It was so exciting when all this came together, racing home to catch the live streams, and now sitting here watching the polished vid just like all the other motors.. makes me feel happy for the Gen7 finally getting some shine. Shouts out to Richard, Amos & Darren… long time in the making. Hopefully the tinkerers come at this motor and unlock unseen potential 🙏🏾
I have a 2001 K2500 Suburban with an 8.1 and 4L80E transmission. I have owned it for 10 years now and dread the day I replace it because it is truly and awesome combo.
My friend has an 8.1 in a big motor home and I know it keeps up to a diesel pusher, except in fuel consumption. But it has certainly a lot of grunt and performed for 90,000 miles. It appears a great engine
I have one of these 8.1s in my Silverado that is still running strong some 310k miles later. I am so happy to see you starting a series on these often over-looked engines. Can't wait to follow along as I hope to someday freshen this engine and move it over to my square body.
Confirms what I felt when we did headders, intake and tune to a buddies 8.1 that was the most a tune ever picked up a vehicle, but I think that was just hacking the torque management off it.
No idea, it was a programer through Diablo sport.. we just told them about the K&N intake, headders and exaust. Told them we want as much as you can give us and they sent it. Compared to other tunes on factory stuff I've done that might pick up 10hp. This thing was like awakening an animal. Id say they probably shut it off, but I have no way of knowing.
Same with mine I removed 75 percent of the torque management. Gapped plugged to .045 tried a throttle body spacer because it was on it when I got it…. 180 tstat…. I never added headers since mine was a plow/tow truck and headers don’t last long without leaks and add a lot of heat underhood .
This is my blue eyed angel 02 chev 8.1 this is my 2nd truck with the 8.1 my first was totaled by a person running a stop sign and I will never get over her totally but my replacement is a nice girl as well!! I would walk the earth to find an 8.1 and I'm so disgusted that this engine is no longer in production and the other big huge bummer is that they no longer have the Allison unless you get the Duramax diesel and I'm not excited about those as I just can't afford the issues that will arise. I love this torque test it just confirms my solid love for this engine!!! Just wish they still made them...
Really need to cut open the intake and get rid of the baffle inside, it’s a huge restriction. I bet you’ll see more response to your other mods after that. Awesome video!
That is so cool! I really wish that the LS and 351W firing order was available for everything. The FE is a great candidate it has a center thrust main. So smooth and easy on parts!
Good timing, I just got a 2004 8.1L and Allison trans from a top kick medium duty truck, I’m running Tri y headers into an x pipe and straight through mufflers, trying for as much torque as possible for towing in my Motorhome
My late friend, header builder Jack Davis, told me back when a group of fellow racers were towing with Chevy dually's with 454's, he built headers for his with 1-1/2" primary tubes 42 inches long into a 2-1/2" collector! Said it would pass everybody climbing up the grapevine to Bakersfield, and pass them at the gas station as well.
That's right. At first after reading you comment I was like "well who didn't know that?" and then I remembered not everybody eat/sleeps/breathes engines. So for anybody reading my comment - bcbloc02's comment is true. It would be for about standard production engines until you run into exotics and like Honda VTEC and Ford SHO. That type of stuff has like motorcycle cam timing/duration specs. Part of the fun of this sport is taking large displacement "moose" engines (pickup, suv) and hijacking the designer's intentions. "See that automatic transmission - friendly drooping torque curve trailing off to the right? What would be easiest way to "fix" that? A procharger or cam/compression & manifolds ?"
Hi Richard. Watching you go through the collector extensions thing I remembered how the street racers did it when I was a kid and wondered if you had ever heard of it before. These guys would spend every penny they could beg borrow or steal into their engines making sure they were blueprinted and balanced, ported heads, indexed spark plugs, you name it, if they could think of it, their engines got it. Dual point distributors set up on a distributor machine. Those were the days. My best friend had an FE and he could pull the distributor out, put it on the machine, set the dwell on the points and have it back in the engine and it running in 15 minutes. Back then no one in my area ran more than 430 gears because they had no way to get it to hook up anyway on biased ply tires unless they were at the track. One thing the poor boys learned early was that if you ran slicks and they hooked up, you broke things like rear ends, axels, drive shafts and transmissions. When this happened they didn’t have a way to get to work. Only the rich kids had a dedicated race car and no one would run the rich kids because they had no heart. They had their work outsourced, they didn’t do it themselves. Most guys in my area street raced their daily driver. ANYWAY…I ramble. LOL To determine how long the collector extension should be they would bolt up a piece of pipe about 2 feet long to the collector and spray paint it white. Then they would take their car out and flog the crap out of it. When they got back there would be a burned area in the paint somewhere on the collector extension, normally around 18 inches from the collector. They would cut the pipe off at the end of the burned areas and that would be how they tuned for max power. I always thought that was as perfect a shade tree way to do it as any. LOL
So what we now need is a comparison to an older BB with doing a cam swap/firing order swap to see how much more efficient the new heads and intake are. Obviously try to keep it apples to apples as much as possible. Maybe hp/ci and lb-ft/ci comparison. Great video and I can't wait to see what else is to come.
@@amospgarcia9152 its not about power. if you run a gen 6 or older cam in it, they have a different firing order and the system needs to know this. if you watch the video, Richard actually brings this up. This is also the reason I brought it up.
I was just unsure how changing the firing order is going to tell me how much more efficient the new heads and intake are. Sorry for not understanding what your saying.
