Mr Jones 4.6 said:
Now your next thing to start saving up for is a bottom-end, because your are definitely getting close enough you possibly will be at the max of those rods, which are not forged they are powder coated. I have first hand experience with a lighting with the exact mods pretty much that you have ported blower and alot of bolt ons. Of course the lightning now is running a fully built all Stage2 heads and cams with a whipple putting out 573rwhp and 625rwtq w/ 18#'s of boost and running 11.78@117.
Also I would be careful with the tranny, i dont know how many miles are on your truck but they tend to wear a little quicker when you cross 400rwhp...lol Our lightning is heading to the tranny shop to get a rebuilt tranny w/ 3k stall.
Good Luck on your numbers, you will be amazed at what those LT's do to that Lightning Well worth it in my opinion.
the problem with the internals is the NON forged parts, but with a safe tune and not going over board with power is the key to the bottom end lasting. Ive done my fair share of research and talking to dozens of fellow L owners so I'm pretty educated on where the breaking point is. Also my tuner is a Lightning EXPERT, I decided not to just to to the regular dyno shop for my tune. I wanted to go to a exclusive Lightning shop, so I talked to the guys on nloc.net to find one not too far from me and got with AVT performance. The owner has a L himself / shop / and dyno

and his specialty is Lightnings. He has built a few L's around me here in NC that are daily driven and are in the mid 10's ( same his own truck runs ). So I'm in good hands, thats not a worry for me. When I do the upgrade to a KB or Whip, the boost / timing will be kept conservative unless I do make the decision to go with a built bottom end. And that very well may happen.......ya never know :coolsmiley:
I have 34k miles on the L, its already been to the trans shop for custom valve body work........I'm pondering on putting in a 24 or 2600 stall in the near future.
