V8 Ricers Sacrilege or Genius?

You’re driving down the street when you hear it, a loud and rugged roar of an engine, and then you see it in your rearview, a beautiful pearlescent orange Mazda RX-7 pulling up next to you in the stoplight. You try to guess what he is running under the hood but you just can’t recognize the sound, it’s not a turbo because it doesn’t sound like it’s got some sort of forced induction but the engine yet sounds so mean and powerful. He looks at you and revs his engine, you say, “Why not my car can take him”. You get ready for the light to turn green and as it does you notice the RX-7 roar and lead the way already a car length away. As he finishes running the block and slows down for you to catch up you make the sign for him to pull over. You both pull over and you talk about how that was cool and you ask him if you can see what he has under the hood. You expect him to have some sort of highly modified Mazda rotary engine or maybe a swapped turbocharged RB26DETT, but what you find leaves you stupefied to say the least. The Mazda RX-7 that just beat you is running a GM LS1 V8, a DOMESTIC V8 engine!

This might not happen to every one of you but the truth is GM V8 engines are now making their way into the tuner scene, especially the LS series. GM LS engines have been very popular with Mazda RX-7 owners for years now. Some Nissan owners have started doing the switch too, just look at some of the Formula D cars.

But what about the fact that V8 engines are big, bulky, expensive, gas guzzlers, and heavy?

Well that might have been true for the V8 engines of the 1960’s up to in some cases the 1990’s but the fact is that today’s V8 are much more efficient than their older counterparts. Today’s V8s are made with many of the following materials and components:
* Cast aluminum (or in the case of trucks, cast iron) engine blocks with Siamese bores
* Forged steel crankshafts
* Forged steel (or in the case of the newer LS engines titanium)
* Forged aluminum pistons
* Aluminum heads with titanium or steel valves
* Composite intake manifolds
* Cast iron exhaust manifolds
* Sequential fuel injection
* Coil on plug ignition

As you can see V8s are pretty much made with some very high strength materials and are pretty more modern and efficient than most people think. In this article I’m going to describe in as much detail as possible the positive and negative effects that a V8, specifically a GM LS engine, can have on your car.

First of all many of you are probably saying, “Even if this is a good idea it’s probably so expensive that it’s something better reserved for sponsored teams rather than an average Joe like me”. Well it’s not so expensive as you might think, for example a brand new Honda K series engine costs easily over $4K if I’m not mistaken and makes 230HP at the flywheel right out of the crate while a brand new GM LS1 can cost no more than $3,400 or used from, if you’re lucky like me whole lives in an area with an enormous supply of Z28 Camaros, $290 in good conditions with over 400HP at the flywheel in a stock tune. It doesn’t sound that expensive now does it? Now the cost of a transmission for these engines can run from $800 to $3000 for a high performance version in either automatic, electronic overdrive, paddle shifted clutch less transmission (for those who like rally and autocross), manual, and manual with overdrive.

Something that many drifter and autocross competitors wouldn’t like of a traditional V8 would be the heavy weight concentrated at the nose which would cause lots of under steer, but LS engines are not your traditional V8s. LS engines because of their aluminum construction can be pretty lightweight at approximately 390lbs more or less depending on your configuration. I know it might sound heavy but think about the fact that this 390lb engine can easily produce 500 horses before you start upgrading basic stuff like the fuel, ignition, and intake system. Now depending on your application, LS engines can make great low end torque averaging at about 280ft/lb  and extreme high end horsepower reaching well over the 1,000HP mark and in the case of the now 3 year old LSX  over 3,400 Horsepower.

On the short run the price of installing a LS engine might sound a little pricey and I’m sure some of you are already thinking that it will be even pricier on the long run, but it really isn’t so. LS engines have been mass produced in large quantities since 1997 and have been used from small cars trucks to high performance cars/SUVs to large SUVs and in some cases even airplanes. This has cause the market to be saturated with a large number of high quality replacement and performance parts at really low prices. This makes it extremely quick, easy, and cheap for the average Joe to repair his LS conversion in case of a wear and tear.

If by now your thinking, “Wow I want to do that, but how” here is the solution. The market has started to fill the demand for conversion of LS engines into smaller tuner cars and like in the example of the RX-7s suppliers have started selling conversion kits and conversion engine mounts and cross members. Some of the suppliers of these kits are as follows:
* Boss Frog
* Hinson Supercars
* Improved Racing
* Monster Miata
* Samberg Rod and Custom
* V8 Roadster

These companies offer everything you need to convert your cars from a kitty to a tiger.

Hope this article helps all of you gearheads and racers with your next swap, now remember nothing is too crazy when “Crazy Joe” is involved.