How much boost can the 2.4 take before the head gaskets or heads blow?

 

ask bill hahn i bet he would know.

 

At those pressures, I'd be concerned about the bottom end too.

 

bill is working on gdzhhr's car starting yesterday so he may soon know the answer to this but it should be no different than any other 2.4

 

My guess is that the "weak link" is going to be pistons. That seems to be the case for the LSJ crowd anyway.

The LE5 seems to be pretty stout. There's quite of few boosted Solstices and I haven't seen any problems crop up yet there.

I'm running a little over 10 lbs. boost. Got my fingers crossed!

Misfit, you're sig says 5M... If that indicates the manual, if you add any decent power, I can guarantee you will be pulling the trans and putting in a better clutch. Don't ask me how I know!

 

The Ecotec build book had a pretty good description of what kind of power levels and boost could be achieved. I think Bill Hahn also said once that 400 HP was possible on stock internals without using o-rings on the heads. Anything above the boost required for that and you're probably looking at some major mods like o-rings, head studs, forged pistons, rods, and crank. Head, block, and bearings seem to be good over 1000 HP anyway.

 

Boost numbers mean little. Boost is a measure of the air that DIDN'T make it into the combustion chamber. Combustion pressure is what blows gaskets, stretches head bolts, bends rods, and crunches pistons. It pretty much correlates with peak torque.

 

The LS stock pistons are eutectic cast jobs with a smallish top ring land. I believe they are sourced by Mahle. They are nice and light, and have decent expansion properties, but zero tolerance for detonation. Much above 575 RWHP in a typical setup and set some funds aside for a rebuild, if the broken piece of ring land doesn't gouge out the cylinder wall beyond the few thousanths they give you for a refresh hone. If that's the case, get a new block and start over.

I don't know a bloody thing about the pistons used in the LNF. They could be forged for all I know.