Chevy High Performance – November 2019

18 CHEVY HIGH PERFORMANCE II NOVEMBER 2019

L-SBC

ARP

805.339.

arp-bolts.com

Comp Cams

800.999.

compcams.com

FiTech

951.340.

fitechefi.com

JE Pistons / SRP

714.898.

jepistons.com

PerTronix

800.827.

pertronix.com

Scat

310.370.

scatcrankshafts.com

Summit Racing Equipment

800.230.

summitracing.com

Trick Flow Specialties

888.841.

trickflow.com

Westech Performance

951.685.

westechperformance.com

GET THE HOOKUP

Building a stroked small-block with LS-like reliability

✜ TEXT & PHOTOS: Cody Busch

stroker kit to maximize cubic inches,

an innovative camshaft grind, and the

latest in high-tech EFI and ignition

components to give our engine the

most punch per cube. Here’s how we

did it. CHP

A

ll-out horsepower is why we get up in the morning. It’s at the heart of this

magazine, the hot rodding hobby, and might actually be the reason the world

goes ’round—though we lack the astrophysical expertise to prove the latter.

Bigger-than-big cams, sky-high compression ratios, and mondo cubic inches

put a smile on any face, but in our older, wiser age we’ll concede that in a daily

driver application, they can kind of kill the vibe. Sitting in SoCal traffic with one

foot on the brake and the other nervously tapping the gas to prevent a stall is an

anxiety and angst-riddled activity, and we’ve lost many a brain cell sucking up

pig-rich-so-it-will-idle-cool fumes. Yeah, sometimes the gnarliest engines are best

suited for Sunday street/strip’ers and full-blown race cars. We’re of the “I love the

smell of race gas, but I don’t want to smell like race gas” mentality.

So, for our latest cruiser project we wanted to build an engine that could start

cold, deliver reasonable mpg, and haul the mail all the while. In other words, we

wanted LS reliability and power density, but we wanted to execute it in a humble

first-gen small-block Chevy platform. Could it be done? Of course, but it meant

teaming up with some top-tier parts people and carefully selecting components

that would work to achieve our goals.

The basis of the build consisted of a factory, four-bolt-main small-block, a

WRENCH