Over the past 7 months my father and I have rebuilt my 1988 corvette. In place of the worn l98; we built a splay capped 355ci with forged components. Internals: Forged steel Eagle crank, Forged Lunati rods, Forged SRP dished pistons. The cam in the car is a comp cams cam (Specs: Lift 560 total, Duration 239 at 50/290 total). We chose GM Fast Burn heads, Lunati solid lifters, comp cams ultra pro magnum rockers. The intake of choice for this build was a TPIS mini ram, but the budget called for a TPIS tpi intake (changing intake in the future).

Started with the tear down of the car.

Very dirty engine bay

splay caps


machine work


long block complete


After we finished the long block we moved on to replacing the front and rear bushings.



Prepped the engine bay for its new motor. Then the engine was hoisted in along with the tranny (The transmission is a richmond 6 speed, we used a dual mass centerforce clutch) .



Transmission and driveshaft were tight end up.


The intake and accessories were installed.


We modified the headers by bending them a little to allow for spacers that we cut from a lathe. The longer bolts made it easier to work on and insured that the header bolts wouldn't fall out.


We pieced together the exhaust using 3in exhaust tubing and 3in slip fir 90s. (will upload photo soon)

We then started wiring up the wide band o2, boost guage, and tach.

My father played around with the chip. We got it to start after a couple of computer runs. Heres a Video of the car idling. We are still in the process of tuning it. The car is lean in the video. (I tried uploading the vid put it didn't let me).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc6W8...ature=youtu.be


After letting the car idle for a few mins, I took a look under the car...... Coolant was slowly leaking from a couple head studs. The ARP "recommended" sealant was proving to not work. We are going to have to take the exhaust and header back off to get to the head bolts.

 

What blower are you plan on running?

 

I plan on running my old setup, which was a V1 vortech. I am most likely to run meth injection to compensate for the added heat. But for now I am going to run the motor N/A until I get about 1200-1500 miles on it. Then I want to get a track time N/A, with nitrous, and with the blower. I am hoping the head unit will be able to keep up with the motor.

 

Finished re-installing all 32 head studs. It's almost back to where it was. We are re-adjusting the valves, before we start it back up. Hope to have a vid of the car going down the road in the next few days.

 

Looks quite similar than my project, except mine is 383 and AFR heads. Why you didn't like those black Proforms?

 

I loved the black pro forms, but i didn't know when i bought them that they had hairline cracks. When i installed them the cracks were obvious. I guess thats why they were so cheap on ebay, but they made for good installation valve covers
Sounds like sweet build, What head unit are you going to run?

UPDATE: Started the car back up again. We are still in the process of tuning. We can't get the afr in the correct spot yet. The car is either to fat or lean. I was in contact with a guy on the forum that was a good tuner, but i lost his contact.

 

I have now P600B, but I think that I'll change it to D-1. But anyway I'll try first with P600B...

 

UPDATE: Put about 400 miles on the motor so far. Hard to get a chance t drive it in the winter. We have decided to go the turbo route and sell the charger. We are going to design and make a rear mounted turbo setup with an intercooler in the rear. Also, we changed to tpis headers because the other headers formed some leaks.

 

where can i find a supercharger for my 87 corvette l98? i cant find one anywhere.. a brand would helpp:/

 

Brands: Vortech, ATi or procharger, power dyne, paxton, and probably more. Check their web sites. We just sold two kits here on the forum just in the past few weeks.

Thanks, Brandyn