This posting is one in a series. If you have not yet read the earlier postings in the series, you’ll need to, as this posting won’t make much sense without having done so! Just do a search using the word “SLURP”.
In my last posting, I flashed a glimpse at Red’s future engine intake system.
In this posting, the actual engine arrives! (see photos below)
http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh16/JimGnitecki/Redsenginearrives001.jpghttp://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh16/JimGnitecki/Redsenginearrives002.jpghttp://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh16/JimGnitecki/Redsenginearrives003.jpgOk, so the “mid-engine mounting” is unorthodox – we’re just trying to address that front versus rear weight bias problem!
Seriously, the engine is a salvaged LS series “LQ9” engine from a Cadillac Escalade. My friend Randy found it for me through the connections at the shop where he works.
It is a 6.0 liter engine, very similar to an LQ4 (300 to 320 crank hp), which is found in many of the GM heavy duty pickups and SUVs, and also very similar to an LS2 (400 hp), the engine in the Corvette until the Corvette got the bored out 6.2 liter. With compression ratio of 10.08, the LQ9 has higher compression than the LQ4 (9.5), but lower than the LS2 (10.9).
It has the exact same part number crankshaft, rods, and pistons as the LS2. Its heads are ALMOST identical – both the LS2 and the LQ9 use the Corvette LS6 head design, but the chamber is larger in the LQ9 in order to lower the compression to the 10.08, since the Cadillac Escalade and Silverado SS pickup trucks it was designed for are too heavy to run with a 10.9 compression ratio on pump gas.
In factory stock form, the LQ9 makes “only” 345 crank horsepower, despite its 6.0 liter displacement, but that is because it has a VERY mild “truck and SUV” cam (196 intake / 207 exhaust, and only 0.467 / 0.479 lift, 116 LSA). It makes that modest 345 hp at only 5200 rpm. In factory form, it also makes a peak of 380 foot pounds of torque, somewhere in the mid 4000s rpm.
People who have changed only the cam and added headers versus the cast exhaust manifolds, have gotten the power up into the 425 to 485 crank hp range. This is called “upside potential”.
I intend to exercise SOME of that upside potential (more info in future postings).
The published weights vary, and I don’t have a scale robust enough to weigh the engine (my wife said emphatically “no” when I wondered aloud if the bathroom scale could take it). But, the HIGHEST published weight I could find for this engine, dressed, is under 500 pounds. GM Performance Parts, who ought to know what it weighs since they (a) built it and (b) ship it daily, officially say, in their “crate engine quick reference chart”, that the weight of an LS2 is 412 pounds as shipped – including the “crate and all packaging material”, and then goes on to say that the weight of the crate and packaging material is 30 pounds. So, the raw weight of the engine is only 382 pounds, BUT the crate version is “undressed”, and the LQ9 is also 65 pounds heavier due to its iron versus alloy block. I don’t know the weight of all the accessories we will add, but it will be less than typical due to Red’s simplicity. For example, no power steering pump.
Taking the most pessimistic weight for the new engine and tranny, and the most optimistically light weight for the 261 inline six and CAST IRON automatic transmission in Red right now, I am going to save at LEAST 150 pounds, while about TRIPLING the horsepower. WithOUT a blower.
In addition, it is evident that Red is going to weigh at MOST 3000 pounds, whereas my SSR, with the blower aboard, and no fuel, was at least 4750 before fuel, so Red is only 63% of the weight of my SSR, with ¾ of the power, and the SSR was FAST.
Sounds like a fun prescription. Randy and I are both giggling at the prospects.
Jim G
