LS1s make great power but you pay the price for them. You can go hog wild on a LT1 Corvette motor for a lot less money and make the same if not more horsepower since you will save about 40 percent on aftermarket parts. The LT1 blocks can be bored if needed in the future unlike the LS1 which is a disposable block with only about .005" allowable overbore. I just pulled a LT1 out of my truck and it was the easier of the two conversions to do. Took me a total of three weeks, working evenings in the dead of winter, to complete the install and be 100% on the road again. I did it all in the driveway and garage at my home. The only fancy equipment required to do the conversion was an engine hoist. The rest was just hand tools. Everything bolts right up and you can use the transmission you already have, unless you have a newer Vortec V8 or LS1. The Corvette accessories all work perfect in a conversion, plenty of clearance. A new A/C line would have to be made but everything else bolts right up.

If I were to build a drag motor it would be the LT1 with a SCAT stroker crank, rod and piston kit. I would buy the LT4 heads and intake kit from GMPARTSDIRECT.COM. The 92 and 93 PCMs are easily programmed without reallly expensive hardware. Of course everything that could be friction/heat coated would be having that done, too.

Some days I wonder why I bothered to convert to LS1.....oh, saving weight with the aluminum block, that's it. Oh, and keeping up with the Joneses.