Katech does a complete rebuild of the LS7 for the Street Attack build. In my case I had picked up a relatively economical takeout from an ’07 Z06 that I found on LS1Tech.com which I sent to them to be upgraded (although they can also start with a new crate engine as well).
After doing a complete disassembly and inspection, the block and heads are machined (deck and hone) as required to meet Katech’s blueprint specs. In my case there was what appeared to be (nitrous?) detonation damage that required some additional (head) machine work and a new guide – not a surprise to me as I had been getting the impression that the engine had been used hard by it’s original owner (although to this day he denies ever using spray) - this also required in the replacement of two intake and exhaust valves.
The factory Titanium rods were rebushed (see
this thread for more info on that), new forged pistons (11.35:1) with DLC coated pins are attached and then the short block is balanced and blueprinted to Katech’s fairly exacting standards. In the end we installed a Katech Torquer camshaft (and played a bit with the advance) with high speed lifters to keep things relatively civil (although a World Challenge cam may be the next illogical step). The heads were completely rebuilt with new honeycomb high lift valve springs and titanium retainers and the long block was assembled the entire assembly was pressure tested (yes, it was) before Tyler’s Sidewinder accessory drive was installed.
Then it was off to the dyno for an initial break in and a quick check that everything was as it should be. I don’t have the final dyno numbers yet (I may have mentioned that we screwed around with some stuff on the dyno) but on the break in run with the soft dyno program we made 500+ ft.lbs. of torque from 2500 to 6250 rpm with a peak of 560 ft.lbs. at 4800 rpm. I may be able to say more about the dyno results in the next little while as well I have a dyno vid coming which should be interesting.