On the 'mildly' Cheap SS Monte Carlo chasing a 9.0___

That soldier did well! 30 psi on a sbe and a good amount of street miles and passes is nothing to belittle!
 
Every year people seem to find an extra 25+ hp safely out of a SBE.

It's just been a number of 25+ hp/yr years
 
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Holdener made 1400 or something out of a SBE 4.8 on the Dyno, his gen 4 6.0 maxed out a 3 bar MAP sensor at like 1500hp.

The SBE record last year is pretty crazy.


Untouched 4.8, ported 862 heads, 88mm GT55, 16 injectors on Meth.... Sounds like a good combo.
 
I always thought they got iffy past 600 wheel, GenIII guts?
It's in the tune, and that's no kidding. Happel, Sloppy Mechanic guy, has gotten a gen3 to 800whp, but it takes a ton of boost, E85 and timing in the toilet.

What Jake and Duke referenced above is a fact. That sqirreltuned guy is making stupid track times on a 4.8 with stock rods IMHO.

There is an excellent chance that the issue with my motor presently is me, or something that I started previously. Knocking the headgaskets out of it before DW had me concerned that I might have started the demise of this motor. But perhaps 12 degrees of timing at 7100 rpms and 32psi of boost was a little too greedy. I don't know, but we'll see in the next day haha.

I'm Gen4 with an aluminum block. The aluminum block is weaker than the steel block and that's a definite/previously determined/absolute. But I'm nowhere near the limit of the aluminum block - yet.


Something to keep in mind though, a bad tune will break anything. I could have a Dart, World, LSX , etc block with $3K of rods and pistons and break them with a tuning mistake. They are just a bunch more forgiving to the tune. What ends up happenning with better parts is they start getting leaned on harder - they all have a limit. For some fun YouTubing, go watch Steve Morris's shenanigans from this past summer. He certainly knows how to find the limit of some of the most expensive parts available haha.


8-10psi or 100 shot of nitrous can be handled by almost every motor made in the past 30 years, but a bad tune with either of those low power adder numbers can turn anything into smithereens.
 
So….I guess I found the limit of ARP head bolts.

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I didn’t bother checking piston height until the motor was out. And I new it was going to be a scene after checking. The forward side of #1 was .105” down and the rear side .065”. And after finding the next two in the driver side below the deck I knew what was in for. I have one straight rod, and that’s from the hole with almost 160 psi of compression.

So I was very anxious to see the ring lands and the bearings to see if I got too aggressive with the tune. Bearings, rings, ring lands are still in great shape. The head gasket at #1 - not so much. And I can see at least 3 other cylinders that had started to spit the bit.

So I guess I found the limit of ARP bolts. I’m sure I lifted the heads with virtually new LS9 HG’s. 32psi of boost from an 88mm turbo seemed to have made me join the bent rod club. $1500 or so of pistons, rods, rings and head studs - here I come.

I’m going to have to take my 10G’s and the keys decal off the car . And I’m going to have to start a new thread haha - no more on the cheap I guess.

Edit : guess what what studs I'm getting :
 
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