Anyone have an idea of what kind of power the new LS3 motor can handle? Is is a forged piston? Just curious... Going to be selling my 8 second mustang racecar soon, and it will be replaced by an 08 AO Z51 6speed!

http://s52.photobucket.com/albums/g3...t=Numidia3.flv

 

Here are the quoted improvements for the 2008 LS3.

 

so, its just a cast piston then...

 

the ZO-6 has the same type pistons, hypereutectic

 

 

Having had a supercharged 302 I though you might be interested in this quote from the fall 07 issue of Corvette Quarterly

"In addition to larger bores, there's a small but significant machining change in the lower portion of the block to allow it to reliably sustain the higher loads associated with elevated cylinder pressure and the added output ........ " Yesssssssssssss

 

this means what exactly......sounds like a Presidential debate if you ask me, they didnt do squat.

 

Kind of suprising that in a $50,000+ sports car that they couldnt put in a forged piston... Oh well, probably be cam and headers for me when i get the car.

 

forged pistons are noisy on cold start up and GM got all kind of hell from customers about piston noise when cold on the first LS series engines and they were not even forged. the people buying corvettes now are not from the old school of clunking forged pistons used back in the 60s

 

The bottom end of the block is stronger. If you had a stock 302 Ford block and got carried away with FI ....... upwards of 500 HP the block went bye bye so you either installed a girdle on the stock block or bought a HD short block.

Even with forged internals a stock block (302) was not strong enough to withstand much more than 500 HP for any prolonged period of time.

GM has insured that the LS3 block will be able to take more horsepower. If you add forged internals you can make a beast which will last.