Turbo LT-1

[Frederic Breitwieser]

>From what I hear in the responses, the GN V6 
>was built bullet proof from
>the factory, so when you increase the boost, 

It is, and it isn't.  The fillet crank is a nice feature, and there appears
to be a lot of speculation of a slight increase of nickel content in the
iron block, however the differences between the GN engine and the stock
engine is not that great.  In fact, the 4.1L N/A engine has the same crank
as the turbo 3.8L engine, so the extra "neat" parts are worth something, but
not all that much in my opinion.  Don't forget the journals in the 3.8L
engine are slightly smaller in diameter than the LT-1.  These are the kind
of differences that have to be payed attention to.

As far as slapping on a turbo to your LT-1, its very doable.  In its stock
form, there is room to expand power, however you have to keep in mind some
"reasonable" limits.  Keep the boost down, or build more boost at lower RPMs
and keep the RPMs down. THis depends on your driving tastes.  In general,
RPM's are what kills motors (that and lack of maintanence), and using
turbochargers merely lower the threshold of explosion on an identical
engine, but below that threshold, there is much more power to be made.  I'll
see if i can get the exact quote from my Corky Bell turbo book, but he had
stated something to the effect that its not the boost level that kills
motors, but the RPMs that do.  he phrased it in a very clear way, and I'd
like to share that with you.