🔧 BUILD Shawns 1971 Impala Donk

So in June or July of 2022 I talked to Boost District about a LSA blower. Iirc, they said 4-6 week lead time. So I ordered and they were full of fucking shit, had I known I wasnt going to get my shit until October I would have went a different direction. I had hoped to be up and running with the LSA by late summer/early fall, never happened lol. With all the issues we ran into, it wouldnt have happened if I had the blower on time anyway lol. While waiting for the LSA, I scored a set of Borowski LS3 heads, brand new never even mocked up on a car. In the mean time, I started ordering all the shit I was going to need. Originally I had planned on running 8-12lbs and keeping it relatively tame but respectable on the street.

While waiting on shit and planning the install, I figured I might as well do a Ford 9" "in case" I decide to throw more boost at it lol. If I'm doing the Ford 9" and having Quick Performance build it from scratch, then I might as well have it built shorter so I can do 7" rear barrels on my rims. Rims keep with 5" barrels from Forgiato and that extra 2" just looks soooo much better. Ordered the barrels, took the car back to Sammys early Nov so he could mock up the wheels and take measurements for the Ford 9". He did his thing and ordered the 9" for me.

Prior to doing the LSA blower I had heard from others and did some research regarding the install of the heads. Heard it was a major pain in the dick to swap them while the motor was still in the car. Decided, we are better off pulling the motor (so glad we went this route) and I figured while its out we might as well replace the BTR cam with a blower cam. Dec 5th we started the tear down and yanked the motor in a few hours. Dropped the motor off at Brian over at Speed Service, wanted him to look it over, install the heads and cam.

First issue, upon his inspection he noticed my rings werent the greatest, old cam had some scoring on 4 lobes and he said there was a lifter issue causing that. 2nd issue, he noticed my rods were an older style or early style (I'm not well versed on the LS motors). He said at 500-550whp I would really be pushing it on those rods, plus it had dished pistons. Welp, lets build the bottom end, totally unexpected and just wiped out my X Mas bonus. He tore it down to the bare block, degreased it, honed it, tanked it. Installed pistons, rods, rod bolts, bearing, rear main, cam, pinned the crank, installed the heads, over etc. Motor is now .30 over and 10.3/1 compression. We left the crank as he said I'm good for 1200whp and believe me I have no intentions of going that high.

So with the motor having a built bottom end, I might as well turn it up now. I had Brett @jokersperformance do a full port on my blower.

We installed my new aluminum tank with the Aeromotive Phantom dual 450 pumps, ran a flex fuel sensor etc.
Dropped the motor back in and started the LSA install. Ran into issue after issue and just too damn long to post. From shit not fitting, to having to overnight parts, making store runs once or twice a day blah blah blah. Long story short after a couple of weeks of issues we got it done and running. She is on a remote start up tune as of now but feels strong. Havent made any WOT pulls yet as the tuner set it up so its on the fat side especially at or above 5lbs. Tuning will be done sometime next month.

After the LSA, Junior at Sammys got me in and installed my Ford 9" and new barrels on the rear rims

I'll post dyno numbers and sheets after she is tuned. We are thinking with the ported blower and 2.4 pulley she should see every bit of 15lbs if not closer to 20lbs. Still need to tie up loose ends like having a custom intake tube built and other very minor shit.