Nitro DarkSide

Good morning from Europe!

Few months back i changed the complete exhaust on my 73 L82 vette.



Now I am thinking ... what´s next? I would like to have more HP coming out from this v8..

Carburetor? Which one? Will it make a big difference? Reliability of the engine will decrease?

I have also a K&N air filter on the car...

7t9l82

email Lars for his tuning papers and set up your distributor before anything else.

dochorsepower

In my opinion, the best gain for an L-82 would be modern technology high compression heads like AFR180's. Then fiddle around with tuning improvements.

DucatiDon

Agree.

MotorHead

Car sounds like an animal, what kind of mufflers you got on there ?

Shark Racer

Did your complete exhaust include long tube headers? If not, you should. Those are worth some good power, regardless of what engine you have in the car. (OK, I haven't verified against an LG4, but I know it will significantly improve power on any 350 offered in a 'vette. )

Nitro DarkSide

This is what i got on my vette:
https://www.ecklerscorvette.com/corv...teel-1973.html

The mufflers are inside the pipes

I didn´t know that and I buoght also the Flowmasters 40 (if i remember well).. that are in my garage now

terrys6t8roadster

Eliminate parasitic engine HP loss. The fan, convert to electric.. Valve rockers to roller. ETC. T

jb78L-82

I just rebuilt my L-82 into a 355 with AFR 180's and a Howard's roller cam and the engine is completely different now-serious get up and go...

Nitro DarkSide

Would it be worth to change only the heads then? I mean, i saw it is not cheap.. so I am wondering if i will notice something .. or more

MotorHead

Your next steps are heads, cam,intake and carb. This is an expensive step so I would save up and get the whole engine overhauled at the same time. Time to start crate motor comparisons to rebuilding your existing engine. My buddy sells top of the line crate engines that will last and are guaranteed.

Shark Racer

Nitro - that kit runs to the stock manifolds. Are you still running them? (see my post above)

After setting up the distributor curve correctly, headers are the next biggest performance/$ mod you can do to these cars.

7t9l82

a good set of heads with the stock L-82 cam will make a very noticeable difference.

Nitro DarkSide

I changed also the headers (this is what you mean, right?).. bought from another website because not available in that kit

It seems like next step will be good heads... ok, I will start saving.. from tomorrwo

Solid LT1

The L-82 motor has a very good performance camshaft from GM. IF your exhaust is upgraded then installing a performance set of cylinder heads/intake manifold would be the next wise step of upgrading an L-82 motor as you will improve intake/exhaust port flow and can raise compression in one job. The L-82 have a 76cc combustion chamber going to an aluminum cylinder head will allow you to utilize a smaller 68cc combustion chamber and the improved compression and port flow will probably result in a 35-50HP increase in motor performance. The lower parts of an L-82 motor are a forged steel crankshaft/pistons and select improved connecting rods, this bottom end of the motor is the same as the 1971/72 LT-1 high performance motor and will live a long life if held to a 6500RPM redline. Because GM built this motor with quality parts, the top end is where you should concentrate on your performance upgrades. When changing the cylinder heads I would also install some better push rods and rocker arms, realistically your looking at $1500-2000 budget for this upgrade if you do the work yourself. Beware of the Asian made cylinder heads while the price is cheap, the parts and quality of the machining is often times very substandard, if you drive your Vette on the Autobahn, I would want the best quality parts when I'm running it at high speeds.

96 lt-4

Recurving the distributor will help greatly.After that I would look into some 64cc aluminum heads.You can find used ones on ebay regularly. 180cc runner would be the max size I would use.Even vortec heads would net a good gain on a budget(though they would need a vortec intake and rockers as well).Running 1.6 roller rockers will help out the cam with stock or aftermarket heads.
At this point you would likely need to richen up the qjet or switch to a holley style carb.I would keep the qjet if it is in good condition.An intake swap will do well also with the heads just make sure it accepts a spread bore carb if you keep the q jet.
Make sure you are running a 180 t-stat as well.An elec fan will free up a few hp but unless you have a used one that you can swap cheaply it would be one of the last upgrades along with some underdrive pulleys as well.

ANTS C3

Sounds Great, I also have a 73, L82 with factory exhaust manifolds, then straight stainless steel all the way to some huge mufflers the previous owner put on there. I am considering headers and new mufflers as my next upgrade.

Can you list your exhaust setup from the heads back? Really sounds good.

Thanks Anthony

Nitro DarkSide

Hello,
sorry for the huge delay but i totally missed your question.

This is the exhaust that I have on my car:
https://www.ecklerscorvette.com/corv...teel-1973.html

The headers:
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/hed-68300

Then I bought also Flowmaster Series40 mufflers, but in the end I didn't get them installed because the exhaust I got from Ecklers included them as well.. but I didn't know it