I live in Cali and with a 1978 Vette I must keep the smog people happy. The L-82 has 220 HP and I would like to see alittle over 300 HP. Edelbrock and Holley each have kits that include, aluminum heads, intake and cam. Are those Edelbrock carbs (old afbs?) smog legal and would the setup require headers? I would like to keep it under 2 Grand.

 

The kits should easily get you over 300 horsepower. The L-82, if I remember correctly, already comes with forged pistons so you won't need to do anything to your bottom end for that horsepower range. The heads should be 64cc heads to bring your compression up to something more reasonable and a decent cam in the 220 degree @.050 lift will wake things up. The Edelbrock carbs are just like the old AFBs and as far as I'm concerned work quite well. i have a 650 cfm electric choke AVS Thunder carb on mine and its caused me no problems so far. The intake manifold will have to be a performer version to fit under the hood due to clearance issues. These changes plus a decent set of headers should get you into the 325-350 horsepower range easily. If you want to get away from the package concept there are alternatives in the Vortec (and its clones) heads that work well too and flow excellent numbers. In a recent issue of one of the hot rod magazines they did a test of the vortec, bowtie vortec, edelbrock e-tec and some other heads. The Edelbrock E-tec heads gave the highest average horsepower and torque and only gave a little torque away at the bottom end. Since you want a manifold too getting vortec types heads and a matching manifold won't be an issue. I'm not sure if the vortec heads require different headers. Possibly someone with more knowledge than me will chime in. Good luck with the mods.

 

The first mod is to get a high flow modern design catalytic converter. The GM piece is very restrictive and will prevent any of the other mods from performing up to potential.

After that you should look at changing those heads. The Edelbrock Performer heads are emissions certified but not the RPM heads. The Performer cam is a mild upgrade but with a cat you probably need to keep it sensible.

I would not throw the manifold away or the carb. Might be worth the effort to recalibrate the mixture though. Recurve the factory distributor and see how you like it then. That will keep you within your budget and give you the performance increase.

-Mark.

 

You need a low restriction cat. Hedman makes emission legal headers w/ air tubes.
The Performer 2102 cam is not an upgrade on L-82! It's a little more than the L-48 cam.
For cam you need to state trans & rear gears.

The 76-79 med. rise hood allows the Victor Jr, RPM & others on SB w/ aftermarket (about 1 1/4") dropbase filter (about 3") & Holley.

 

Oh Yeah!

I am basically looking to do the same mods to my 77 L-82. It is amazing condition with only 32,000 miles and has only seen rain 4 times in the past 22 years. However, it needs a little more pep and spunk!

The only mod that has been done was removal of the cats. I would love to bump up the horsepower over 300 without spending over $2k. A package sounds appealing to me as I am not the most experienced mechanic.

I would love to hear your thoughts and recommendations!!!

Thanks!

 

Where did you find these packages... I have been looking around online with little luck. Thanks!