Reconfiguring A 427 LSX From Naturally Aspirated To Supercharged - Engine Power S8, E8

[Music] you're watching power nation today on engine power we find a home for one of our all-time favorite engines hey everyone welcome to engine power today we are going to be working on an engine that has been kicking around our shop for a while now and it has been through a couple of different iterations already this is our 427 cubic inch lsx extreme crate engine that we picked up from the guys down at late model engines in houston texas or as you know them lme now if you are not familiar with this extremely versatile engine check this out it started with an lsx block loaded with race ready components and it was rated for up to 2 000 horsepower so we knew it could handle anything we threw at it the heads were a custom ls7 6-volt cnc ported design with 2 250 titanium intake valves and 1 600 inconel exhaust valves heavy duty manly 3 8 push rods and stainless steel crawler 1.8 ratio rockers took care of the valve train lme's billet aluminum ls7 intake manifold came next a turbo system was fabbed up featuring an 86 85 millimeter gen 2 precision turbocharger kenny dutweiler is a pioneer and a legend in the field of charging and when he offered his support on the build we were honored to have him in the shop in no time flat he dialed in our engine for maximum power we used race gas ultra to increase our pump gas to 112 octane after several dyno runs and some adjustments to timing and boost the engine yielded a stout 1210 horsepower and 993 pound-feet of torque we couldn't wait to get this beast into a vehicle considering its big power numbers putting it in our 1900 pound tesla wasn't really a practical decision but it sure was fun several months later the detroit muscle team showed up with a 73 javelin in nice shape they were looking for more power from a modern engine and we suggested the 427. to meet their power requirements we set up the engine in a naturally aspirated configuration it produced 647 horsepower and 548 pound-feet of torque on pump gas after the amc fans brought out their torches and pitch forks detroit muscle wisely decided to use their original 304 for their project for the moment our 427 lacked a home recently the crew from music city trucks found themselves behind the wheel of a jeep trackhawk with wide grins on their faces lacking the funds to buy their own they concocted a plan to build one themselves they asked us to take care of the engine one of their big requests a supercharger in order to get this engine back to its boosted form but also have it fit in the application we went with a root style supercharger from summit racing this is a magnuson that was built to order for us and is normally found on a c6 corvette with an ls7 we also had to get a stock front ls7 accessory drive and since the engine was carbureted before we had to get a throttle body and a standalone ecu and wiring harness to run on the dyno and in the vehicle but before we can see all that horsepower made out of the dyno we have to get it all bolted to the engine so to the assembly area [Music] before we can actually bolt this supercharger down we have to take it apart which seems counterintuitive but the manifold bolts actually go through the base so we have to take the top off the fuel rails and the coolant ports on the front in order to access the bolts after unbolting the fuel rails we can gently lift them away from the fuel injectors then we'll remove the allen head screws holding the coolant manifolds in place they have a tight o-ring seal so we'll go slow and easy sliding them out at first glance it looks like the rotors are going the wrong direction on this but this supercharger works differently than a conventional one instead of forcing the air directly down in the intake it actually forces it up into this chamber and then the air is pushed into the ports on the side [Music] before we install the supercharger the steam vent line supplied with the system bolts into place [Music] also included in the kit are kinetic intake gaskets they are required for proper fitment of the supercharger since the intake manifold bolts are inaccessible after the supercharger is installed blue thread locker is applied before tightening them they are torqued in sequence to 106 pound inches yes pound inches the lid bolts also receive thread locker and are likewise tightened to 106 pound inches [Music] up next the supercharged 427 gets standalone fuel injection then it's put through the ringer in the dyno cell [Music] the pistons in your engine have to go through millions of combustion cycles in their lifetime so it is critical to choose the right ones and there are several styles to pick from ditched pistons are often found in lower compression factory engines as well as boosted builds where lower static compression is needed flat top pistons with valve reliefs are common in naturally aspirated power plants with higher static compression ratios and minimal valve clearance domed pistons are great for very high compression engines or engines with an open combustion chamber like a hemi modern pistons are normally constructed of aluminum but there are a few different ways that they're made casting is a quick and affordable method to produce pistons that have a long service life in lower performance applications cast pistons often are made from a hypereutectic alloy where the high silicon content gives them more scuff resistance at higher operating temperatures forging is similar to casting but the piston undergoes an additional process where it is forced into a final shape over a die giving it even more strength forged pistons work great in high-powered engines which experience the