stuart@ssc-vax.UUCP (Stuart Lewis) (04/13/84)
Well, not having read news for a couple of days, I was pleasantly surprised on
my return to see a couple of articles concerning "powerhouse" Chevy's. I had
almost given up reading net.auto - all this foreign car garbage makes me
nauseous. Maybe my articles on 409's started something (Gawd, I hope so :-)!!
Very nice to see something in praise of the Americans for a change. Anyway,
being a deciple of Lord Chevrolet myself, please allow me to add my own commentsto the L-88 / ZL-1 story.
First I'd like to set the record straight on the ZL-1 option. The reason for
nil sales of this beast were not because it's factory horsepower rating was lessthan that of the L-88, it was because it was a $3000 add-on option to the car!!
In the case of an S.S. Camaro, that was as much as the price of the car itself,
and in the case of a 'Vette it was only about $1000-$1500 off of that mark ('69
prices now). Three thousand for an engine option in '69 dollars was a HELL of alot of money. On top of that the engine just flat was not in any way meant for
your average Joe Driver - the cam spec's were around a 350 to 360 duration and
a lift of nearly .700 !! That is damn wild - the sucker idled, @ just over 2000
r.p.m.! The statement that only 2 were made is correct, however only one exists
today. The other one was a corporate car that went into the G.M. car smasher
(sob!) shortly after it was made. By the way, the other one was up for sale 2
months ago in Hemmings Motor News for $60,000! It was also a correct statement
that there were production Camaros with the ZL-1 engine. Those same killer
Camaros also had aluminum front ends : hood, fenders, wheel wells and bumpers.
All remaining ZL-1 engines were sold over the counter at your local Chev. dealerfor the same $3000. The comment that they were unreliable is only partially
true - depending on your point of view. As a street engine - which they were
not, yes they were unreliable. But they were never meant for street use, they
only sold enough to qualify in certain "production class" races. As a racing
engine, they were very reliable. The ZL-1 Team McLaren's swept nearly every
event they ran in and took the Can-Am titles away from the Ford Chapparals and
Shelby type cars. The ZL-1 provided this : anyone with a couple thousand bucks
to play with could walk in off the street order a ZL-1 from Chevrolet, wait a
few weeks for it's arrival, then drop it into the body of their choice, take it
to the races, and compete against the factory sponsered Mopars, Fords and Chev'sof Sox & Martin, Grumpy Jenkins and Lee Shepard et.al. and be just as competa-
tive at a fraction of the cost.
The L-88, which I should have led with as it was first, was simply an iron ZL-1.That is to say that the ZL-1 was an aluminum L-88. The L-88 was the top of the
line engine option from '67 to '69. It had a much higher nickel content in the
casting which added tons of strength. It also sported thicker webbing around
the cylinder and cam walls as well as 4 bolt main caps and aluminum water pump.
The heads were also aluminum open chambered type. The heads and cam were the
same ones used on the ZL-1. Both the L-88 and ZL-1 had 12.5:1 compression,
forged rods, pistons, cranks and the same solid lifter "killer" cam mentioned
above. And for the paltry sum of $50 anyone could order the bare L-88 block fromtheir local dealer (now do you see why no one wanted to drop $3k for the same
same thing just to save about 100 lbs.?!). The Corvette
L-88's were again not really intended to be used in your average daily driver.
The L-88 Vette's had no heater, no radio and no exhaust! When you took de-
livery of your new Vette you found the exhaust pipes and headers behind the
seats and had to pay the dealer to install them. Chevrolet figured that the
purchasers of L-88's were going to use them for racing anyway so why bother to
put exhaust on them. As much as a total die-hard Chev fan hates to admit, the
L-88's were only the 2nd fastest American built production cars in history.
The 427 Cobras were the fastest, mainly because they were so much lighter, not
because of horsepower, which the L-88's did have more of. Stock L-88's and
ZL-1' were dyno'd at nearly 600 horses at the flywheel. With some after-
market carbueration and intake manifolds, they dyno'd at around 700 horses -
the fact that insurance companys take a dim view of this (the government too
for that matter) is certainly understated - that's why factory ratings rarely
reflected the true "nature of the beast".
