Lason

Bore and stroke. Heres a page that shows all the different sizes when dealing with bores and strokes. http://www.roadsters.com/bbc/#bore The thing is that it isnt that hard to make 400+ horses with a naturally aspirated smallblock and not have the weight or size of the big block under the hood. IMO, unless you plan on turning your Z into a track car and tub it out with a tube chassis then the small block is the way to go. Add turbos/nitrous into the mix and a 700+ horse smallblock is not far off either. I just finished building a big block for my Nova which I traded for my Z and i can tell you prices on aftermarket parts for big block vs small block is substantial. A nice set of aluminum heads for a small block are going to run about $1-1500. Big block aluminum heads dont start complete for under $2000 most of the time.

The chevy 502 is the same physical size as every other big block I posted above. Right down to the 396.

Looks great, I LOVE the bumperless look

I hit 159 in my '98 Trans Am once. The only thing that stopped me was my speed limiter bouncing at 159. It had about 3 or 400 more RPMS before the rev limiter would have kicked in though. Solid but still scarey!

502 is not a caddy motor. Caddy has a 500ci motor but it is not the 502. Completely different animal.

502 is a crate motor.....396,402,427 and 454's are big blocks that came in cars/trucks from the factory. From what I have read and searched on here you had better do some major frame mods and a cage to handle the size and tourqe of a big block. not worth it IMO.

no the ls1/ls2 have different mounting locations than the Gen 1 SBC.

Heres one even better for ya. Instead of getting vacuum from the exhaust which wont create much get you a electric smog pump off an LS1 motor. Run it to your valve covers and then run a catch can to the recieving hose off the smog pump. You will get more vacuum with that. Like stated years ago on this thread you will create a vacuum in your crank case and be able to spin better and if you build your motor with the intentions of using a pump you can run low tension rings and get even a little more power. I know plenty of V8 guys that run this setup and love it.

How do those Odessey dry cells do for a daily driver? I thought about using them in the tool box also but the size is throwing me off.

OOPS, my bad, I didnt even bother to ask if it was a drawthrough or blowthrough MAF setup. Yeah on a drawthrough your only option is recirculate it or of course convert to speed density.

You could also run a open BOV before the MAF/AFM and not recirculate it. As long as you dont dump metered air into the atmosphere your good. I have seen people run them right on their air/air intercoolers with good luck.

I personally havent ever heard good things about holley heads. If I was you I would look into a trickflow/TFS or Dart topend. Much better parts IMO.

I see what your saying and I agree. At a constant cruise youll be using the same if not marginally a little more air/fuel. The only drop I see if your habbits pulling from red lights and getting on the highway, etc but that wasnt your question.

Yeah I have been following along with the vintage air install. I jsut thought it was odd that this car had 2 sets of controls. Thanks for the info though!

Hey guys, I just scored my first Z. A '73 240 with no rust in great condition. Anyway my question is regarding the ARA A/C setup in it. I did some searching and googling and havent figured it out but why would my car have a factory A/C panel with the sliders and blower control AND a ARA pod next to your right knee with a knob and toggle for hot/cold? I plan on taking it out eventually for a vintage air unit or something as Im swapping in a smallblock in the next few weeks but I was just curious.

I was looking at WRX motors on ebay the other day wondering the same thing. Only thing I would be concerned with is how wide the motors are being flat 4's and the Z's narrow engine bay. Of course I havent seen a Subi flat 4 outside of a WRX so its hard to tell but it would make a killer combo in my opinion. Those motors are great powerplants.

Cool setup but yeah I would be a little bummed too but then again I havent ever messed with anything at that high of an altitude so who knows. I really like your setup but the only problem I see if access to valve covers . Im sure since its a street car it doesnt matter but WOW.

Check out autozone. I went to autozone.com and looked up a '86 camaro radiator and they offer 2 with lifetime warranties. One brass for $117 and the other is aluminum for $119. They are also thicker or as thick (cant remember exactly) as the JTR ones. I havent tried one to make sure it fits perfectly but the size looks right and you cant beat that price for new and a lifetime warranty.

Well something was DEFFINETLY wrong with that second car. Mismatched parts or something. There is no way that a properly tuned car with aftermarket aluminum heads and headers will dyno less than a stock iron head'd motor with exhaust manifolds, even with a port job. My guess is either his tune was way off, his cam was not matched up correctly for his car or a mixture of all the above. I used to run a '95 Trans Am and had moderate mods done and had a buddy with a '96 and more money than brains. This was back in the late 90's and LT1 parts were still being developed and everytime a new part came out he HAD to have it. Well the problem was even though he had twice the parts I did he could never touch me at the track. He used to get so frustrated with it till one day my car was at teh shop getting a 383 kit installed and he talked to the owner of the shop about his car and the guy told him. He had a bunch of nice parts but nothing worked with one another and he ended up having his motor tore down and rebuilt using different heads, cam and LT4 intake and the damn thing came to life. Needless to say I couldnt touch him after that.........till I got my bottle

Caprices had the 4Le60 tranny not the 700R4 and came with low output LT1's. By that I mean they are iron headed instead of the aluminum headed motors that come out in the camaro/firebird and I THINK impala's. I helped a buddy mod one and it was decent but the heads held it back and it would eat stock trannies monthly.

got any bigger pics? Barely see anything in those