HUGE question....I'll look just at engine mainly
The first two questions you have to answer for yourself are how original is your vette and how original do you want it to be? (that was really the first
)
and how many cubic bucks do you wish to slavishly devote to your new god?
I can't agree enough with 69MyWay on the SidePipes. I have a great low restriction aluminized 2.5" standard under car system through FlowMasters very well done by Triple A Muffler of Mesquite, coming off of Hooker Headers, with no horrid cats, with a crossover (it does cut into sound quite a bit, but improves high RPM breathing a lot) and with twin secondary mounted O2 sensors for my A/F meter.
My little SBC sounds awesome and has very little restriction.
Nevertheless I can't wait to change it.
I want all that HEAT out from under my car. I want it AWAY from my tranny and I want to stop grinding on the pipes on road bumps! Since I want a monster BB I want REAL diameter pipes, which you simply can't run under the car through the conventional holes (3.25" is about max clearance - forget 4.5".)
That leads to my main consideration: Engine selection.
Before considering upgrades to that specific engine, be sure you wish to stay with it.
An honest 35 year old cast iron SBC is not that great a platform and yet may be worth something. New or newer castings, four bolt, even aluminum or raised deck (or both!) or a change to a BB may ultimately be your most effective ticket to 10 and 7 pounds per hp and less. The newer later chevy engines are excellent as well and are a consideration.
In my sick and twisted view, if you don't care about originality that much except external appearance (and in general what it could have been) or if it has already been altered a lot, the best bang for your buck all around is going big block and not even upgrading the small block.
This may start a flame war, but it's just not deniable:
There is no replacement for displacement!
(If no SB
BABIES respond to THAT barb, well it's just because they. are.
WEAK!) :argue :booty
You can build or buy a crate SBC making just under a reliable/durable 1.1 HP/cube with a solid 6500 usable redline for $3500-5000. Of course you can get closer to 1.3 HP/cube, in the same 50K+ mile/1k+ engine hour durability fairly easily, without getting
too exotic, but you are in the $7-10,000 range then.
Now big blocks are more expensive to buy into and require some other changes - the best radiators (as do ANY powerful engines,) power steering manipulations sometimes, heavier front springs, etc. You can however get into an even
more reliable/durable 1.0HP/cube BBC with a solid useful 6000 redline for only $4500-6500. Similar "mid-end" BBC efforts are going for about the same $7-10,000 as the SBC, and they will typically yield 1.2 HP/cube.
You're dealing with a base 385 hp in the SBC or 455 hp in the BBC. Things really get interesting when you throw in the stroker combinations available to both. 383 cube SBC's grow on trees today, as do 572 cube BBC's - and between the range of those two price groupings, since it's largely bolt in bottom-end. These strokers typically develop a few fewer hp/cube and are capable of a little less RPM, but also typically have greater torque.
So now you're dealing with 400+hp (right up there with the Z06's) in the moderate stroked SBC
and 560+hp in the moderate stroked BBC!!! (which only a few limited run early C3's and blown C4's and C5's ever approached...)
I can't help starting with engine concerns first, as they determine so many others, such as gearing, tranny choices, need for OD's, usefullness of "normal" manual transmissions/clutches, exhaust options, weight concerns. The choice drives many others.
