ZL-1, L88, LS-7/6 & tri-powerMark-IV Corvette/Camaro engine

[Hog]

(Very long)
Just to avoid going "Off Topic" in the other thread(http://zr1.net/forum/showthread.php?t=23728)
I wanted to start this ZL-1 thread as these engines/cars is certainly a topic of discussion.

Here are a couple posts that were made in the "$100,000 EBay" thread.

Schrade:
I think there's a White ZL1 survivor somewhere, although IT probably can't be had for <30 x $100k...

edram454: Actually, the second zl1 is orange. I read about its unveiling a couple of years ago. It does have documentation saying it is a zl1. The white car, which I have seen on a few occasions has been around since the mid 80's where I saw it in the 1987 bloomington gold show. this corvette was restored by d&m corvette. It does have a zl1 engine and a very nice white with black stripe paint job but it has no documentation. The yellow zl1 had the factory black stripe around the front fenders and was ordered for a chevy engineer who eventually did not purchase it. It went to a dealer in Virginia and sat on a lot for a long white. somebody paid a huge price for it and took it home only to remove the engine and put it in a race boat. The car was rediscovered by wayne walker of zip products and eventually did manage to purchase the engine from the boat owner. that car at one time was in miami when craig priest of the vette smith purchased it and had it in his showroom floor. the car was then confiscated by dea and auctioned off to roger judski who paid around 200k for it. It is worth way over a million now. One of my very favorite corvettes of all time. sorry to hijack the thread just wanted to set the story right.
ed ramos. #3028

Hog: I have pics of a 1969 ZL1, it is yellow, and was ordered by George Heberling, plant manager of the St Louis plant. It has the black fender stripe you speak of.

So that's 1 of 2 ZL1 Vettes. There were 59 ZL1 Camaros built in 1969.(EDIT:69 in 69)


edram454
That is correct. It was ordered by George Heberling Chevy Plant Manager. That fender stripe was stock as it left the factory with it. A few people tried to buy it while it sat in a Virginia dealership but it was a rough running car and would load up and stall etc... finally a race enthusiast purchased it. It roughly cost double of a new Corvette because of that zl1 option.


ZO6scentair:
69 1969 ZL-1 camaro's were built.

tccrab
White with Black L88 Hood scoop ZL1
http://corvettes-musclecars.com/gall...L-1+427-430HP/

'Crabs


edram454:
I have seen this car and it looks like the d&m restored corvette. It had the exact same paint scheme. What the picture hides is that not only was the black l88 cowl black but the rear back lights was also black. Jack Cheskaty I believe also owned a zr2 corvette which was a ls6 1971 bigblock convertible with the zr2 option. That name is very familiar. I read the whole article and it sure seems like there is documentation. I did recently see a orange 1969 corvette that showed documentation in one of the big corvette magazines and it was the Missing zl1 corvette found article. Is there 3 of them?? I know for sure the yellow one is original. The white one sounds like its true especially since Mr. Cheskaty backs it up. The orange one??? All three are restored. Thanks for finding that article.

I spoke with the owner of d&m or is it d&a corvette and he rebuilt the engine in that white one but at the time would not confirm its originality. This was in the 1980's so who knows. Maybe its the same car but this time with documentation. \


Schrade:
I read an article in a hot rod [?] mag 35 years ago about an L88 / C48 [?] vette, with M22 'Rock Crusher' tranny, that was believed to be 550 HP, 17x? MPH capable.

I know in retrospect that the article was about ZL1. Didn't mention rarity, that I remember. Not even a picture, but an artist Black & White sketch.

Hmmm...
Nothin' like boostin' your own thread


Hog: (from the 10 (Potentially) Future Classic Cars Now Selling for Under $20K thread) Here- http://zr1.net/forum/showthread.php?...light=ZL1+ZL-1

The ZL-1 engines were great engines for their time, but as delivered from the factory they werent the monsters they became with some aftermarket parts.
The ZL-1 all aluminum engines never dynoed under 500 gross hp in the Chevrolet dyno cell, and ranged from 500-535hp on Sunoco 260 gasoline, despite their 430hp rating. Each engine took 16 hours to assemble which was done in an air-conditioned clean-room.
A stock ZL-1 Camaro brought that power down to 275hp as delivered. Headers and exhaust were everything on these engines. 600 hp was attainable with some detail to the cylinder heads, aftermarket tube headers, open exhaust etc.

GMPP now Chev Performance Parts-CPP) recently took the exact same ZL-1 tooling(with some extra strengthening ribs) and did a production run for the series of 427 engines.
Anniversary 427 – GM part number 19166392
regular-production ZZ427 – 19166393
Block only 12370850
And the limited production 200 built Ramjet ZL1 510hp/@5750/493 lb/ft@4250rpm torque-6300 rpm redline- It is pretty much a Ramjet 502, with the aluminum block, 454 cubes and larger 58mm throttle body-88961499.

There is the old story of the 1967 L88 Vette that had its L88 removed so the drivers could save the L88 for a race later on. With the 350 installed the drivers took some Carrol Shelby racing school courses. When they were ready, they removed the 350, re-installed the L88 with its pistons cut to lower its C/R from the stock 12.5:1 down to 11.0:1 and after adding stronger rods and street driving a 1967 L88 Vette from Kansas to Florida for the 1969 24 hous at Daytona. Gottlieb and Dooley drove the entire race sometimes hitting 186mph in the straights, going on to finish 2nd place in the Grand Touring class. They then drove the Vette home. This is the stuff of legends.

