It will be the first ls third gen I've done though. I'm looking forward to having a cheap beater. Most expensive part of the whole car is the tranny. Everything else is cheap. I could grenade the motor and turbo in one shot and be out like $600 lol. Poor car will probably get beat like a red headed step child cause I don't care if it blows up. I have next to no money into it and its all cheap to replace.

Sweet man thats badass! I really want to do that myself fabricate a turbo system on a budget. Everyone of my friends with turbo cars say they are a nightmare though. I might go with Procharger for boost to learn, then maybe down the road do a turbo 5.3 or something.

Eh, they aren't that bad. Hardest part is packaging everything and building headers. I'm cutting out the header part this time by running flipped manifolds. I suppose just bolting on a supercharger kit would be way easier but after driving all the different forms of boost I prefer a well set up turbo car. My preference

Yeah that's the killer is the headers. For an LT1 you really have to buy aftermarket things and you know a 4th gen LT1 engine bay is way too cramped. If I had an LS I would probably to turbo before before s/c because I could flip manifolds and fab a y pipe to a whatever flange, smash one 3" pipe out the passenger side under the manifold. I have my 78 Z I should probably turbo, there's a lot of room.

Yeah, way more room in a second gen. Don't necessarily need to buy turbo manifolds either but it would make it easier. Could also do a log set up or custom headers. The other one I did we ordered a weld up header set for a drag car that came with flanges and a bunch of bends and I made my own.

On another note, skipping the ls9 cam set up. Scored an ls6 cam/springs for cheap so going with that. :)

Don't you need to modify the 5.3 a little to fit the LS9 cam in there?

Ish, you need to change the cam gear and timing cover for it.
I was gonna go that route cause I couldn't find a used ls6 cam. They seem to sell instantly on ls1tech. The whole ls9 setup is still like half the cost of an aftermarket cam/springs if you get it all new from gmpartsdirect. But, got lucky and got a response from a wtb on corvette forum. :)

In either sense like you say it's a good budget boost cam

Yup. Scrounging every last bit for the best deals I can find. All said and done I'll have about 4 grand into the whole build. My goal is a nice fun driver that burns out at will and hopefully runs mid 11's. I don't really want it to go any faster cause I have no plans to cage it. This will be my cruiser. Debating even keeping ac. Leaning against right now though due to budget and packaging issues.

im surprised youre not going automatic!