Originally Posted by
Z28ricer
SRs have thrown rockers, ate rockers, plenty have spun enough bearings to keep clevite and acl busy for quite a while, however plenty run every day, sure you can put an idiot driver behind the wheel of an LS1 car and tear shit up just the same as an SR20, realistically the whole pushrod thing is a bit silly, especially when the engine you are putting down makes much more power, and has a lot better head flow than the engine you are praising.
Specifically on the 1UZ that you want to use as your point of reference i'd like to see where you got those numbers, here are the only numbers i've been able to find for those heads. At 28"
Lift Intake Exhaust
.275 203cfm 125cfm
.511 230cfm 150cfm
Compare those to the stock 317 "truck" heads on my engine
.300 204cfm 146.8cfm
.500 250cfm 174.2cfm
Ouch.
Also consider this, you'll likely be limited to cams smaller than .511 those 1uz heads did that flow at, and typical LS1 "mild" camshafts run in the .550-.590 lift range, heres the head flow for those same "truck heads" in the lift range that will be used.
.550 251.2 181.2
.600 253.0 184.4
Sorry, but if you really want to worry about yourself screwing up and bending pushrods, thats your deal, but dont preach it as a better engine because millions of pushrod engines go down the road, and drag strip every single day, the Cadillac CTS-V put plenty of hurt on other teams with overhead cams enough that they bitched about it.....
I'll take the highly unlikely possibility I might screw up and bend a pushrod all day for an engine that is smaller, easier to work on, and performs far better.
SR's are also Hydraulic lifters not solid.
So I was off by a little bit, still flows better. Also keep in mind 2UZ VVTI heads have a little better flow then 1UZ heads (not by much however). As far as the lift goes it's about the same actually, just not as much after market support, of course you can always have custom ground cams. How is an LS1 easier to work on? This is'int a drag strip and those cars get rebuilt after almost every race.
The only reason pushrod engines are still around is because their cheaper to manufacture. And your "drag strip" pushrod engines might see 2-3 races and run fantastic but then there getting torn down for a full rebuild, Formula 1 engines run an entire season before being sent back to be rebuilt, all running OHC setups kicking 12k for hours not 6-7 seconds. Pushrod engines have proven what they can do, i understand that, but i still believe OHC designs are far superior. Cobra V8 is 32v OHC and look at what it can do, stout as fuck and accepts a .650+ lift