Recently, I came across an article by Stephen Rupp, about a father-son duo who are currently trying to fit a set of Gen-V small-block Chevy heads (L83 heads, specifically) to a late model 5.0-liter small-block Ford short-block. Well, I should just say block, because they have only tackled getting the heads bolted onto the block so far.

This led to some spirited discussions among us here in the Power Automedia offices, and one of the things to come out of this discussion was a simple, “Why?” That simple, one-word question has sent me into a spiral of consideration that has probably consumed more of my time than it should have, so I thought I should put my stream of consciousness onto paper (so to speak) and see what comes out.

No one argues that back in the day, necessity was the mother of invention. There were no off-the-shelf go-fast parts. If you wanted something other than what came from the factory, you had to make it yourself. The situation for those of us addicted to the go-fast crack pipe has gotten exponentially better over the decades, with the ability to order up almost anything you can dream up, and have it to your door in days.

As long as emotions  are part of the equation,  doing crazy shit downright makes sense.

So this project leaves me genuinely conflicted. Is it cool? Abso-freakin’-lutely. Is it practical? Hell no! Will it work? That’s yet to be seen. But the crux of my internal debate is “why?” No doubt the L83 heads flow incredibly well. However, the amount of effort that has already gone into the project is substantial. And that’s just to get the heads onto the block.

Besides the custom fabricated intake manifold, what about the amount of effort that will be required to get the valvetrain to work properly? Even assuming that your labor is worth zero — and not just on a balance sheet — there is still a host of costs for custom parts and/or materials waiting in the wings to run up the project’s budget. So if the author’s initial premise (“The path less traveled can lead you to a lot of bargain performance, if you have the skills, tools, and a plan.”) is the true purpose of the project, it could be achieved for (probably significantly) less, by just purchasing a set of off the shelf canted-valve heads, or just building a Gen-V engine, and getting the same (or better) performance in a much shorter time frame, for the same, or less money in the long run.

If the goal of this project is just trying to save money, then I believe it’s a fool’s errand based on false economy. However, there is another angle that sort of popped up in the article, and that is the father-son aspect. I’m sure there are many of you out there who would gladly pay a significant hourly rate to spend quality time with your loved ones. So in that case, the whole “your time is worth zero” goes right out the window, because you can’t put any kind of monetary value on the project at that point.

Then there is the fact that no one else will ever have anything like this engine, and that you can prove to the LS and LT guys that they really are Gen-2 small-block Ford engines, and that the engineers really were looking at Ford’s homework during the design phase. Again, that’s another intangible that you can’t put a monetary value on.

We are all too familiar with projects based on emotion. Project LS5.0 borders on illogical, but aims to prove a point.

So, I guess my conclusion is that the old ways of the hot-rodders — that is, cobbling together whatever is available in order to go fast — isn’t really a necessity these days. If all you want is to go as fast as possible, there are plenty of off-the-shelf parts out there to make life easy. Hell, the financial side of buying off-the-shelf is almost a break-even proposition at this point, too.

However, as long as the intangibles — emotions — are part of the equation, that hot-rodding spirit is not only alive and well, but doing crazy shit downright makes sense. As someone afflicted by the need to turn emotions into mechanical middle fingers (or mechanical high-fives; sometimes projects come from a place of fondness instead of spite) all I need to hear is “because I want to” as the justification for a project. At the end of the day, none of what we do makes financial sense. It’s all based on emotion of some kind. And I wouldn’t want it any other way.