@@amospgarcia9152 np. Just to clarify, the idea would be to swap in a older cam and compare the 8.1 to previous BB engines using hp/ci and lb-ft/ci to see how efficient (or not) the newer hardware is. to use the old cams though, the firing order has to be changed. they did that with retro style cam for the ls1 to give it the old school sb sound. it's not about making the change to increase power, its just to make it run correctly.
This beast doesn't seem to 'see' the headers and it is rather detuned so it makes me wonder what even a mild camshaft would do for it. Hope to find out! Everyone can get behind a big happy torque monster like this. Universal appeal.
would like to see the marine 496 HO cam dyno. GM 12683320 or Volvo part number 3861266.. Its a much larger cam but designed to use the stock valvetrain...
Tip o' the hat to Amos Garcia and Darren Goodman for supporting my habit! So cool to see viewers step up to support the channel. We have 17 different kinds of 8.1 awesomeness!
Biggest problem with this motor is massive intake restrictions. Find a way to convert the Nelson racing engines X ram twin throttle body intake for an LS to fit this 8.1 and you will see massive power gains. Combined with a ported head and the BR 300 cam you seem to like to run and I'm guessing you would be near 700 HP. And 625 torque.
I'm building one now running a msd l.s box with new coils forged pistons , carb intake with a 1000 cfm carb big 650 lift cam , big headers im going for the 700hp mark.
To bad GM discontinued the 8.1 l think if they would have made improvements with it simular to what Ford did with the new gasoline powered 7.3 engine the LS 8.1 could have made good horsepower and big torque numbers for bigger cars trucks and SUVs with 496 cubic inches making 480-520 horsepower and 575+ foot pounds of torque naturally aspirated could be done very easily if GM would have given any kind of effort in making some improvements in research and development and technology with the engine
@@rescueaviationfilms1019 I doubt it. The LS7 makes that because it revs high and has a light rotating Assy/valvetrain. Also the block material has nothing to do with it but aluminum heads and direct injection with extra compression would help A LOT
No doubt. This is a good engine. I still run mine in a 02’ 2500HD. It’s 10,000 lbs truck. And it will hang with my 08 GT mustang til on a 40 mph roll race til bout 90-110 when it runs out of gear. That old motor is a monster, it’s a hungry monster loves fuel, but so worth it. get you one if ya get a chance.✌🏻🤘🏻
I have an 04 8.1 with a raylar modified intake. Raylar said put headers on if I put a cam in it. It has a 80 mil bbk throttlebody, and a Gibson catback on it . 193,000 kms on it Im still happy with it .3500 silverado srw. lngbx.
I suspect that with the advances in computer modelling, that when these things leave the factory they are optimized for their configuration. So I suspect that changing the go-zintas and go-zoutas will have little effect. Because of the efficiency in design for it's purpose, to make it do other stuff changing the intake, heads, cam and exhaust in unison would be required. Boost should make it do all the same stuff but more of it. The computer modelling of everything will only get better and when engines leave the factory, I believe, will be getting the max VE for what they are designed. To get anything other than the designed power curves, I suspect, you will have to change everything, in the air/fuel/exhaust path to accomplish a largely different result...or add boost. But we already know that.
Good stuff! Thanks, Richard. I can never seem to find definitive information on the stock cam specs., so I can never tell how much "bigger" any other cam is, with nothing to compare to. Hopefully you'll figure out the true specs. in future installments, including the intake lobe centerline.
Richard I'm planning on putting one in 26ft motor home...hoping/planning 4 wheel drive..my done is a 06 2500..8.1 w/allison...so...65-70mph tops...but beach driving...need bottom end and running cool..
I miss my old 8.1l, it had tons of power and could pull anything it just got horrible fuel mileage. I have a 04 lb7 now and it's not as powerful as my 01 8.1
Love this test!!! I watched the long form videos. Did you ever figure out why it stopped making power? I apologize if you already answered this question.
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You need to jam all that exaust out through a shitload of smaller pipes, just like the Bellagio fountains in Vegas they can shoot that water straight through the air
So….. dual plane carb test? Please tell me someone makes that manifold. And I’m really looking forward to the cam swap! Thanks to everyone who made this possible.
Actually, the intake itself is a substantial restriction, and once the intake is modified, the throttle body becomes a restriction. There's a lot to be gained there before a cam change. At that point, Comp has two good camshafts, and there are cams available for the Mercury Marine version of that engine. Beware that while you can install 1.8:1 rocker arms on the stock cam, most aftermarket cans, or marine cams will have severe piston to valve clearance problems with 1.8:1 rockers.
Hi Richard, I purchased a 8.1L and was excited until I saw how little parts are available for it. The more I watch your videos the more I learn about this motor, SUPER videos. The question I have is I bought the long block with complete intake but no coils, coil mounting plate, harness or computer. Should I swap to a regular intake and carb set up?
Anybody ever swapped an Origin 8.0L natural gas engine to gasoline? I wonder what kinda numbers one could expect. The intake manifold resembles a Victor and already has the embossed hole to cut out and drop in an HEI dizzy.. then top off the 4150 intake w about an 850 Holley.
The torque is measured in lb. ft. (pound feet) not in ft. lbs. (foot pounds,) they’re not the same. Both foot-pounds and pound-feet have a force component (pounds) and a displacement component (feet), but they measure two different things… Foot-pound-force (ft-lb) is the energy required to move a one-pound object one foot of linear distance.” Pound-foot is a unit of torque and a vector measurement created by one pound of force acting on a one-foot lever.
By changing the exhaust configuration with minimal gains says the intake tract is the cork not the exhaust. Head flow, intake flow and or the throttle body flow isn't good enough to back up the exhaust. Does anyone make aftermarket intakes and heads for this engine or would that have to be custom or billet only?
