454’s Dying – LS / turbo Swap It or Stay Old School?

[76z28]

your not just gonna drop a ls in that car.i had one in my garage when i was rebuilding our old z28.long story short.i have a bbc in it.i know all about the ls and how easy to make power and yes they are great..but not cheap either to get in and running proper.like said above work it out on paper.i had a ton of sbc and bbc parts in stock.very happy with bbc in both cars.a mild 454 with trick flow heads.and a badass 496.

I just want to point out.. the cost of a set of bbc heads really outweighs the cost of an LS.


I am into my car what I sold my 496/t56 for.
I have a 6.0 with a forged rotating assembly, lsa blower, and 8 speed transmission now. It outruns the 489 I had in the car all day long and that was before I did the lower pulley swap.

 

[76z28]

I like what biker said. Your 454 is free too. It’s not cracked or blown we think? You might give it a refresh . Clean up the bores , new rings. New crankshaft bearing etc. when I look at the LS motor , I see an ugly alien laying there , just just a mess of 100 parts, tubes , hoses ,runners , wires . The clean old school engines are a thing of beauty. At a show I just admire the cars , pay no attention to LS motors . So if I was diving it to work , using it everyday, then some sort of new motor will hold up better ,you might think. As biker said , there will be more involved than meets the eye , as you are changing everything. If you drag race every weekend , use the LS. The 454 can give you old school CHEAP thrills , without out all the direct port, super high compression, turbos , electronic crap or Computers. I think you might be amazed how a few days at the beauty shop might wake up your tired old 454. Some of them in 70’s would easy run 300,000 in a Chevy suburban , the blocks are very thick and strong. Tear it down , see if it worth fixing ?

There's nothing to admire about a sbc or bbc either. They are engiens just like the LS. Everything about the LS is better(and it should be it's an evolution of those).

I do love the arguments "REEE the LS isn't simple!!!"

Trust me.. it's just as simple as the small block or big block it replaces with a lot of advantages.

 

[1980RS]

Send that LS-7 my way. I'll make it rock, just had a friend who got one and is going to make an 800hp blower engine out of it but I told him he needs to change the pistons and camshaft. Other than that, those bottom ends are bullet proof.

 

[biker]

I just want to point out.. the cost of a set of bbc heads really outweighs the cost of an LS.


I am into my car what I sold my 496/t56 for.
I have a 6.0 with a forged rotating assembly, lsa blower, and 8 speed transmission now. It outruns the 489 I had in the car all day long and that was before I did the lower pulley swap.

That's the right way to do any engine. Build it right, seal it right, tune it right. Dropping in a junkyard LS is likely to result in the same oil leaks and unreliability you get with any old used engine.

 

[G72Zed]

...Ahh ,don't forget about the deep tone a big block makes with cubes. There is no ls or small block that sounds like it, I myself ,have an LS6 454 GM crate engine , a 400 sbc, and a 350 , just my .02, DC.

I know of one…..I’m a traditional SBC/Big block guy, but this one sounds pretty good even if we are a
Little short on rpm at 8,100 compared to the Big Blocks…and 1,000 short on the 13* headed SBC’s.

Oh, and it’s carbureted

 

[1978 Z/28]

I like old school put the big block in it

 

[73Z L92]

The other thing to consider is the weight of a BBC compared to a alum block or iron block LS.
A guess on my part on the alum LS block is 175 lbs lighter compared to a BBC? 150 lbs for a iron block LS compared to a BBC?

 

[besserspat]

Sit and reflect about what you really want to do with the car, thats ALL that matters. I have built, rode and driven fast stuff all my life, among my toy collection , some few toys remain decently fast. But funny enough the faster the car/motorcycle the less I actually drive it.

Im getting old sure , but I can assure you that a slow vintage car that is driving is better than a "9 sec ET Toretto Super wizz bang deluxe" project that doesn't drive yet.

My time on this planet in short, and I prefer to go places, enjoy and drive my stuff , rather than wrenching on it. Dont get me wrong, I love building/tinkering on my cars and motorcycles but when I feel like it, not because I have to.

Driving a old car is already very cool in itself, how fast it should be is really up to the owner to assess how much money , time and effort he's willing to put in it, in order to achieve that elusive ET goal or HP number to wow the dudes at the coffee and cars.

In my lifetime I rarely kicked myself for having a vintage car that's too slow, but I did for the many time I took a simple, well driving stock vintage car and made it a unpractical money pit that is a pain in the butt to drive around .

I would either invest 1000$ in your existing 454 with a refresh, if the engine is not salvageable, buy a perfectly running near stock 454, and call it a day.

Peter

 

[Jeffp541]

Sit and reflect about what you really want to do with the car, thats ALL that matters. I have built, rode and driven fast stuff all my life, among my toy collection , some few toys remain decently fast. But funny enough the faster the car/motorcycle the less I actually drive it.

Im getting old sure , but I can assure you that a slow vintage car that is driving is better than a "9 sec ET Toretto Super wizz bang deluxe" project that doesn't drive yet.

My time on this planet in short, and I prefer to go places, enjoy and drive my stuff , rather than wrenching on it. Dont get me wrong, I love building/tinkering on my cars and motorcycles but when I feel like it, not because I have to.

Driving a old car is already very cool in itself, how fast it should be is really up to the owner to assess how much money , time and effort he's willing to put in it, in order to achieve that elusive ET goal or HP number to wow the dudes at the coffee and cars.

In my lifetime I rarely kicked myself for having a vintage car that's too slow, but I did for the many time I took a simple, well driving stock vintage car and made it a unpractical money pit that is a pain in the butt to drive around .

I would either invest 1000$ in your existing 454 with a refresh, if the engine is not salvageable, buy a perfectly running near stock 454, and call it a day.

Peter

Thanks everyone for weighing in, definitely all great things to consider all around.

My main goal with the car is to get my wife (she rather I have something new reliable / normal as she calls it) to want to go on drives, take the t tops off, drive it to car shows with the family, take it to the coast for the weekend. Ideally not leave us stranded. I've never been more than a spectator at a race track and I definitely don't have the pockets or wife permission to change that lol.

I already have a set of clean ready to assemble 990 heads to ditch the peanut ports, and my current 454 is obviously already ready to go with all new nice chrome components that have less then 1000 miles since buying, so the most logical path seems to be cry once and build a nice 454 that I can trust. Doesn't need to be balls to the wall, but correctly machined, pump gas friendly, with a modern roller cam setup, and that should last me a long time.

 

[76z28]

The other thing to consider is the weight of a BBC compared to a alum block or iron block LS.
A guess on my part on the alum LS block is 175 lbs lighter compared to a BBC? 150 lbs for a iron block LS compared to a BBC?

You'd be surprised. An iron ls is heavy(which is why they can handle the power they do)

My camaro with a aluminum headed big block/th400/10 bolt weighs exactly the iron 6.0/8hp70/9 inch.