Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ssc-vax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!we13!ihnp4!zehntel!tektronix!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!stuart From: stuart@ssc-vax.UUCP (Stuart Lewis) Newsgroups: net.auto Subject: More L-88/ZL-1 history, foreign car owners take note Message-ID: <64@ssc-vax.UUCP> Date: Fri, 13-Apr-84 13:15:16 EST Article-I.D.: ssc-vax.64 Posted: Fri Apr 13 13:15:16 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 17-Apr-84 07:06:07 EST Organization: Boeing Aerospace, Seattle Lines: 95 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! __________ | | ------- --------- /Stuart Lewis / / ssc-vax!stuart/ --------- ------- | | ---------- REAL men drive American V-8 cars, by God!