The Pikes Peak International Hill Climb calls upon those crazy (or brave) enough to get behind the wheel of race cars to attempt (and triumph in) one of the most demanding, longest-running races in the world. The race also brings out some of the most bizarre and fascinating combinations of automotive tuning.
For the 2013 race, Love Fabrication has combined three interesting pieces of automotive equipment in order to create their hill climb beast: a Honda/Acura NSX body, a turbocharger from Garrett, and most importantly, a GM LS1 motor. While the carbon-fiber chassis weighs in under 2,000 pounds, the powerplant is good for 1,000 horsepower and 800 lb.-ft. of torque. Hear the team discuss its PPIHC challenges and triumphs during the 2012 race, and plans for 2013 in this video:
Comments
Well, someone beat me to it.
For ages, I’ve always wanted to find an old NSX, rip out the anemic power train, and have then channel the power of the great LS gods into blessing me with a fire-breathing monster.
You know what, Some person once told me that Toyota makes a better V-8 than GM does. I replied to that person, that they were talking a bunch of crap. And I said to my self what and idiot he is. How the hell is a Toyota V-8 actually better than GM durable and faithful pushrod V-8s.
I realise that the LS V-8 is in the venom GT,Mosler MT-900, SSC Aero ( engine also tha bottom half of the SSC Tatura) and even some Weird European super cars along with other countless cars .
Now tell me Fellas, am I ignorant for thinking he was an idiot?
Their issues with the small blocks is the valve train, the crossplane, and the tired one-liner “It’s a (X displacement) and only makes (Y hp)”.
I remind them of the torque figures and point out that they are as big as they are and at such a low rpm. Finding a comparable engine for them becomes much harder after that.
That, and the valvetrain is actually newer when compared to OHC, we can thank Olds in the late 40’s for that; the counter to Sunbeam’s mas production of OHC’s in 1929.
Also, the often ignored performance characteristic of the LS’s fuel efficiency is just another stick I use to beat people with.
Finally, you can always just search for “LS powered” and let the Google fill in some of the most popular cars people like to put the engine in. It’s not just what Google predicts what you’re searching for, people who take tuning seriously know what the LS can do.
And even in pedestrian applications, what other V8 is as small, compact, lightweight, powerful, reliable, and capable enough to do what the all of the 4 flavours of small block has done in over 50 years? The oldest block we have here (an L30) just ticked over 300K kms and it still starts every morning.
If Toyota does make a better V8, the only way it could be better than the forthcoming Gen V’s is that it would have wipe my ass.
What? Toyota is making a V8 powered bidet now? The missus will so pleased!
To be honest, I shouldn’t have been as vulgar. I don’t often resort to such language, but really, I don’t think Toyota could ever make a V8 as versatile and robust as GM can.
Perhaps they could try, but I don’t see it happening.
This is a case of how much NSX do you need to still call it a NSX?
@scott That’s right. Because at its heart, it’s a GM…
Maybe they should have just chosen a Vette as the foundation upon which to build their race car.
They looked good at Gingerman this last fall.