As was the case with the ZL-1's, nearly all of them were sold over-the-counter
and went immediatly into drag and boat racing which is why they are non-existanttoday (racing takes its toll on motors no matter how strong they are). My
brother who used to race boats but got married and domesticated still has three
of the L-88's, one still in the crate, sitting off in a corner of a warehouse
of his company. I'm begging him to sell me a couple!! Chevrolet still makes
an aluminum block today. It's the venerable 350 which sports 4 bolt mains,
thicker webs etc. and it goes for about the same $3K - BARE : no heads, no
crank, no cam, no pistons, no anything!! It's only available over the counter
at your local dealer - aluminum heads are available from them too.
My one final comment aimed at all you foreign car praisers who await the fall
of the V-8. In recent road tests done by a major publication, the '84 Vette
with it's 350 engine achieved about 25 m.p.g highway. The Z-28 with it's 305
engine pulled down about 28 m.p.g. And let me assure you that either car will
very capably blow the doors off of ANY Datsun Z car, RX-7, Celica, Scirroco,
and 70+% of any head to head race with a Porsche on ANY course. This has been
documented by more than one motoring magazine - it's not my opinion, it's fact.
And an oil change and tune up will cost about 1/4th as much as the cost for
any of those foreign cars. And should your Chevy or Ford loose a water pump in
say, Medicine Bow Wyoming (yes, it's a real place!!!) you can simply go to the
local dealer (they have both Chev. and Ford) and get it replaced. Or should it
happen in say, Twisp Washington (that's a real place too!) on a weekend when thegarages are closed, you just go to the nearest wrecking yard and pull a water
pump off of any V-8 small block they happen to have, anything from a '55 to '84,and change it. What's that you say, no water pumps for my 280-Z, it'll have
to be shipped from Denver, or Seattle? So what's a few extra days out of your
vacation!
Enough soap-boxing - flames will be ignored!
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/Stuart Lewis /
/ ssc-vax!stuart/
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REAL men drive American V-8 cars, by God! pmk@spuxll.UUCP (04/16/84)
Ahh! the 427 AC Cobra, Carroll Shelby's greatest car. This car cost about $7,000.00 in 1965 and now goes for $65,000.00 +. Not a bad return on your investment. Let's here it for American musclecars, no matter who the manufacturer might be. I'll take a Boss 429 Mach I, 396 Camaro, Chevelle SS 454, Hemi 'Cuda, Javelin AMX, or Firebird Formula 455 or Trans Am over any Z-car any day. As for the little econoboxes, they make wonderful paperweights, but lousy transportation. P.S. The 427 AC could go from 0 to 100 and back to 0 in just 13 seconds, and only 4.2 of them were used to go back to zero. Excellent braking!! P Kelliher AT&T-ISL S Plainfield, NJ
mrl@drutx.UUCP (LongoMR) (04/17/84)
<> Yeah, the chevy V-8's are nice and American cars are getting better, but I think the key here is personal preference. I ordered a Z-28 with all the bells and whistles on it in 1982 and then test drove the RX-7. My preference ran to the RX-7, not because the Z-28 was junk (it wasn't) but the RX-7 felt better and more fun and exciting to me. I test drove the new line up of "hot" cars from Chrysler Corp. for 84, and was tempted to trade in the RX for the Conquest. The Shelby charger and Daytona 500 were quite impressive also, but not quite up to the RX-7, the most noticable problem being shifter feel. If I were in the market now, I would definately consider American and re-drive the newer offerings from Chrysler, GM and Ford. Americanism, love of God and country, and all that stuff aside, I don't think that anyone can dispute the fact that, for a while at least, American cars were really the pits! What the imports have done for the American auto industry is to force it to take a good look at itself and rejuvinate it's product. That can't be all bad, can it? I think in the long run many of us import car owners (not America haters, by the way) along with defenders of domestic vehicles will benefit by the invasion of imports that has hit this country. I honestly long for the day when Mazda, Datsun, Jaguar, Volvo, Mercedes, etc. start comparing their cars to "American technology" rather than GM, Ford, Chrysler, etc. raving about all of their "European style and technology" and their cars being "as good as" the imports. BTW, your article was very enjoyable to read. Thanks!