409/409

I have read about 4 1966 L-88's of which Steve McQueen's was the only one that retained the aluminum heads. Pictures of him by his 1966 Corvette L-88 with a small block hood. My question is, how did this hood fit? I thought the big block hood was made for clearance for the big block because the small block hood would not close. They also mention a cowl induction hood. Was this hood a '65/'66 style or a '67 style? Does anyone have pictures of the hood in question and/or the air cleaner?
Thanks

Nowhere Man

April fools was yesterday. I think we all had enough of this

NightshiftHD

If its this story you're referring to, it apparently had the first stinger hood with the L88 insert. Says it was a late 65 car, but the body is a 66 (no drivers side rear vent).

http://carguychronicles.com/2018/02/...ovs-first-l88/

Nowhere Man

the first heavy duty 427 with M22 went to Roger Penske and other racers. Not to movie stars.

NightshiftHD

Sorry that Ken Kayser article was referring to Zora's 1st L88 prototype in 65 that was the basis for the 66 versions made for Penske, Yenko etc. Bill

DansYellow66

Yeah - something fishy there.

Seems sort of early for a pre-production 67 BB hood to show up also.

But I'll leave to others to sort out the legends and lies of this story.

NightshiftHD

Not challenging you there, but according to Kevin Mackay, one of the 66 L88's did end up with Steve McQueen for a while ... by the sound of it Zora was looking for publicity in it.

Dr L-88

That is 100% correct and it has had a very interesting life and is in GOOD hands now.

Nowhere Man

That really doesn’t add up as for 67 GM wanted to keep the L88 out of regular hands and off the street. But since I wasn’t there I’ll take your word for it. Every thing I read Zoe’s wanted to win Sebring and LaMans and tried to help the teams who raced Corvettes.

409/409

I'm still looking for an explanation for the cowl induction hood. It is suppose to have a rear opening for air intake. Does a small block hood fit with a big block?

Critter1

Factory records show that no L88's were built during the 66 model year.

HD (L88) engines were available to a few folks during the 66 MY but none were installed on the assy line at the St Louis plant.

NightshiftHD

I think for 66 they were all prototypes probably with L72s swapped out for L88s under Zora's supervision somewhere in another GM location off-site.

NightshiftHD

I've never heard of a SB hood fitting down over a BB. But I've never tried it personally either. Even with the L88 air cleaner base and screen top, they sit as high as any other BB air cleaner, but because of the small diameter of the L88 screen top, a SB hood might actually fit down over that. A friend of mine has an L88 clone so maybe I can talk him into trying a SB hood to see so we know for sure. Bill

DansYellow66

The aluminum BB manifolds won't clear a SB hood. But I have seen a few BB transplants into SB cars that ran a factory low performance, low profile cast iron intake and a low profile air cleaner and they managed to get it under a SB hood.

I guess I should have added I'm not sure about the C3 aluminum BB manifold. I know it's a little lower profile (except for the L88 version) so I'm not sure on it one way or the other.

Dr L-88

An unmodified factory small block hood will not clear a factory big block engine fitted with a factory aluminum intake and carb.

Critter1

I thought Steve McQueen's car already had the 66 big block hood?

Dr L-88

Yep

SWCDuke

Corvette News Vol. 9 No. 4 has an article announcing the availability of the new HD options, M-22, F-41, and J-56. This issue arrived in the mail about March, 1966.

Although not specifically stated in the article it is generally accepted that these HD options were only available with the L-72 engine. (The L-88 was still in development and not released until after start of '67 production.) There are claims of L-36 cars with one or more of these HD options, but it hasn't been proven that these HD options were actually available with L-36. The "evidence" is all anecdotal.

Another article in this issue chronicled the Penske Corvette's performance at the Daytona race, including the fact that it won the GT class.

It's well known that GM management mandated that GM not be involved in racing going back to the 1957 "AMA ban" and aggressively enforced this policy beginning in early 1963. So if the engineers are developing a racing engine as an available option, how do you test it? The crucible of racing is the natural place, but GM couldn't be involved. What to do?

So there's this guy named Roger Penske who is not only an accomplished driver and team owner/manager, but he also is a Chevrolet dealer. So you put forth a PO for Purchasing to write an engineering development contract with Penske to test the engine and newly released HD options in real racing conditions. The deal includes a production line built "engineering development car" with the appropriate available RPOs for a car destined for serious racing, and a prototype cold air induction hood is shipped to Penske's race shop in Pennsylvania for installation during the race prep.

In fact, this car may have been the "pilot build" car for the shortly-to-be-released HD options. (As a rule before release of RPOs at least one "pilot build" that is retained by engineering, at least for awhile, is run down the line to test the production process. Since the HD parts were just a matter of substitution of regular production parts only one pilot line car would be necessary, and I doubt if the line had any problems.)

Guldstrand picked up the car at St. Louis in mid-January, drove it to Pennsylvania, and over the next couple of weeks the Penske race shop prepped the car for Daytona including installation of the cold air hood, safety equipment, racing exhaust, wheels, and tires, and cosmetics.

Guldstrand claimed that the factory installed engine was a L-88, but I consider that to be an "old racer's tale" For one thing, the L-88 engine was still in development and NOT released as a RPO for St. Louis Plant installation, which is supported by the Corvette News Article.

So here is a quote from said Corvette News article:

"Practice for #6 went fine on Thursday using a stock engine [my emphasis]. For Friday's qualification, however, a new Traco-prepared powerplant [sic] was installed and Dick Guldstrand qualified the Corvette at a respectable 2:10 lap time."

So the car left St. Louis with a "stock" engine. What does this mean, especially considering that the L-88 engine was not yet released for production line installation?

And what about this Traco engine. Why was it assembled (and probably dyno tested) by Traco. Could it be that given Traco's position as Penske's preferred engine supplier that the contract called for Traco to build/test the engine using parts supplied by Chevrolet Engineering?

Forget the UFO and alien abduction theories. Apply Occam's Razor, which in simplified form means that the simplest, least speculative answer based on available facts is the best answer.

BTW, the prototype cold air induction hood does not look like the production '67 L-88 hood. It's looks like a '66 hood where the "bulge" was extended back past the cowl to the base of the windshield, but functionally the production '67 L-88 hood is likely identical.

Duke

Critter1

That's pretty much the way I remember the story from long ago.

The car had all the HD options with the exception of the L88 engine. One of the many concerns was finding fuel on the initial trip out of St Louis.

TCracingCA