RHS LS1 Engine Build - Trial By Fire

What you see here is the much-anticipated, highly secretive, and oft-dreamt-about RHS LS Race Block. We won't go into the history of this block, but suffice it to say it is real, it is ready to ship, and it certainly delivers on all of its promises. The amount of time and thought RHS has poured into this block shows in every improvement, and believe us, there are many. This all starts with a massive amount of A357-T6 aluminum, which is eventually formed into one of two castings, a standard 9.240-inch block or, the much more interesting, 9.750-inch "tall deck" version. For the tall deck, you get a set of very long 6.38-inch sleeves, which are built specifically to minimize "piston rock" at the bottom of a long stroke, while still maintaining enough clearance for larger 4.600-inch stroker crankshafts. The press-in, spun cast-iron liners are surrounded by a full water jacket, which provides maximum cooling for the 4.125-4.165-inch bores. The tall deck also benefits from a very thick 0.750-inch deck, which can be configured to hold a set of standard head bolts or 0.5-inch ARP studs in a six-bolt configuration. With big cubes in mind (up to 502ci, as shown here) the engineers at RHS decided to move the camshaft up in the block (0.388-inch), which provides two major benefits. The first is the ability to run a large 4.600-inch crankshaft without clearance issues. The second, and more important, advantage is the ability to run a regular or (enlarged) 60mm camshaft, as opposed to the small base circle camshafts that a normal cam position block would require. Once you select a camshaft, the RHS block affords a number of lifter choices, including room to install oversized 1.060-inch bushings for keyed lifters. You will need to run a tie-bar style lifter, but enlarged lifter windows allow for an easy install and even the possibility of removing the lifters with the heads still installed.