Expert: Matt Lyons - 12/24/2008

Question
Hello,

Take any car with an LS motor, Camaro, Firebird, GTO (05') anyway and Corvette. How much use in running the engine full throttle to redline can you get out of the vehicle for 100,000 miles assuming you keep awesome care, change the oil on time and all preventative maintenance?

Now, I heard on PINKS a show on SPEED in case you didn't know. I'm sure you do...but anyway, he said that drag cars last longer than circuit cars do.

That had me thinking, how long do you think the engine would last if:
1. All you did was take it to the drag strip on the weekend or whenever. How many miles before it goes roughly and how much could I redline it?

2. The same question, but taking to a track instead.

Also, what would you consider low, moderate, and high amounts of usage, either dragging or racing the car? For example is low usage, redlining once a week, once a month, how many?

I just want to know what these engineers designed into these engines, and how much usage they were expecting the owner to get out of it. I know there is a warranty and all too. And that throws in variables. So to make it easy, you can say how many times you would redline the thing, or race before the warranty is up. But for durability sake, I would like to know how much it can take over 100 thousand miles.

Answer
Production computer controlled vehicles today have built-in rev limiters that prevent you from stressing the engine beyond the intended design parameters. With that said, if you run the engine to redline you are taking the chance of killing the valvesprings. Most successful racers know that by shifting before the redline produces the faster et's at the track. Instead of focusing on redline performance I would look at making the combination as powerful as possible in the power curve.
As for longevity, these cars were only designed to be passenger vehicles. Without the addition of aftermarket products to beef up weak areas the life span is considerably diminished.
I would definitely recommend synthetic fluids,additional oil and transmission coolers as well as traction control devices.

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