Graham,

love to hear more about the LSV program. I think I have the only 390 built. from what I know there was a 385, a 390, and a 368 before the LSV badges were pulled following encouragement from GM.

Larry had some documentation showing the car being tested with stock manifolds and exh, and headers and the old style B&B

love to hear some stories about the car being built and whatever you can tell us about a special time at LPE.

thanks! I love your hard work. doing my best to wear it out, but it keeps pulling strong!

 

That Sir is a story that requires some verification, it is the only 390 CID though. I will post more on this tomorrow.

Graham.

 

How about this for starters:

LSV Badging;
The “LSV” badge referred to the term “Lingenfelter Special Vehicle” and was originated by Larry Dobbs of Corvette Fever magazine, who got the first sets of these badges made. The collective memory of the team here is that around five vehicles got these badges including your ZR-1, a couple of Big Block Vettes and a 383 CID Van, owned at the time by Larry Dobbs. The fact that LPE had these badges was never really told to customers, people learned, almost, by word of mouth and then had to convince John to put them on, Larry Merrow was able to do so. John decided to discontinue these badges, no pressure came from GM .
There were many LT5 engine derivatives from 465 hp, 475 hp, 368 CID, 385 CID, 400 CID, 415 CID and one 390 CID for Larry Merrow. Within each of the cubic inch spec’s there were several different performance levels depending on which cams, plenum, injector housing and port work was done.

Graham.

 

I've got a buddy with a 93 LSV. Not sure if he's a member here but I know he is on the ZR-1 Registry. I'll send him a message and maybe he can chime in on this topic.

Jim

 

Do you guys have any estimated numbers on how many ZR-1 Lingenfelter Cars were produced? ---

 

I think I had a stab at this once before in a thread on this forum. I'll check and see if I still have the information, a bit sketchy back in the early 90's with the 465 and 475 hp engines though.

Now I can correct myself, there were 2 390 CID engines.

Ok from a quick look at our cal information,

20 350 cars, 465 and 475 hp
29 368 cars
34 385 cars
2 390 cars
2 400 cars
13 415 cars

Now this information is by no means complete and I'm sure it under estimates the 465 and 475 hp cars by a large margin. The problem is that the paperwork back in the early 90's is by owners name and the cal sheets were hand written and have not been transferred to our server. The numbers for the 368's may be low too, but not by as much. The 385,390,400 and 415 data is probably closer to the real numbers, but in most cases these numbers are, probably, underestimating the number of cars produced.

I will research this some more, there were many engines done for OTD customers, including 10 or so for Calloway.

More info to follow.

Graham.

 

Jim, thanks for the message...and following up on your referral.

I am very fortunate to own Larry's original Polo and Black MY93 ZR-1 that was purchased in Oct. 2011 from Frank Urbinati. Many thanks to Frank, and Phil DeJohn for a time, for taking such great car of it. I was blown away the day I went to pick it up. They saved a lot of the original paperwork as well.

A special thanks to Graham for filling in some gaps on the LSV story. I heard a few variations such as Lingenfelter Super Vette and a somewhat humorous reference to it standing for Larry's Slow Vette or Larry and Sue's Vette.

The Green Thing or GT as Larry called it, has the LSV badge on the rear. The 385 was originally in Larry's '95 red that he totaled in Dec. '95 and was then installed in his '93. Currently, Phil has the red Z, which he rebuilt to like new condition, with the '93 green engine. I have been led to believe that Ron's 390, the 368 and my 385 were all given the LSV badges and possibly the only LPE / ZR-1s to wear them. They were all owned oiginally by Larry.

I have a photo that was taken in Dec. '95 after the swap, of John at the controls of the '93 at Muncie Dragway in Albany, IN for some test & tune exercise with Larry and Phil. The plenum was signed by John, Dave McLellan. and Gordon Killebrew. at BG on June 26, 1996.

Additional records show that there were three Green/black MY 93 ZR-1s built: VIN# 0002, a Pilot Vehicle; VIN# 0122 (mine); and VIN# 0228, a Canadian export now in The Netherlands. BTW, if anyone has info on the 0002 car and what its current status is, I would greatly appreciate the info.

Also, if anyone has more info on the LSV 368, that would be appreciated as well.

