BUILT TO LAST

IT SEEMS EVERYONE'S BUILDING A TURBOCHARGED LS COMBO THESE DAYS - BECAUSE IT WORKS. HERE'S HOW TO DO IT PROPERLY, ACCORDING TO ONE OF THE BEST IN THE BIZ

-  CHARLIE SANT

YEAH, yeah it's another boosted LS build! But while they're a wildly popular option among street machiners, not all force-fed LS combos are created equal. While the internet might have told you that you can chuck a cam and some head studs at one of these engines, boost it to the moon and have it last a lifetime, that's not actually the case.

Building a turbocharged LS combo that will be reliable well into the four-digit horsepower zone takes a whole lot more finesse, and who better to show us how it's done than the gurus at ProFlo Performance in Campbeltown, NSW.

The customer's brief for the engine you see here was that it had to be capable of 1800rwhp in his VL Commodore, could be radial-raced and street driven, and require relatively low maintenance.

With the requisite machining completed, ProFlo's Charlie Sant takes us through the team's process of speccing and assembling the combo.

STEP 01

The combination is based around a Dart Machinery block, upgraded with half-inch main and head studs to add rigidity and clamping force for the heads under high boost. The key to any engine build is cleanliness, so after the block is machined, it is treated to the clean of its life, eliminating any dirt or debris that could bring the combo to an early death.

STEP 02

The rotating assembly consists of a Callies Ultra eight counterweight crank, Oliver steel rods, and a set of custom RaceTec pistons. With a bore of 4.125in and a stroke of 4.000in, cubic capacity comes in at 427ci, with a static compression of 10:1. E85 will be the primary fuel used, but the combo may see methanol down the track.