1978 L-48 engine upgrades
Instructor
Joined: Jul 2007
Posts: 228
Likes: 0
From: Price Utah
If I wanted to wake up that motor I would look at a top end swap. Vortech heads with manifold appear to be a viable swap for not a ton of money. Many GMPP outlets have packages available. Of course the cam etc. will need to be changed to take advantage of the new heads and proper recurve of dist. If you do something like this consider getting the heads already cut for additional lift as limit on vortechs was about.480 as I recall. Should be way stronger than an l82. Good luck
Pro
Joined: Oct 2008
Posts: 645
Likes: 1
From: Hayward Wi
question
where might one find the specs such as flow rates at veryus valve lifts for the Vortec Heads??
asking for me and MNTWINS33
oh it might be an half good idea to get an Verteral Dyno to test various combos i have DynoSim2003
Ryan
asking for me and MNTWINS33
oh it might be an half good idea to get an Verteral Dyno to test various combos i have DynoSim2003
Ryan
Drifting
Joined: Aug 2008
Posts: 1,381
Likes: 11
with the headers, true duals, and no cats, you have exceeded the stock L82 in horsepower and torque. If your carb and ignition are optimized you've passed it by a good margin. The next logical step would be a cam in the 204/214 420/440 112 range. Still not too much for the putrid L48 comp ratio, but just enough cam to enhance the lower RPM and pull hard in the mid range up to 5,000 RPM. With gears in the 3.08 to 3.23 range your car will run in the high 14s.
