Lets look at it this way. Lets say you had say a 70 vette with an LT1 original car even with the lousy bias ply street tires of the day no tuning you could easly get it to run say a 14.70 in a quarter miles distance and i'm not really giving the LT1 what it can really do with a 14.70. Now lets look at a car that's a 69 car is really same weight just happens to be a 69. You go out buy a 496 cu. bbc from a good engine builder it has a hydraulic roller ported heads all kinds of goodies and its a torque monster has the good ole headers really good exhaust behind it. Then you put in a high stall converter behind an auto. You put on drag radials so you have traction. Now with a full quarter of a mile distance to do it in it now can run a 10.70, 4 seconds quicker. Take a look at all it took to accomplish this. But Shark Racer can take a heavy late low compression L/82 car with only a header/better exhaust system and timing changes and from a dead stop in only 0 to 60 mph distance and shave off two full seconds. Now the car i'm using as my example is Ajthrom's car.

Now if you are reading this and you have any common sense to work with you surely know shark racer is totally full of it. He must think everyone on a car forum is ignorant and no one has ever tried to make a car accelerate fast.

I have nothing against shark racer but come on people you are far smarter then this.

 

Going from 14s to 10s in the quarter is a MASSIVE difference vs going from 18s to 14s.

And for the record - my car was an L-48, not an L-82, running a GW350 which is pretty much part for part identical to the L-48, other than 4-bolt mains.

Considering a stock 78 L-48 did 0-60 in the mid-7 second range in most rag testing, the 8.1 # shows that I was starting with a car that had some kind of issue which got fixed along the way.

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...post1590032670

Two things of note regarding my car:
1. It's a California car - meaning it came with 3.55 gears vs 3.08s I believe most autos came with. toobroketoretire's 82 would have had a 2.72 or 2.87 gear - quite different from a 3.55 when it comes to 0-60 sprints.
2. Unlike a bias ply equipped car, my car is a Pace Car and was shod at the time with 255/60-15 radials. Not wonder tires, but better than bias ply.

jb78l-82's L-82 made 233rwhp with *shorty* headers and true duals - that's enough to get your 0-60 time in the 5.x range with decent traction and a good driver.

The fact that my next round of modifications, which added probably double the horsepower delta the timing/headers/exhaust did only took the time down 0.6 seconds shows my earlier point; the faster you go the harder it is to get incrementally faster.

Thank you for saying that you're not against me and that you think (A) that I'm full of it and (B) that I think everyone on this forum is ignorant. It's not a conflicting message at all.

 

It is amazing what a proper tune can do to wake up an engine.
Just reading some of Lars papers is enough to make you start tweaking carb and ignition and I've personally had some great seat of the pants improvement.
BTW, I'm running stock iron heads (mildly worked) @ 10:1 on pump gas with no problems at all for the past few years.
Your mileage may vary...

 

Not going to argue with anyone but I will point out early high compression performance engines had crappy timing curves and benefited from modification. Later lower compression smog engines had total garbage for timing curves and benefited even more to mods.
Having had a 70 LT-1 among others I can say if it ran 14.70i would have been looking for a missing sparkplug.

 

As shark racer mentioned, my stock 78 L-82 with Shorty headers, 2.5 inch duals, and Monza turbo mufflers along with optimized timing, 170 degree operating temperature, 1.52 roller tipped rockers, and Holley 650 CFM 4175 vacuum secondary carb produced 233 RWHP with a WEAK #6 cylinder. Forum member Karols 78 L-82 with stock OEM components except a mild cam of unknown origin, no headers, 2.5 inch duals, and edelbrock performer intake with the stock Qjet produced 248 RWHP!!!!with 100,000 miles on the motor!...that's about 280 NET HP/330 GROSS HP (same as 71 LT-1). A bone stock 78/79 L-82 4 speed (3.70 gears) would do 0-60 MPH 6.5 sec (6.6sec for the auto). Headers, exhaust, and no emissions (with a proper tune) can produce 40 HP easily.....on these motors, especially the L-82's

 

There at least one member here that claimed that his custom cold air intake will net you 30-40hp increase.... My point? Nothing is gospel here and everyone sees different results from different combos... Some like to dream and thats fine because many spend more time cleaning the car than driving it.
Bolt ons like exhaust or intake can certainly free up some real power but I think most here can agree the single biggest improvement you can make is better heads which will allow better flow from all other mods...
Sure you might get more flow from an air pump by increasing the size of the hose coming off of it but increasing the size of the chamber in the pump itself would do more AND give you more use out of the larger hose.