toughest operating conditions with any piston the specific type of alloy used determines the hardness or ductility of the piston most factory applications and engines under 400 horsepower typically press fit the wrist pin into the connecting rod normally this is done at a machine shop because it requires specialized equipment and experienced professionals to ensure a good result spiral locks and circlips are used when the wrist pin floats in the connecting rod and can be installed at home with simple hand tools and a fair amount of patience as you can see you've got lots of options when it comes to choosing pistons summit racing equipment can help you find the right pistons for your engine our supercharged lsx427 continues with our ati harmonic dampener that we got from summit racing equipment it's sfi approved has integral serpentine pulleys and a provision for a crank keyway [Music] also from summit is an ac delco water pump and a gm alternator bracket round one topolinski [Music] hey do you know why uh b's hairs are sticky no what because they use a honeycomb [Music] as part of the gm accessory kit we got a stock power steering pump and idler pulley [Music] to control the port fuel injection and ignition system on our supercharged 427 we went with a fi tech ultima ls standalone ecu kit this is a self learning system that replaces a factory ecu and has all the capabilities you need for a street or performance engine it works with any gen 3 or gen 4 ls engine with a 24 or 58 tooth reluctor and has outputs for cooling fans a tachometer speedometer and a fuel pump the kit comes with a custom plug and play wiring harness a handheld touch screen controller with a windshield mount an oxygen sensor and a 3 bar map sensor for boost levels up to 30 psi the nice thing about this system is that it is self learning and any additional tuning you want to do can be done on the fly with the handheld programmer no laptop needed and to finish off the system we also picked up one of their 102 millimeter throttle bodies for our power level we needed to swap out the injectors included with the supercharger we chose a set of works 90 pound per hour injectors after lubing the o-rings with synthetic grease the injectors pop into the fuel rails [Music] the coolant manifolds are reinstalled just like when we remove them slow and easy does it [Music] the fuel rails are next [Music] the phy tech map sensor gets bolted down and the 102 millimeter throttle body finishes it off [Music] [Music] earl's performance plumbing offers adapters to replace the stock push-on style fuel rail connector with an a-n style fitting [Music] since we've never run a setup like this before we fabbed up a throttle bracket that mounts to the top of our blower making sure to re-torque the bolts to spec [Music] after that we'll install the wideband o2 sensor supplied with the phytec system the electrical connections begin with the fuel injectors followed by the coil packs then we are ready for the plug and play wiring harness and the ecu all the connections are labeled so installation is quick and easy [Music] the magnuson kit includes a heat exchanger for the supercharger just for dyno purposes we'll temporarily install it on our dyno cart using zip ties and a light touch [Music] connections to the supercharger are made with quick disconnect fittings which are a breeze to install [Music] the hose is attached to the reservoir heat exchanger and pump using a combination of worm gear and spring clamps up next high octane fuel for a high performance engine we just have a couple of items on our pre-flight checklist and the lsx will be ready for dyno runs we have to upload a calibration to the ecu so we'll go down to right cal to ecu and click enter and basically what this does is tells the ecu what kind of engine it's working with there's a couple different options for a 24 tooth or a 58 tooth ls and then if you're using it to control a transmission there's two options there for a 4l60e or 4l80e we're not going to run a transmission obviously because it's on the dyno and since we have such a unique combination here fitex customer service actually hooked us up and those guys are very helpful so they wrote us our own custom calibration that will help get us started in the tuning aspect so we're gonna hit right two and then that will write that calibration to the ecu so once it writes it to the ecu we have to cycle the key so we'll go up to dashboard and then we'll turn the ignition off and make sure that all these values disappear usually takes about 15 seconds and there they go so now we can turn the key back on and we can go to our initial setup and set up the parameters of our engine yeah when we get it all warmed up first thing we're gonna do is just to make sure that everything is copacetic let's uh make a hit from like well i'll take it as low as two thousand i think it'll load at two thousand like two thousand to five thousand at like 600 rpm per second just to make sure our tune-up is in the right zone [Applause] loaded right down to two thousand yeah whoa look at that right there okay yeah that's nice five sixty four point nine at five thousand and uh torque is still going up wow torque is up at 593. wow that's a nice graph already i mean like you said we're not even close to the peaks our supercharged 427 lsx will run fine on 93 octane pump gas in the vehicle but since we have it in the dyno cell and we want to push it a little bit harder we decided we wanted some better quality fuel for it so we're going to mix up some race gas race fuel concentrate now there's a couple different versions depending on your application one is the race gas ultra this formula is designed for high specific output high