out would be to go for a few rides in different set ups. And, if you do decide to go with some heads then after you choose the cam you want, post up the specs for it. Static compression doesn’t really mean shit but your dynamic compression ratio is very important and I’ll need your cam specs to calculate it. From this you can find out what size chamber the heads should have to give you a DCR up around 8.5:1. They come in many sizes and just randomly selecting one could leave you to low and leave hp, torque, drivability and gas milage on the table…to high and you could run into some major knock problems and no timing advance in your tune. And depending on your cam you’ll have to pay attention to the piston to valve clearance.

So when you pick out a cam, post up the specs (I&E durrations, lifts, LSA, and ground in advance).

I’m doing the drive train as well…I have a Spec3+ clutch and flywheel and 3.90 gears with the hardened output shaft…I was more or less looking for some bigger power…the drivability can suffer a little, but I do no want anything to break/ maintenance wise i want it to run forever. My main decision now is to get just a cam or to do a cam/head at the same time. I’m assuming with a cam i’m looking at 375rwh and head/cam more like 450…I’ll be running a 100-150 shot on top of this and was looking to see if anyone had a cam only set up or head/cam set up to look at before I went nuts…I like to research everything before I do it to make sure i’m not going in over my head and to make sure i’m getting something for my time/money/effort…

We can do anything you want. We have done cam, cam/heads, spray. Of everything you listed, with thosue goals and higher. Check out the customer page

it wont take to big of a cam to hit 375, if you already have bolt ons.