McLaren replica build base on a Manta

[Terry Oxandale]

LS2 arrived today.

The LS2 arrived today!

LS2 without pallet and without water pump, exhaust, starter, or flywheel weighs 340 pounds. Add 45 for the Kennedy Engineering flywheel, adapter plate, clutch, pressure plate, and bearing, and I’ve got a 385 pound motor. Not too bad! I was estimating 400 pounds based on what everyone was telling me, and shur-nuff, they were pretty close.

400 HP and ft/pounds, and every reference I investigate indicates that just a cam and exhaust upgrade will get me up into the mid 400s with this motor.

 

[Jack]

Nice Ox, a simple camshaft and exhaust will easily put you into the 400HP range. The LS engines readily make power without breaking the bank! My LS1 with cam and a little head work and Z-06 intake makes 430HP on the dyno. You're ahead with the LS2 as the intake and heads are better to begin with.

 

[Terry Oxandale]

Yep! Advertised is 400 hp with matching torque. I weighed the entire engine, guts inside the bellhousing, and 930 transaxle and it came in at 523 lbs. Thats 4 lbs lighter than my 289 with a G-force built WC-T5 and aluminum bellhousing guts.

I never really thought I'd see as much bang per lb as the ol' SBF (from a realistic and economically sound point of view), but I think this one will do it.

 

[Mike Trusty]

Terry:

I didn't realize that you had a build site. I have just now found it. I saw you waving at me a little while ago when we met going down Markham Street. Now I know why you were smiling.

I think I told you that I dynoed the LS7 motor two weeks ago that I'm working on to go in a Pantera. On a conservative dyno it was 577.3 hp at 6300 and 523.88 lbft @ 6300. All I did was change the cam and springs. What was also impressive was the 412 lbft torque at 2500. All of that and expecting 25 mpg. I wish I had dynoed it before changing the cam but time wasn't on my side. It advertised 505 and I would like to have known what it really was.

I know there are some Pantera/Ford folks choking right now but it really is the right choice. I'm as much a Ford man as many but if I find something better,,,, It is the best bang for the buck out there.

You have made a great choice for a motor.

I still want to come by and see the build in person.

 

[Jack]

Ox,
My best guess at my LS1/930 with adapters, clutch, etc. was 525 lbs. Looks like I dialed that in pretty good. Having to do all over I would have gone with a later LS2 or LS3 engine. Had my engine for 8 months before I put my money on the SL-C.

 

[David Sturch]

Terry,
Nice hunk of aluminium.
What are you using for ECM and do you have the engine harness. I was checking out Dephi's site a few days back looking at the ECM's they produce. I know there are aftermarket unit's the dealers sell for crate motors. I figure if you go this route, put in an ALDL connector you can program from there with a laptop and it will give you OBDII along with the CAN Bus.(Need a ALDL to USB) Great for trouble shooting since it will give you the standard error codes. You can go this throttle by wire also. Also how old is your 930 you may want to update speedo pickup etc if you go this route.
Keep Up The Good work.
Dave

 

[Terry Oxandale]

The 930 is an '84 I believe. The speedo (at this point) is planned to come from the front wheels that have the C4 traction control sensor built into the hub/axle. I've talked with a couple of guys that say these work great for electronic speedometers, so that's the plan at the moment.

Mike, I'll need to discuss the cam timing some time. I've heard a couple of differing viewpoints on what is considered a good cam for the LSx motors. It seems a lot of folks suggest staying very conservative (.560 to .570 lift and no less than 116 centers) in comparison to what I've used in the past with other motors (carbed), which worked very well in the .620 lift and 112 center range). More research I guess.

Thottle is another problem if I go by "wire". The Tilton assembly (all three pedals) would have to be carved and modified in order to insert the "wire" pedal, but I'm still looking at that route to see what can be accomplished.

ox

 

[Tom]

Terry,

I believe most people go conservative on cams for those motors for 2 reasons - they are frequently not replacing the beehive valve springs for double springs (Beehives max out at lower lifts). Also, the cathedral heads tend to stall at big lifts (call it .600 arbitrarily), unless they are CNC'd.

If you go to Ls1tech, look at the gen III forums. There are guys making big power with those motors, keeping in mind the usual disclaimer about not using a drag race valve train for a road racer.

Finally, it's the gen IV motors (rectangle intake ports) that usually don't need lots of valve overlap. The Gen III seem to like some overlap.

