[krisr]

Originally Posted by 1funride

Junk yard LS, cheap turbo, make more power than you will with 10K in a Pontiac motor. I love Pontiac motors and anything other than a Pontiac in a Pontiac is a sin, but I don't think this is a hard one to answer, LS way cheaper to build, heads flow great, rugged blocks.

This is partially true but also may need some more context, because i've been involved in some of these "cheap" builds that make gobs of power, but only for a limited time.

Nearly every "melted" turbo LS done on the cheap conversion i've seen melts #7 piston - and yes, steam ports left intact. One of the owners I worked with did it 3 times. Zero issues with tune, heaps of fuel and 10* timing. Apparently not an isolated situation and many others report the same issue with stock bottom end motors.

So routinely melting #7, sleeving/machining, time pulling an engine, time refitting an engine, time removing and refitting turbo pipework, routinely buying/dumping fluids from engine, the high power (short lived) LS junk swap deal gets pretty ****.

Above owner that did the cheap turbo 5.3 conversion has since sold that engine/turbo combination because he got sick of it melting all the time and has gone back to a normal 350 SBC that was factory option in his car (Holden).

Do LS's have their place? Absolutely, I love my LS3 in my daily driver. But am I absolutely thrilled that Paul is building me a new engine for my Monaro and it's still a conventional Pontiac deal? Hell yeah! So don't retire just yet mate