While I have experience working on motors when I grew up (small and big block Chevrolet engines, Mopar wedge motors, etc.), I have no experience with LS engines, so I wasn’t going to build this myself... especially considering the investment I made in all of those parts. Luckily, Doug Rippie, who has significant experience modifying and building LS engines for Corvette owners across the country, is located about a half hour from me. Doug also installed one of Tony Mamo’s H/C/I packages on a customer’s Z06, so he was familiar with Tony’s parts and assembly requirements (like measuring each push rod for custom length). Doug was awesome... very patient in dealing with me and teaching me as I asked a lot of questions.
Motor is assembled now... I’m going for a “stock-like” look for the LS7. Tony offers a “stealth” upgrade for the MSD Atomic intake, drastically changing the look of it. If anyone has seen the MSD Atomic intake, it’s got “MSD AIr Force” in big red letters across the top - I really don’t like the look. Tony shaves those logos off the top of the intake and then paints it a nice textured black. He then takes the LS7 fuel rail covers and shaves the edge where the fuel rail cover meets the intake runners, since the MSD intake is shaped much different than the stock LS7 intake. The result looks pretty close to stock, unless you really have a sharp eye.
I did deviate from stock in that I didn’t use a GM front end accessory drive for it. I didn’t like where the air conditioning compressor was located on the various OEM accessory drives. Holley recently released a new mid-mount accessory drive for LS engines that is really compact. It’s unique because the water pump is a specific Holley design where all of the other accessories mount to the water pump. It eliminates brackets and spacers and makes for a really clean and compact design. I got the black version, which I think really looks sharp. Attached are some photos of the completed motor with the Holley accessories installed. The photo shows a polished NIck Williams throttle body that I had picked up used. I’ve since purchased a black version of the same throttle body and will swap it out as the black version will look much nicer. I’m going to dyno the motor in the coming weeks... we’re expecting around 725hp at the crank...
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