242 STREET MACHINE
MILL OF THE MONTH
STORY ANDREW BROADLEY PHOTOS YIANNI ASPRADAKIS242 STREET MACHINE
427 CI BLOWN LS NEXT
WARSPEED, ST MARYS, NSW
A
USSIE street machiners are LSing the world,
and they’re starting with first-gen Commodores.
Troy Worsley at Warspeed has just put the
finishing touches on this masterpiece for a
customer’s VK, and it’s not your garden-variety cam-
and-heads type of deal.
Based on the acclaimed Dart LS Next cast-iron
block, the 4.125-inch bores are filled with 9.9:1 JE
pistons, while 6.125-inch Callies Ultra rods and a
four-inch-stroke Callies DragonSlayer crankshaft
deliver a cubic capacity of 427ci.
Troy tells us the front-hump Moroso pan is perfect
for fitment into early Commodores and it works
exceptionally well for this combo, but it’s not compatible
with factory engine blocks. “The Moroso pan doesn’t
have internal oil lines like a factory sump, but on an LS
Next block that’s not an issue because it relies on external
oil lines and doesn’t have provisions for an oil filter; it uses a
remote filter housing.”
Another benefit of the LS Next platform and the LS7-based
Nathan Higgins heads used on this combo is the six-bolt
head configuration. “It gets around the limitation of the lack
of clamping force provided by a factory-style cylinder head,”
Troy says. “It means we can put a little bit more boost in it.
We’ll aim to make between 15 and 20psi of boost, whereas
with a lesser-quality block like a factory LQ9 we’d be limited
to 15psi. This engine has the componentry to handle even
more boost, so we’ll start at around the 15-20psi mark and
see where we end up.”
The crowning glory is a Pro Billet blower manifold topped by
an 8/71 Blower Shop pump, but there’s already an upgrade
in the pipeline. “The Blower Shop blowers are fantastic, but
they’re built without the knowledge of the conditions in which
they will be operated, so they’re built a little bit loose to
survive and not lock up or have any issues, which limits your
power,” Troy says. “I’ve spoken to Don Hampton in the US and
we’ve ordered a custom-built, Teflon-rotored, Teflon-stripped
Hampton 8/71 with a full billet housing. Don has assured
us that the blower we receive will be capable of upwards of
1500hp.”
The carbies are particularly sexy – billet 950cfm jobbies
from APD. “They’re beautiful; CNC-machined billet bodies
and float bowls,” Troy says. “The beauty of using these is that
I pay very similar prices to what I’d pay for quality off-the-shelf
carburettors – only $100 or $200 more – but they’re built to
order. I provide a spec sheet for the engine and they’ll build
them exactly how we want, with their input also. Our dyno
time is greatly reduced because the carburettors are basically
already there straight out of the box.”
All up, you’re looking at a starting point of 1200hp on pump
E85 – very healthy numbers for what will be a genuinely street-
driven car. What a time to be alive! sLEAVE YOUR HAT ON
“WE’VE just ordered a hat for this engine, which is an ex-Don Garlits Top
Fuel hat,” Troy says. “There’s a guy in New Zealand called Al’s Blower
Drives that modifies these barn-door hats to go onto carburettors. They
slide down over the carburettors and the linkages hook up to it, so the
engine will have a different sort of look; a mechanical look, but with
carburettors on there. This particular customer didn’t want the meth life
of a mechanically injected engine on the street, but he wanted the look.
We did our research, and this is the solution we came up with!”242 STREET MACHINE