As Ron and the others that own LPE ZR-1s know, these are awesome machines and built by one of the best. No matter what the production numbers as Graham has put together, they are still unique and valuable if only to their owners.

In a conversation with Graham and Doug Rippie at BG last May, they mentioned what a unique feeling when you sit in the driver's seat to know that John held the steering wheel and banged out the shifts to push your car to the max. As Phil fondly recalls, "he beat the snot out of it to make it right."

Later and thanks for "listening",

Paul

 

Thanks for that Graham , I have a 465hp car btw ... that was done in 1993.

Paul, did John get in EVERY Lingenfelter ZR-1 ... or only the LSV's ? ---

 

I can't answer for all, but I have the photo to prove it with the 385 and eyewitnesses. There was some discussion a while back on the ZR-1 Net Registry Forum about that, and the feeling was that he couldn't have been a part of all the builds since there were many going on at the same time and he was still racing.

Maybe Graham or someone at LPE at the time can lend some light to that subject.

 

Good info guys! I love learning the history behind these legends!

Jim

 

Up until 1997, when I joined LPE, John drove pretty much every car, I am not saying he tuned every car, although he did tune a fair percentage, but he was the final sign off for the cars. This became less through the years as he was more involved in racing and the responsibility for this became mine, as it is to this day.

Graham

 

Wow, I don't know if I could take the pressure of all that responsibility to have to drive and signoff on all those ZR1s, CTS-Vs and Camaros that are coming out of your shop today.

Sorry, Graham. But if you need someone to lighten the load, just let me know and I'll catch the first flight out.

Paul

 

Very neat , I am learning so much about my car ... fun stuff!!! ---

 

ANOTHER 390. awesome. love to hear who might have that one so I can connect with the evil twin of my LT5. I thought there was a story told about chevy not appreciating the bowtie logo (hmmmm......)

graham, thanks SO much for sharing some of the LSV history. I'm embarrassed that we have been using the Lingenfelter Super Vette as the LSV acronym all those years.

if there is any way you can part with another 1 or two of those badges, I'd sure like to have a replacement on hand in case mine wears out. it's starting to deteriorate just a bit.

more please

 

That's 100 engines. If those are prototypes, given their engineering, that's an incredible number of engines that would not have been associated with a vehicle program - especially for an existing and in production engine architecture. What was the justification for so many prototypes?

 

not sure what you mean by prototypes. these are just modified LT5s from LPE in the various displacements and power levels over the years.

the prototypes were all done prior to 1990. these were all modified engines in the 1990-95 ZR-1 and represent the rough counts of all the LT5s that LPE worked on.

graham can tell you all about the early days of the LT5 "gestation" and evolution of the beast in the prototype days. many discussions with GM getting things like a proper block, forged crank, oil control issues. ect.... a good read is the "heart of the beast" that can tell you more about the many financial and technical challenges Graham and the Lotus team overcame with the early engines and later improvements in the 93-95 engines. Graham can certainly tell quite a few stories and how many times GM came close to "pulling the plug" and not doing this program even after substantial investments. Dave. M. certainly knew how to work through the political challenges and champion "building the best vette ever" at the time. No doubt the ZR-1 was just that, and in many ways the LT5 set the bar for the quality control and getting GM to build higher HP corvettes by showing what a little company called Lotus could do when given the resources to do it right.

quite a history to be sure.

 

Sounds like the makings of a good movie/documentary to me.

 

would be great to do a documentary on the evolution of the LT5 from Graham's perspective

from the development through the radical 415 and TT ZR-1 builds

love to hear more about the other 390. Anyone knows who may own it??

hope to have an LSV reunion. Frank's 385 car has now sold, Sue Merrow I believe still has the 368, and me the 390.

it would be great to see how many of the stroker LPE cars we could get together.

I can't make it to BG this year, but hope to roll down there with the LSV again soon. last few trips have been REALLY rough on me and the car.

 

Well then stop driving into thing's Ron

 

I purchased a 91 383 LSV from Larry Dobbs (It was a great car) and Larry gave me some extra decals which I still have today.....The car was a white L98, white top, white wheels and red interior and was a feature story in Corvette Fever.......It was called "White Lightning" and I still have a copy of the magazine.....Kept the car approx. 2 yrs. and Larry bought it back from me......It was a strong runner in its day.....