Hey guys,

I recently lost oil pressure in my 85 and had to rebuild the motor. This car is my daily driver when there isn't snow on the ground, so keeping decent fuel mileage and drivability are important for this build. I don't have the time or knowledge to do a rebuild myself, so I am having the local corvette specialist do the work for me. I'm not looking for a car to take to the strip, but just something to play at the stoplights with. We decided a 383 was the right motor for my goals and my mechanic is halfway through the build. The car is basically stock, except I had the mufflers taken out and straight pipes put in. The new motor is a L98 roller cam block not original to the car, bored 30 over with keith black flat top pistons, ported and polished L98 aluminum heads, and a mild to moderate cam (I don't have the specs). For simplicity we are trying to stay with the stock tune and are shooting for 375-400 hp. I've recently had the 700r4 rebuilt but still stock, new better u-joints, new half shafts, and rebuilt d36.

I have two concerns, one being the ability of the rest of the drivetrain to handle the power, and secondly if keeping my intake and exhaust stock will be too restrictive for the new motor.

Being a college student, I don't have too big of a budget and I would prefer not to spend much more money on the car unless necessary.

 

hey there.

unless i'm mistaken, you might not be able to run a stock tune with the build that you're talking about. if you want a really good answer, talk to Alvin at PCMFORLESS. they are a wealth of knowledge.

also, keep an eye on the D36. they really don't handle too much power

as for the intake and exhaust, i would do long tube headers to start the exhaust and you can probably get away with like a magnaflow exhaust, or i would do a custom 3" system for the 383. for the intake, i would do an open air lid or the equivalent for the 85 vettes. i used to have a 92, so i'm going by that.

anyone else want to pipe in?

 

a tune will be needed. Port on the stock exhaust manifolds if you can. The car still have cats or is it truely stright pipes? If it has cats, you should think about high flow cats or removing them.

 

Sorry I worded that poorly, I have muffler eliminators, not true straight pipes. To my knowledge the 85 came with only one cat after the y-pipe and I intend on replacing that with a high-flow cat. I've read in other posts that porting the stock exhaust manifolds yeilded poor results. If I was spending money I would go to long tube headers if it's necessary.

 

all of the above being said, I would definitely do a 3" system with a high flow cat and a pair of nice mufflers. Magnaflow is a good inexpensive muffler, so is flowmaster and i can vouch for flowmaster 50-series mufflers and the way they sound.

that should make for a nice exhaust system...