According to Dictionary.com, a bedroom is “a room furnished and used for sleeping.” A typical Western bedroom consists of a bed, closet, dresser, maybe a nightstand and desk. Notice I said nightstand, not engine stand, but obviously 37-year-old Jacob Walker didn’t get the memo. You see, in Jacob’s house, in a bedroom protected by plastic sheeting in the doorway for cleanliness, is the stuff dreams are made of in the form of a Gen III GM 6.0L iron block as used in LQ9 powered truck engines.

Walker, a 15 year Army veteran from Clarksville, Tennessee, is currently enrolled at Lincoln College of Technology and works full time at a local auto care center. In his spare time, he’s assembling the biggest, baddest engine within his budget. When one thinks of homemade or homegrown it’s usually something to get excited about as opposed to the mass produced store bought items, and unless of course you have had my cooking, the mouth starts watering and anticipation grows. As a submission to EngineLabs’ Homegrown Horsepower section, Jacob appears to have the skill set required to assemble an engine meeting those criteria.

As a youth he got his first taste of horsepower about 500 feet from his uncle’s house at an eighth-mile dragstrip, where the seed was planted. Years later he bought a 1999 Trans Am with a stock LS1 – backed with a P-1SC-1 ProCharger – that made 490 horsepower at the rear wheels. This combination quickly found and broke a weak link in the transmission. Walker used some of his Army severance pay to buy a daily driver and to start the rebuild on the transmission of the Trans Am. What started out with a routine freshen-up on the engine was redirected when a crack was found in the block.

Fortunately the LS market is loaded with ways to build reliable horsepower on a budget, and Jacob has leaned on Texas Speed to help him provide that foundation using quality parts that will help him hopefully obtain 900-1000 horsepower at the rear tires.

Using Wiseco dished pistons to achieve a streetable and boost friendly 9.4:1 compression ratio along with a Callies crankshaft and rods with some extra length, he ended up with 408 cubic inches hidden below the Precision Race Components cylinder heads. The heads are PRC’s 247cc version with 68cc combustion chambers. The custom COMP Cams hydraulic roller bumpstick lifts the 2.120-inch intake and 1.60-inch exhaust valves .595-inch and .605-inch respectively when coupled with the 1.72:1 COMP rocker arms. Lunati‘s lifters are also on board.

After writing a paper for school comparing centrifugal superchargers, turbochargers, roots blowers and MagnaChargers, Walker chose to have his boost maker upgraded to a D-1SC that according to ProCharger is good for another 100hp over his previous P-1SC. He also elected to call Brute Speed, also from Texas, to purchase one of their Aster Brackets.

The Aster Auto Spring loaded tensioner is able to automatically adjust as the belt stretches during increased engine RPM to keep slippage and power loss to a minimum. The bracket also keeps the tension lower when not needed and reduces belt stretch, while the spring also acts as a shock absorber to alleviate noise and stress.

With 15-20 pounds of boost blowing through a FAST 102mm intake manifold and throttle body, Walker knew some extra fuel would be needed to support the new horsepower level. Nasty Performance got the call for a set of Siemens 80 lb./hr. high-impedance fuel injectors. The flammable mixture is pushed to the atomization state using twin Walbro fuel pumps; Walker will be adjusting his tune with HP Tuners software and lighting the mixture with E3 spark plugs. “I am shooting for high 5 to low 6-second passes in the Trans Am,” says the bedroom engine builder.

All this sounds great to your author and I am licking my lips at seeing what this homegrown build can do. I always thought that a bedroom was only used for a couple of things, and engine building wasn’t one of them.

It’s been said that ‘an individual’s bedroom is a reflection of one’s personality, as well as social class, and is unique to each person.’ Jacob Walker’s bedroom reflects his interests perfectly.

If you’re interested in submitting your garage-built engine to Homegrown Horsepower, send a few quality photos and brief writeup of the details to [email protected].