[Donovan]

Originally Posted by fbrown

To the poster against use of LS engines in Pontiacs. (His post was deleted)

I though I would address some of the reasons why I chose a LS engine over a tradional Pontiac engine.

My 06 GTO which is a Pontiac and has a LS2 engine. This car gets 25 mpg highway, 18 mpg around town and has 400HP. The car weights almost 4000 Lbs and is capable of high 12 second 1/4 mile times. The car cranks instantly in very cold weather and will pull immediately with no drivability problems. LS engines are used in everything from Chevys to Cadillac’s

Some people have also said that you can build a Pontiac engine that will make as much power and get the same gas mileage as a LS engine for less money. I will concede the power part, but nothing else. A Butler Crate engine starts at $8000 and would probably cost another $1000 by the time you have it dyno tuned and add a few other necessary options. Fuel injection for this engine also starts at $3500 and goes up. A Butler crate Pontiac engine with EFI would cost at least $12,000 and probably more. It would be very doubtful that this engine would idle smoothly and it certainly would not be capable of 25 mpg highway mileage. The LS3 engine is half the cost of the Butler solution and is a turn key solution with no dyno tuning required. The LS3 weights about 400 LBS, the Butler engine is probably close to 600 LBS, unless you order the aluminum Block which is $4600 dollars additional.

My purpose of using the LS engine over a Pontiac engine is to have the same reliability as my 06 GTO, allow every day use of the car with great gas mileage, no drivability problems, and no cold crank problems. I expect my Lemans to handle, stop and accelerate as good as my 06 GTO.

While I agree some rare Pontiac's should keep their original engine such as RA IV GTO's, SD455's etc, my car is a LeMans and came with no engine.

I also will concede that you can build a engine for less yourself, rather than buy a crate engine, however there are too many things that can go wrong, it takes a lot of time, comes with no waranity, and I would rather be driving my car rather than spending time building an engine, especially when I believe the Pros’ that build them every day will do a better job than I could. If you are buying a crate engine as opposed to building one, it would be impossible to get a Pontiac engine for less than a LS engine. If you are buying used, LS engines are common in junk yards, when was the last time you saw a Pontiac 455 or 400?

Nice work FB!

The above was a perfectly articulate and civilized response to someone expressing sour grapes. It would be nice if folks could relax a bit and appreciate hardwork for what it is.