This will be more of a generic “here’s my build” post that I’ll update periodically as I gather more parts and such. If you read the last post about being happy with what you have then you’ll have an understanding of what’s going on in a nutshell. If you didn’t read it then here’s what’s going down.

I figured that if I can do a budget 6.0/L92 setup like how Car Craft Magazine did it would be pretty damn worth it considering the power gains and it would also net me a MUCH faster quarter time. It’s fun right now just messing around with “sorta quick” cars on the street, but why not be able to smoke a new GT or even beat a full bolt-on F-Body? Ultimately I want to spray about a 100-150 shot of nitrous on it, but that’s way down the road just to experiment with nitrous.

The Build:

With the help of TooTall I found a pretty good deal on some L92 heads to go on top of the LQ9. There’s a few different castings out there for L92′s so far, but the castings I ended up with are 823′s

A few days later I somehow stumbled across a smokin’ deal on a complete (intake/injectors/throttle body/fuel rail/sensors/gaskets) L92 truck intake that came off a Hummer H2. All of the L92 truck manifolds are the same no matter what truck they were in. Looking at the manifold ports it seems like we could get a flap disc and smooth out a lot of the intake track going into the heads. Maybe someday soon that would be a good Sunday project. Here’s a pic of the intake manifold when I got it

As of right now I don’t really have a budget to my build since I’m wanting to just do everything the way I want it the first time around. When I initially talked with Matt about doing the build we talked about using a running LQx shortblock just like how Car Craft did, but the more I thought about it I kind of decided on going a different route.

Although machining a block can get pretty expensive I just decided to do it anyways so I can have a little piece of mind especially once I start using nitrous.  Through a little dealing with some friends I’ll be getting a LQ9/LQ4 shortblock that needs some machining.  I figure that either block will do just fine since I won’t be using the pistons and likely won’t be using the rods either.  Forged pistons and forged rods will be solid and give me the strength I need to either throw a blower on it or spray a healthy shot of nitrous too.  I haven’t made up my mind yet about what pistons/rods I will be using, but I won’t be taking the cheap route.  If I’m going to take my time building this motor I might as well do it right.

For now, this is my “build tally”:

L92 Heads / 823 Casting complete with valves and springs installed, brand new – $580.00

L92 Intake Manifold / Complete with injectors, fuel rail, 90mm throttle body, and all sensors/gaskets – $125.00

This didn’t last long since my friends had cammed camaros, firebirds, and trucks.  Around April I ended up piecing together my latest build which consisted of a TR224 cam, fully built 4L60E, and a Yank TRT3000 torque converter.  We did the swap and after a few small electrical issues with the transmission I had the rear differential blow up on me.  I knew that eventually the stock G80 would blow up, but it was horrible timing since I just put several thousand into the truck.  I called up a member on PerformanceTrucks.net (AxisT6 aka Brian) and ordered a Detroit TrueTrac with Yukon 4.10 gears.  There goes another thousand dollars…

So after everything was installed and broken in I finally got to the tuning side of everything.  The shifts were a little firm on the low end so I lowered the shift pressure a bit, but everything is still a little more firm than most would be comfortable with.  I always thought that I wouldn’t like to daily drive a “built” car/truck but it kinda grows on you.  A little idle surge here and there won’t hurt anyone, right?  Telling the passengers after the first 1-2 shift that your truck really is fine and it’s meant to be like that is a little annoying sometimes, but it’s all good because I can hang with stock GT’s on the street.  After doing some fine tuning with the VE and MAF tables I finally had everything where I wanted it, and I also experimented with some WOT converter lockup which was fun.  Putting down 350rwhp with the converter locked up sure sounds and feels good, but when you drive a buddy’s cam only Fbody it almost makes you sick.  For some reason I never thought “…damn this thing is really heavy and to make it really ‘fast’ it’s going to take some serious horsepower…”  After rolling around for almost 6 months with my current mods my truck kept feeling “slower” although I knew it was a lot faster than it used to be.  Why can’t we just be happy with 350rwhp?

I eventually want to be in the 12′s which requires some good power (450-500rwhp), but I want to keep it fairly tame.  I could go radical and build a 408 stroker, but I really like the idea of making “efficient” horsepower with newer technology.  Cathedral intake ports are “out” and the new L92 rectangular ports are “in” apparently.  When the new Gen IV truck motors came out I read up a little on them but had no idea how much better the head designs are now.  Basically, here’s the plan: pickup a 6.0 (LQ4/LQ9), get some L92 heads, L92 intake, a new cam, and a Dr. X adapter then call it a day.  Sounds easy, right?  Finding the L92 parts has proven a little more difficult since Car Craft did a great writeup of 550hp on a budget.  I’ll post some more information in an official “project” post later.

photo courtesty of carcraft.com