I’m trying to decide here between doing a heads cam build or an ECS. I bought a brand new ECS 1500 kit from another member who sold their car before installing and had it sitting for 2 years in the garage. I also bought head and cam off him as well. The cost is a bit prohibitive for me to do both. I don’t track, maybe some roll racing etc. for fun occasionally. If I were to supercharge the stock block with the ECS kit and stayed around 8psi, do I need to do anything with the heads at all for long term reliability? It’s an M7 that never goes into eco… that being said I know the lifters are still a weak point even when DOD isn’t working. I just want to make sure I’m not signing up for a $10k repair bill in 10k miles. I do currently have the “revised” blue valve springs in and new GM rockers w/ BTR captured trunnions that I had installed while the springs were being swapped out.

 

Ive been running my Edelbrock w/canned tune on my LT1 M7 for last 10k miles with some hard canyon runs...no issues. The standard comment is under 600whp is the safe range, but theres those out there taking that rosk going well above that.

Here is a video on my page on the review.

 

Install the supercharger and sell the heads cam package

 

Install the supercharger , keep it at or under 600 HP and enjoy it . Runs just like stock until you plant the gas pedal.

Dave

PS its not the heads on LT1 , it's the ring gap and pistons ..

 

Agree with all of the above. My car has no problem making hp with stock heads. Force enough air in there with a blower and your engine won’t know the difference. 😏

But if you’re at 900hp and looking for a few more…go ahead and throw your money at a port job.

Naturally aspirated? That’s a whole different story. But on these LT engines the stock heads are really not going to give your best bang for the buck paying for a port job. But “ported heads” does sound cool.

 

Agreed, do the blower.

 

I have the ECS supercharger on my 2016, it's great. I have had many head/cam configurations on my LS1 in the past but
The supercharger works great with the stock LT1 motor and has lots of room to grow should you want more later. The heads are fine as is.
A good tune is a must either way.
Ring gap is you HP limiter as previously noted.