L-n-L Performance Development
Here are some projects I have worked on. I have listed them in chronological order (most recent is first).
Joe Day ( joedbox@yahoo.com ) 1966 Corvette convertible
Joe and I have been friends since the 90's, when we first met as coworkers. Several years ago, Joe started looking for a '66 big block Corvette, like his father had owned when Joe was a kid. To his surprise, Joe found THE exact car that his dad owned, and was able to purchase it! Joe called me in 2015, telling me the motor was running bad. I checked a few things, and it was obvious the motor needed to pulled out. Once it was out, I discovered that it was severely damaged.
Due to an upcoming surgery, I was not able to build a motor for Joe. But I did help him evaluate his choices for rebuilding or replacing his motor, and we decided upon buying a complete motor from a shop specializing in such motors. The power was less than expected at first, but I suspected his old sidepipes were resticting the power. After some research, I found a company making new sidepipes, but with a much larger diameter and designed for higher powered motors. With the new sidepipes installed, a bigger carburetor, and a few adjustments, the Vette is now running like it should!
"Just wanted to thank you for the upgrade design that you thought out on this project. The pipes and engine you selected are perfect...thanks for the help :-)" - Joe Day
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Steve Harrison ( steveharrisonsb@icloud.com ) 1979 Trans Am
On Steve's project, I served as a consultant to help Steve figure out how to best achieve his performance goals. I designed a custom hydraulic roller cam to match his heads (6X's, ported by Dave @ SD Performance) to his shortblock, and to deliver the performance he was expecting. I also assisted Steve with installing & degreeing the cam, and assembling the heads/valvetrain onto the shortblock. Once the break-in of the engine was complete, I also dyno tuned the motor.
With a cam milder than what most people *think* they need in their Pontiac (and more LSA...) this 8.3:1 compression 400, with R/A exhaust manifolds, put over 312hp to the rear wheels!
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David Urie's '69 Trans Am tribute, Firebird Convertible
I built the 400 for David's Firebird in 2008. It now has over 30,000 miles on it, and is running stronger than ever. The motor has dished Keith Black pistons, bringing the compression ratio down to about 9.2:1, allowing David to run 93 octane with his small chamber "62" cylinder heads. The cam is a hydraulic roller, custom ground to my specifications, to best suit how David uses his car.
As pretty as it looks in pictures, it is even more gorgeous in person. The body is virtually all new, there is a modern 5-speed manual transmission, and the car was built EXACTLY the way David wanted - "T/A My Way!"
Click here to see a video of this car in action!
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Gene South's rare and beautiful '71 GTO Convertible
Of all the people I have helped over the years, Gene has the distinction of having kept his car the longest time. The GTO had a rather anemic 400 in it from the factory, and just did not do justice to the car. We selected a 455 block, topped with Edelbrock heads (modified and painted to appear "stock"), and used a specially selected camshaft. This is one of the rare instances where I did not have the cam custom ground, as I found a "shelf" cam that suited our requirements perfectly - but out of the many hundreds of Pontiac builds I've seen on the interenet and in person, I've NEVER seen anyone else use this specific grind! It is a much smaller duration cam than what most would expect, but has worked well for over a decade now.
Here is a copy of the chassis dyno results
The power output exceeded our expectations! Gene had the motor retested at a facility close to where he lives (he is north of Dallas, I'm south of Houston) and got the same results. He later replaced the factory intake with a Performer RPM, and the Q-jet with an 830 Demon, and power went over 380 at the wheels.