[screamingchief]

Originally Posted by mechanic17

Don't forget the importance of the cooling system for SCR choice. Like Cliff said, there are a lot of "hands-dirty factors": if you know your car runs cool as a rule (your block/heads/radiator have no issues) then you you can bend the hypothetical limits a bit too. Anyone who has owned a LT1 '94 through '96 Firebird/Roadmaster/Caprice/Fleetwood ought to plain-amazed by the dead-reliable advantage of 10-1 SCR with a peanut cam on 87 octane (many with iron heads,) due to the reverse cooling. Those cars are proof-positive that, as many have stressed, COMBO overrides any hard/fast rule. As long as you don't cop out and say "Well, my combo has too many factors to figure out. . ." Any good scientist will RUN the experiment, be open minded about the results, and RUN it again and again until they've learned what's right. Then they don't have to take opinions from guys on forums.

Closed loop EFI & computerized timing control with a knock sensor,something 99% of the guys on this forum dont have in their cars.

Yeah,not exactly an apples to apples comparison there.

And praising the cooling system of those LT1's is a twisted joke.

Have you ever actually worked on them?

One of the biggest clusterf*cks of a water pump design on a modern V-8 that I can think of.

And when the water pumps go bad on those,95% of the time they take out the optispark too.

Which just so happens to be the biggest clusterf*cks of a distributor design that I can think of.

Yep,you do any one of those,you better do ALL of those,and throw in replacing the thermostat and the plugs & wires too,as the passenger side of those engines is a major PITA if you have to take all that other stuff off just to replace some bad plug wires.

Then you gotta know precisely how to bleed the air from the LT1's cooling system,as it's not as simple as some might think it is.

I personally would'nt call these LT1's "dead reliable" myself,maybe I'd consider them somewhat reliable till something goes wrong,then you often got a real mess on your hands,and a he!! of an expensive repair bill for sure.

BTDT,have worked on plenty of 'em in my days.

My friend with the 9C1 caprice still comes over to beg me to work on his from time to time,I tell the cheap @$$ ba$tard to go pay a garage to do it,he can afford it,and I really dont need the headaches or bloody knuckles,and no way in he!! would he pay me what the work is worth,hell he does'nt even wanna pay for all the parts the whiny SOB.

He probably still has'nt replaced his leaking passenger side valve cover or fixed the arcing plug wire on that side.

He was too busy crying about the $600.00+ estimate from the garage to fix it.

It's like $100.00 in parts (vc gaskets/plugs/wires),& $500.00 in labor!!! LOL.

Yeah,ya' just gotta love modern engineering.

over...

Bret P.