By now I'm sure you probably thought you had seen it all from Golen Engine Service. So far we've covered quite a few of the Hudson, New Hampshire-shop's LT1 and LS1 packages, but until now we had never unleashed any boost on Golen's Land and Sea engine dyno and were anxious to see what would happen. As a distributor for ATI ProCharger, owner Chad Golen put together a 700-horse 383ci LT1 package to make one-stop shopping available to some of the greediest of customers. It's designed for streetcars that enjoy eating tires more than Paris Hilton enjoys ... well, you get the idea. The recipe is simple: add a rock-solid bottom end, low-compression pistons, smal-port heads for great torque, a reasonable street-worthy cam, and a 14-psi dose from a D-1SC-then stir.
As with all of Golen's packages, the ball gets rolling with precision machine work. Unique to the supercharger package, though, is the use of billet splayed main caps. Once the cylinders have been bored and honed 0.030 over and the mains align-honed, an Eagle 4340 forged steel crank is balanced in-house with its Eagle 5.7-inch 4340 forged H-beam rods and SRP forged -31cc blower pistons. Special Hastings Racing plasma moly rings are used to prevent blow-by, and the bottom end is assembled with ARP main studs. One of the ways Golen manages to keep the price down to just $8,499 (on the long-block) is by using factory aluminum LT1 casting heads with its own proprietary CNC-porting. These heads are said to flow exceptionally well wet and dry, and with a 185cc intake runner there is no low-end penalty. Using a 54cc combustion chamber and Fel-Pro head gaskets, compression checks in at about 9.25:1. A very modest 214/224 duration hydraulic roller with a 115 LSA from Comp Cams is all that is required for 700 crank horsepower and 670 lb-ft according to Golen. But we wanted to see for ourselves.
After the LT1 block is baked,...
After the LT1 block is baked, blasted, and magnafluxed it is bored and then honed to the desired 4.030-inch bore. Paul takes great pride in honing the cylinders first with a 70-grit then 150-, 280-, and a 280-grit with a plateau brush finish to remove the peaks on the crosshatch to simulate wear in order to help seat the rings faster. All four cylinders in this pic are each of the aforementioned stages, starting with the roughest hone on the near cylinder.
The block has been machined,...
The block has been machined, drilled, and tapped for the splayed billet main caps (unique to the supercharger package) then align-honed. Since the second set of main bolts are angled (or splayed), they reach into a stronger part of the block's webbing and obviously the use of billet makes the caps stronger as well.
An Eagle 4340 forged steel...
An Eagle 4340 forged steel 3.75-inch stroke crank and 5.70-inch H-beam rods provide the rest of the rock-solid bottom end. On a naturally aspirated build a 6.0-inch rod would be better suited. However, the geometry and clearances are different with the low-compression piston.
The SRP forged blower pistons...
The SRP forged blower pistons have a -31cc dish to help achieve a 9.25:1 compression, and a larger crown. Golen combines these pistons with Hastings Racing plasma moly rings, gapped appropriately for moderate boost.
Bob weights are constructed...
Bob weights are constructed based on the rod and piston weight, and the Eagle crank is drilled accordingly for precise balancing.
The crank is placed on top...
The crank is placed on top of the Clevite bearings with 0.0022 to 0.0024-inch of oil clearance. ARP main studs are torqued from 40 to 75 ft-lb with oil on the top studs and silicone on the splayed studs since they protrude into the water jacket.