U Lost

First off i want to apologize for such a long post. Im hoping the more detail i provide the better answers and suggestions i will get.

My current set up is a 2008 LS3 A6 my bottom end and transmission are completely stock.

Mods are standard A&A V3si trim on a 3.8 pulley
texas speed PRC 6 bolt aftermarket casting LS3 250cc heads
225/230 114 cam, LG superpro headers and LG GT4 exhaust.

For 2 years now the car has made 660rwhp and 588rwtq and i have driven the car pretty hard. Making about 30 passes down the strip and over 100 freeway pulls and the car has worked flawlessly.

I just finally switched to E85 by adding a fore fuel system with twin aem pumps which work great. The car now makes 711rwhp and 629rwtq. I have been on this set up for about a month and after a night of hard driving the car started to run way hotter then normal and started spitting coolent out of the overflow on the side of the tank. The shop that has done all the work to my car looked at it and told me, it has both small leaks around both the front and rear main seals, and probably needs new head gaskets, or is slightly starting to lift the head. They are thinking the bump in power may have found the week point and is now accelerating problems that have started a while ago.

Instead of paying the $2000 labor costs to fix these problems a month after spending $3500 on purchase and installation of a new fuel system i am considering buying a shortblock.

My main goal is i want a street car, that makes around 800rwhp and will live a very long life. I have no intention of turning power up beyond that. I would reuse my same heads and cam because they work great with the blower. I would do an 8rib upgrade and upgrade the blower to a T trim. I am really leaning staying with stock cubes.

I am leaning toward the ERL shortblock that is $3650 plus core.

Does anyone have any other good short block suggestions, or opinions in general.

Also does it matter that i would be using 6bolt heads on a 4bolt block?

Sorry again for the long winded post. Thanks for any and all help and opinions.

Unreal

4 bolt isn't an issue.

800rwhp will need a blower upgrade.

Livernois and LME are great places to get motors. I would contact both of them.

turbotuner20v

Why did the car run hot enough to puke coolant out the overflow? I would think that would have to be a broken belt or coolant system issue.

I would bet that you could just put a better breather system (PCV) on the car and the leak on the front and rear seal might go away.

I find it hard to believe that with a tuner of average competence that you lifted a head or had detonation at the ~700whp level on E85.


Basically I think that tearing the thing down and rebuilding might not be needed.

U Lost

The car for sure did not throw or break a belt. It has never run hot before. I noticed after 2 freeway pulls that the coolent temp was up near 250degrees. I pulled over lifed the hood and saw that the coolent had puked out of the overflow. I had my friend come with the trailer, go back to a local shop, (i was out of town) we filled the car with coolent and let it run for a half hour did not get above 190degree. About an hour later went out and did 3 more wot pulls and came back and the tank was almost empty and car was getting hot again. I could see where it had puked out the overflow again. For what its worth no other changes were made in the tune other then taking it from 14degrees of timing up to 20 and re adjusting the airfuel mixture which stayed at 11.4 from 3500 up to 6400 rpm. The shop that put my heads cam and supercharger is certain it needs new head gaskets.

Unreal

20 degrees of timing seems a bit much. It does sound like you popped a gasket. I would just replace them and move on. No reason to do a short block. Head gasket swap is easy.

schpenxel

Sounds like head gasket to me too

slow ride

You got a good strong gen 4 bottom end, keep using it just pull some timing. Swap to ls9 gaskets/arp studs and make sure the heads and block are clean and have good surface finish. Add some crankcase vent to it so it doesn't push oil from the rear/front main seals as you might hold off replacing them unless it's really bad.

ajrothm

+1

Definitely lifting the heads and yacked the gaskets.. Just repair what you have. As long as the deck on the block is not torched, no reason to pull the shortblock.

Surface mill the heads just enough to true them up, arp studs and ls9 gaskets and back together with it. Take the timing back to 17*... 20* is obviously too much... I can't believe they would put that much timing in it.

RPOWU8

I would check the fan connector to see if the ground wire or power wire has burned up. Always good to check the simple things first. Doesn't take long to overheat with the fan not working properly.

.02

DJ

breecher_7

We run 23 Degrees peak on a maxed out 9.5:1 YSI/408, a engine likes what a engine likes... Im not saying that this engine liked 20 degrees but I am really tired of hearing people say "thats to much timing". If there is no detonation/knock and the engine likes it, let it eat...

ajrothm

Yeah so a 9.5-1 dished piston (likely forged with tall crowns and thick ring lands) is obviously not the same as a 10.9-1 (or whatever they are) ls3 with cast pistons made of glass.. So let's stick with the obvious here.

I get your point on what and engine wants etc etc... But for the masses here that just blew up their stock engines and don't tune on their own, I think some due diligence on conservative timing numbers recommendations is appropriate.


And on that note, I see tons of forged engines getting yacked down here from pro shops putting 19-20* in them on pump/meth.... Yet engines with 15-16* last a long time...

07_C6_WPB

07_C6_WPB

If you did decide to upgrade the blower, why wouldn't you get a YSI over a T trim ?

U Lost

to answer some questions and ask some more, i would not go YSI because i dont want more then about 800rwhp. I have seen to many cars that are useless on the street above that power level. The car saw no knock on any of the dyno pulls all the way up to 6400rpm at 20degrees of timing. I wanted to do a pulley swap to a 3.6 or maybe even a 3.4 but on E85 the injector duty cycle was at about 90% on my 80lb injectors.

IF i would have put bigger injectors in and went up a few lbs of boost leaving the timing around 15degrees would that have been a better solution and maybe not caused this problem?

Unreal

For 800-850rwhp the Ti or T trim would be better. No need for a Ysi.

nareg

I would think this or maybe head gasket. Like others have stated if no need to build it why do it. Also what if you're dancing around the problem and have the same problem with a built motor.