what year C3 had the most hp? :confused:

 

i don't know what year is merlins? :D

 

:lol:
1968/69 L-88 or 1969 ZL1

(with headers anyway)


[Modified by '79ProwlerOrange, 11:17 AM 10/9/2002]

 

The highest HP stock C3 ever produced was the 1969 ZL-1. Well - the L-88 had basically the same output. The main difference between the ZL-1 and the L-88 was that the ZL-1 has an aluminum block and the L-88 an iron block. Other than that - they were identical (as far as I know but there are people on this forum that know much more than me)...
The official output was only in the 400's However - those engines actually produced HP output of somewhere in the high 500's...

:cheers:

Olivier

 

The 1969 L88. It is not the highest published hp numbers; but, it is the most powerful engine actually installed into any factory Corvette. I have a factory spec L88 with factory style headers (originals are no longer available from Kustom). My L88 pulled 477rwhp on the dyno. The car was running a bit rich, so there should be a little more available. My stock ZO6 pulled 353rwhp. A freind of mine has a factory original 69 L88 that he recently restored to factory specs. He pulled 471 on the same dyno, but had a rather bad miss at the top. His wimpy old plug wires were thought to be the blame. Earlier he had his engine run on a engine stand dyno (with same wimply plug wires) while out of the car and made about 540 at the flywheel with the Kustom headers and about 470 with the factory iron exhaust manifolds. Like the factory said, the L88 really needs a free flowing exhaust.

In 1970, there was to be a LS7 which is a 454 version of the L88. Should have been the same real horse power; but, about 30+ pounds of additional torque. They never made it to the public.

The ZL1 was the most exotic engine for the C3. It was an aluminum block with all the same parts as the iron block L88. Yet due to the high heat transfer of aluminum, aluminun blocks make about 15 actual hp less than the iron blocks. The lighter weight more than made up for this slight loss.

Hope this answers your question,

Chuck

 

I could be wrong, but I thought the ZL-1 had a bigger cam there-for made more power than an L-88. I know I saw a test of a 69 ZL-1 running 10.30's in the 1/4 at 130+

 

NOX,

There is a bit of controversy on this. Some say the bigger cam made it into the later 69 L88's, some say not. A while back I carefully loaded the specs for the 2nd design L88 cam and the ZL1 cam on DD2000. For what it is worth, there was less than 5 hp difference between the two. My crate motor came with the 2nd design L88 cam. Because of the higher lift of the ZL1 cam, the factory said that 7000 rpm must be the max to avoid spring problems with their highest quality vanadium steel springs, the L88 cam can go to 7600rpm. I liked the extra rev margin and decided against moving up to the ZL1 cam for mine. The small theoretical gain wasn't worth it to me.

The factory original L88 of Jay's that I spoke of above has the ZL1 spec cam in his. The ZL1 cam was designed to take a bit better advantage of the open chamber design which the L88's also got that year.

Chuck

 

which is better a aluminum block or a iron block? what's the advantages of one over the other, or disadvantages?

 

Aluminum is lighter, iron is stonger. Iron makes a bit more power, aluminum is lighter so it doesn't have to make quite as much. Aluminum is extremely expensive, iron is only expensive. Aluminum is exotic, iron is rather boring.

You can go much faster for the $$ with iron than with aluminum.

Chuck

 

thanks