Question on aftermarket LT1 block

[Jerry93Z]

Is there any company that sells an aluminum block? Just going out on a limb, figured someone has tried it.

[94Blackbird]

Is there any company that sells an aluminum block? Just going out on a limb, figured someone has tried it.

Short answer, no, no aftermarket LT1 blocks. Dart was supposed to come out with something a few years ago, but the project got canned due to how small the LTX market really is in comparison to the SBC and LSX markets.

That being said, you could take an SBC aftermarket block and have it modified/machined to work as an LTX block. GMHTP featured an impala where a guy did just that to get a 400+ cube LTX block.

[joelster]

Short answer, no, no aftermarket LT1 blocks. Dart was supposed to come out with something a few years ago, but the project got canned due to how small the LTX market really is in comparison to the SBC and LSX markets.

That being said, you could take an SBC aftermarket block and have it modified/machined to work as an LTX block. GMHTP featured an impala where a guy did just that to get a 400+ cube LTX block.

That guy paid Donovan a large sum of money to have 1 or 2 of them made.

The only true aftermarket block available for us are the GM Raceshop blocks, but they were never sold to the public. Nobody really knows how many were produced either, i've heard around 25 though. They pop up for sale every now and then.

[Jerry93Z]

Thanks guys, I just figured someone had to have tried it.

[TWS]

I remember a few years ago Tony Shep and I were talking about it and same story as above: Dart looked into it and concluded it didn't make financial sense.

[Fastbird]

I personally don't think there is support for larger cubes with the narrow field of aftermarket heads we have. IMO they simply don't have the volume capabilities to properly feed a large cubic inch motor like that. AFR 227's are about the best we can get unless we are talking about converting some SBC heads to LTx specs. But at that point, you're talking converted block, converted heads.......is it really a LTx anymore?

I was actually pondering this tonight based off of the Impy guy that GMHTP did the feature on. Would be VERY interesting to see a SBC 400+ CID block and a set of lower degree SBC heads (SB2.2's anyone?) all converted to LTx designs to make it as close to an LT as you can get, still using the timing cover, opti, etc. Would make for a neat project with some banging potential IMO.