horsepower applications like blown nitrous turbocharged or even naturally aspirated versions mixing this entire 32 ounce can into four gallons of 93 octane pump gas will give you 112 octane which has the same btu value of distilled race gasoline and not only that it raises the chemical energy and the oxygen content of the fuel we will be mixing up some of the regular race fuel concentrate for our engine using the blend chart on the back we can mix the fuel to whatever octane we feel that we need two ounces of fuel concentrate per gallon will raise the octane four full numbers [Music] we're mixing our fuel to 103 octane this will give us a nice safety margin for making dyno run after dyno run while getting our tune-up dialed in it would be easy just to max out the octane but sometimes too much octane can actually hurt horsepower but that's the subject for another day [Music] [Applause] not bad 697 591 for 697 but it's at 7 000 still climbing yep you know what's interesting this thing only has four pounds of boost yeah and yeah pretty much all the way through the graph is is really really nice super smooth um this thing is going to be mean no it's that's really it's already mean yeah i think we can make it a little bit meaner whether you're doing a basic tune-up or a complete vehicle rebuild you want the right parts at a great price rockauto.com makes that easy just select your vehicle's info and you will find all of the parts available for your ride conveniently organized by category rockauto.com's deep inventory gives you options ranging from economy all the way up to premium aftermarket you can also get those crucial items needed to get the job done like automotive fluids lubricants and tools quick shipping means you can get started on your project in no time rockauto.com gives you the power of a parts counter computer in the comfort of your own home we set out to build an engine worthy of the jeep trackhawk and now we find out whether our 427 makes the grade when we ordered our supercharger we planned ahead and got a smaller drive pulley with the system to make a little more boost the 96 millimeter pulley is being swapped out for an 84 millimeter one before we change it out we needed to remove the throttle body for clearance [Music] orange thread locker is applied to the bolts and the new unit gets installed it's as simple as that [Applause] [Music] [Music] did you see what i saw that's some big power right there that was a huge jump in power oh 788 at horses 800 yeah 677 at 4 700. whoa whoa how much boost was that oh yeah yeah right around six yep hovering around six pounds of boost that's a huge dome that's a huge jump mark is hard at work getting the jeep together but we figured he'd want to hear his engine run hey man come check this out we've been fuzzing on your project i know you're down there working on it so we got a little surprise for you here we uh for your competition to the factory vehicle we needed at least to equal the power right right well i think we could do it a little better i think you're gonna like it i think you got it it's gonna be good i originally had a pulley on that produced uh almost about four pounds of boost right okay we figured we could uh we could pump that up a little so we'll put a one from a 96 millimeter to an 84 millimeter pulley the engine on that uh whatever that thing is srt has 11 or 12 pounds of boost so we're not going to be that high so but i don't think we need to be that high because not with this thing we're gonna make a pull from three thousand to seven thousand three hundred a second so uh are you ready for some for some goodness here i'm i'm ready are you ready for this sounds rowdy 785 horse 680 pound-feet of target whoa that's not the number yeah we are pretty stylish yeah is that enough 707.1 would have been enough yeah the part that gets me is the torque i mean look at the torque 650 from 3500 all the way to six oh it's just yeah i mean that's all the torque all the nice nice the graph on these because of you know we have a a very good ecu we have a very good way of controlling both spark and fuel our graphs are really really nice it's making power where it should i mean the this engine you know has enough valve train and has enough good parts in it to make a lot more power and turn it way higher yeah i mean let's face it 707 horsepower would have been more than we needed yeah i mean this thing's just going to be a tire fryer yeah no matter what oh yeah so this i mean this just uh i don't know that just takes it to the next level that's we figured you'd like it we're very happy that this engine has a home now right yeah and there's a lot of good parts on this engine and uh this is one of those things where this is one of those projects where everything's going to come together just like it should and uh this thing is going to be outstanding i can't wait to see it done i said i know i didn't want to pull you away for what you're doing over there no that's okay i figured you wanted to see this absolutely yeah so when can i have it well uh soon well we're gonna we're gonna give her the once over and make sure everything's copacetic and uh it'll come down to you awesome thanks guys that is our pleasure that is unbelievable to find out more about anything you've seen today check out powernationtv.com

Channel: POWERNATION

Views: 191,225

Rating: 4.9289827 out of 5

Keywords: Car, PowerNation, howto, how-to, diy, automotive, cars, trucks, automobile, do it yourself, automobiles, auto, powerblock, horsepower, engine power, 427 LSX, naturally aspirated, supercharged, engine reconfiguration

Id: kERP3x_m-I0

Length: 21min 35sec (1295 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 25 2021