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Street/Strip C4 LT1, this is the Plan.

Idaho Slim

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 2, 2003
Messages
184
Location
Archer, Idaho
Corvette
1996 LT1- Blk/Blk. 1996 LT4 - White/Blk
Well, went and sold the LT4 a while back, and the wife and I decided her C4 LT1 will now be my race/street car (provided I put the down on a Z06) :woot: Since that will be awhile b4 we can swing it, we came up with plans for mods for the LT1, what do you think of the following? Any suggestions would be appreciated, the intent is to still have the driveability to make a road trip, but still up the performance and consistecy on the drag strip.
Right now its at the body shop being painted ( I know, no perf increase there, but it looked like crap with the sun faded black paint. Maybe I pick up a tenth from the smooth air flowing over the car, hahahaha ;LOL)

  • I have the following
    • Drag radials
    • SLP intake
    • Smooth air power couplers
    • Larger MAF body
    • Magnaflow mufflers
    • Computer tuned


  • Plans for next spring/this fall
    • First - 1.6 rocker arms/new springs
    • 2nd - 3.55 gears (I have the D36)
    • 3rd - Tranny rebuild for tighter shifts & tweak the stall converter
    • 4th - Complete Dyno tune

What else? Remember, would love to lower my ET's, but since I am a contender at the local drag tracks with this consistnecy of this car I dont want to go too wild until the motor needs replaced, (currently 103,000 miles)

Thanx for looking, :w
 
I gotta ask,
who gets the new Zo6? I kinda know but I wanted to ask anyways...:chuckle

If you;re ok with the area that you;re in with the speeds and times, and looking for another second or within without breaking the bank, I'd consider some port work on the intake & heads. Thats what I've done and got great results. There is so much room for improvement in the GM intake system that anything that you do will make it have better throttle response, more upper end power, extend the mid to hi end pulling power and still keep a very docile street car.
What I liked most was keeping all the stock parts so no one was the wiser...;)

What motivated me was the new Edlebrock throttle body that came polished and with a shaped front for improved flow to the butterflys...I thought that was great but everything behind that sucked for the most part and I did not want to start buying big name brand manifolds that may or may not do what I wanted...So, having a lot of experioence in porting motorcycle engines I went for it. Except this time I was a little more educated in airflow dynamics and didn;t waste my time polishing...just opening, matching and shaping. If you can pull your top end off and disassemble the heads you can do this in 2 weekends easily. great way to freshen up the heads and it comes with a built-in excuse to buy new springs & roller rockers.:eyerole
If pulling the heads off is not practical, do the intake and TB together. Gasket match and open the runners and you will feel a difference.

Its the simple things that add up to REAL HP...like a pulley kit. That alone will send as much as 20 real hp to the wheels instead of the alt and water pump. Then an elec water pump?
Its only money..:D

You know what you like and what you want to do...asking us for ideas for your car is like handing over the checkbook !;LOL I WILL help spend your money..!

But seriously, the way to keep stock reliability and find more performance is to perfect the original GM design. Its great. BUT, it suffers from the assmbly line syndrome where the critical parts do not get perfected. Thats how the latest ZR-1 got where it is...hand assembly and attention to detail in the engine. No casting ridges or seams in the intake...balance, exact torque specs, polished surfaces etc...all the things that mass production have to ignore to keep the price of production down enough to make the car affordable. The Z was never intended for the masses..so GM can do all these things, at a sizable increase in cost...from a $48,000 base (I think) to a $120,000 ZR1. Thats what details cost.
YOU can do this at home too...just take the GM pieces and perfect them one at a time. Your power and performance is in there..:thumb
 
Boom, you know good and well who gets HER name on the title to the Z06;worship

So good to hear from you, and that the "old performance" posters are still around helping. Your sugggestions are very inticing, and makes alot of sense, the top notch performance of our LT1 is just from a general run motor and not specialized. Now you got me thinking of our (my performance builder and I) plans for when this motor wears out, initially I had thought of a 383, then my builder let me know what they are doing for huge performance gains, (taking a LS1 or LS3 motor out of a wreck, juicing it up with a cam & head work, and sliping it into my C4. guestimate of 450-600 h.p.) A number I would shoot for, would be a 11.0 second C4. :D
 

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