 

[Rick Muck- Mark IV]

I know there are some Pantera/Ford folks choking right now but it really is the right choice. I'm as much a Ford man as many but if I find something better,,,, It is the best bang for the buck out there.

Mike,

I want to put a Cleveland into a mid year Corvette, just to take to shows and piss off the Bowtie guys!

 

[Terry Oxandale]

Wow, talking about abundant humility. That's a rare swap.

 

[Terry Oxandale]

The LS2 was fitting into the framing today. I noted several things, one of which was the amount of deflection I had on the upper shock mounts as they flexed inboard (this was the full motor with clutch, flywheel, and PP). I had to jack the weight off the rear suspension just to insert the crossbar between the upper shock mounts. I guess the good thing is that it is painfully obvious this bar has a very important function.

Second thing I noticed was once the engine was in place the car did not settle down to the expected ride height. Was the motor lighter than I expected? Yes, but not that light. Closer inpections revealed:

Opinion, I don't think this is going to provide the ground clearance I desire. :stunned: :stunned: :stunned:
Yes, the pan is a little deeper than necessary, but...
Anyway, I'm glad I went with the dry-sump now.

ox

 

[David Sturch]

Terry,
Not much room there. What do you do now? I would think you would need at least 4" of clearance. Do you raise everything up a couple of inches ad go with the dry sump pan? The engine in my car sits above the floor. I guess it's head scratching time.
Dave

 

[Randy V]

Wow Terry - Even with a drysump she's going to be awfully low..

Consider flipping the transaxle - again and raising the engine up in the chassis to get more ground clearance and the CV's at a lesser angle?

 

[Terry Oxandale]

I'll send photos later, but the dry-sump arrangement is the perfect solution. The bottom of the dry-sump pan is actually higher than the bottom of the frame tubing, so I'll need to cut off the bottom portion of the KEP adapter to the same level (perhaps leave a 1/4 to 1/2" as a guard of some sort for the pan. The bellhousing will actually extend further down than the pan will.
The dotted line represents where the Dailey Engineering pan will end up:

 

[Mesa]

OX....that dotted line answers some questions for me, like Randy was having concerns.
I called Dailey based on your pictures, nice stuff they make.

 

[Terry Oxandale]

The dry sump pan is actually above the bottom of the frame tubes (bellhousing is lower than the dry sump pan). The photo below shows the new clearance with the shallow pan. Unfortunately, I'd need to be very careful with a 4" stroker kit with this pan (rods would need to be carefully fitted to ensure clearance).

Gad, look at that metal. Cannot wait until I get all welding done get this thing blasted and powder coated.

Terry

 

[David Sturch]

Terry,
That look's better. The sand blasting is messy stuff. I put a couple of poly tarps down with one up against the fence at 90 Deg to catch the over spray. I tried to recover as much sand as possible. The blaster I used held half a bag a of sand about 30 lbs. That would last about 20 min. I would blast do a sweep and fill up the blaster and start all over. I lost 1.5 bags doing the entire chassis. Are you going to do your own powder coating or send it out?
Dave

 

[Terry Oxandale]

Losing only 1.5 bags sounds really good. I've got some tarps, and think I may try to blast the smaller, more intricate parts (using Black Beauty) and then let the painter blast the longer more exposed tubes.

I'm going to send the powder coating out. A guy here in town quoted me $450 to do it, but I don't thing he realized the amount of framing I'm bringing to him.

 

[David Sturch]

Terry,
If you blast yourself, get a box of the blue nitrate thin gloves when you are done and use them to handle the parts before the powdercoat. I figure he will powdercoat over the bare metal, you don't want any rust forming on the metal. That's why I went with the green chromate style aviation primer. I left the exposed areas for the sheet metal. Any type of rust or moisture can cause the powdercoat to lift or bubble over time. When the spot welded panels are done on mine I am going to use the green stuff and then the PPG DP two part expoxy and thats it.
Dave

 

[Terry Oxandale]

Re: Oil line placement

For months I’ve been in a quandary about how to run the fuel and oil lines from one side of the car to the other and still have easy access. Once I got the shoulder harness bar in place the answer came to me. Attach hose clamps to the bar. So I welded cleats to the bar and then cut, drilled, tapped, and recut the clamps. I’ll probably modify them further before settling on the final design, but now the hose is supported and accessible without looking too bad. Yeah, a street driven car with a dry sump, two oil coolers and gobs of not-so-cheap hose and fittings…tell me why we do this again?

Ox