Chevrolet did release the ZL-1 and the L-88. They also did some testing on other BBC variants, one was a hemispherical chamber 427 BBC that made 628hp@ 5400rpm and 552lb/ft torque @ 4400rpm all running an 11.3:1 compression ratio.
The other test engine was a SIngle Over-Head Camshaft(SOHC) 427BBC which made 660hp @ 6800rpm and 532 lb/ft torque @ 4000rpm. This 427 ran a 12.5:1 compression ratio.

Those BBC's sure worked well, and were the predecessor to the "Big-Doggie" ZR-2 which was a C-4 Vette with a 454 marine engine that weighed 3500lbs, ran 13 second ET's in the 1/4 mile and topped out at 178-185mph. 6th gear was 2000rpm at 100mph.
The Big Doggie started off from a BBC that was installed in a pickup truck. They started with an aftermarket tunnel ram manifold, then built up a plenum, installed Buick Grand National injectors in it, which flow approx 40% more than the L98 350 injectors and used a stock L98 ECM.
They figured that it might be rich at startup and at WOT, but it should be fairly close everywhere else. They installed the engine into the truck and it started right up. Then they took the truck and did burnouts with it for 2 hours. Around that time they w re sctapping a C4 Corvette and they brough in a BBC just to see if the engine would fit in te engine compartment. The SBC came out and put the BBC in for about 15 minutes just to see if the engine would physically bolt in and clear the "wonderbar" between the frame rails/up around the waterpump. And it did.

84-85 resale pricing was suffering, the group decided that if the hotrod community found out that a BBC would bolt in, the used car prices would be improved.

The gas guzzler tax that the BBC C4 Vette would be stamped with, along with the performance competition with teh upcomming ZR-1, stopped any ideas of a production BBC C4. The BBC performance pickup truck did stick though. For MY1990 the 230hp/385lb/ft TBI 454 was installed into a 1990 reg cab shortbox truck with a thm-400 3 speed auto and a beefy 14 bolt 9.5" LSD rear axle with 3.73 gears.
For MY1991-93 the engine output went up to 255hp/405 lb/ft torque, an elctronic 4l80e OD 4 speed trans was used, along with the same beefy rearend, but a lower 4.10:1 gear gears was used.
These trucks ran mid 15 1/4 mile times in the low 80's for mph.
My 1997 reg cab shortbox with the smaller Vortec 350 rpm L31, lighter 4l60e electronic trans, and lighter 10 bolt 8.5" rear axle, equipped with stock 3.08:1 rear gears, would cover the 1/4 mile in 15.7 seconds at 83 mph. Swapping the rear gears from 3.08 to 4.10's brought this down to 15.2@82mph with a 2.007 60 ft time.

Paraphrasing courtesy of Anthony Young Musclcar Colour History Chev. BBC Cars

[Hog]

Only 20 1967 L-88 powered Corvettes were released as the option did not appear in Chev literature, 80 for 1968, 116 L-88's for 1969(17 with the thm-400 (M40) 3 speed auto trans that cost an extra $221.00.
The L-88 427 option added $947.90 for 67&69 and $1032.50 for 1969(17 with the thm-400 3 speed auto which was available in 1969, the other 99 got the M22 4 speed manual trans.
Base prive of a Corvette Coupe was $4781, Convertible was lower at $4438.

In order to order the L-88, mandatory optional equipment included:
L-88 engine $947.90
J50 vacuum bower booster $42.50
J56 heavy duty 4 wheel disc brakes $42.15$342.30
M22 (rockcrusher 4 speed manual trans $237.00
K66 transistorized ignition $73.75
F41 suspension $36.90
G81 Positraction rear axle $42.15
C48 heater/ defrost delete package credit of $97.85

Further efforts by Chevrolet to ensure its use as a race car, as well as being lighter the following were not available once the L-88 box is checked:
-radio
-power windows
-air conditions
-power steering

The fan shroud was also not installed, and any L-88 driven on the street would overheat at the lower street speeds. L-88 had a 12.5:1 C/R requireing 103 research octane and 95 motor octane was required and there was a sticker on teh center console to remind anyone who drove it.

Comparing a stock 1968 L-88 Corvette convertible and a stock 1986 L98 TPI 350, 230hp Corvette coupe.

L98-
0-60=5.8 seconds
0-100mph=16.2seconds
1/4 mile 14.3@96mph
top speed= 151mph

L-88
0-60=6.8 seconds
0-100mph=13 seconds
1/4 mile 14.1@107mph
top speed 154mph with its 3.36:1 rear gear

Clearly tire technology has advanced since 1968.

[Hog]

Video of a ZL-1 on the edyno.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDfM35SVRk0

[FU]

I thoroughly enjoyed that post. Thanks' for posting it.

[Blue Flame Restorations]

I remember back in Springfield, 1993 when the Orange ZL-1 Conv ??? appeared. It had a blue /white stripe and GULF decals on it.

There was much conversation about it's heritage and later became accepted as the real deal.

[Hog]

ZL1 Camaro vs. L88 Vette (both cars have the stock manifolds, if the ZL1 has its original exhaust as well, it is said to cut power down to 275hp)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O66k_4cXYEU

[FU]

L88 Vette red lite and ran a 122 mph. Against a 118 mph ZL1. Nice numbers from both cars.