My purchased new 1979 Corvette Website

Welcome everyone to my newly updated (May 4th, 2008)home page!

As for this 79L82 I purchased it new after the 80 models had already come out. I also knew that 79 Vette?s were way down on power and of no collector value. So after a 500-mile break in period it got a new cam, headwork, 1 5/8 headers true duels, and no emission equipment. It?s been a twenty eight year saga on how to make things better. Being a high performance man I put the overweight 79 on a severe diet down to 3184 lbs. with a full tank and me in it. I was also able to attain a near 50/50 weight split front to rear by removing lots of weight off the front end. The racing thin fiberglass 81 Daytona front end and hood took 150 lbs. off. Also out went all creature comforts and spare tire assembly. Under the hood is gutted even heavy blinker brackets are removed and replaced with aluminum. When you trying to loose weight everything counts. The rear wing supplies 420 lbs. of down force at 120 mph. I entered some of the Nevada open road races where they block off 94 miles of highway. I was in the 150 mph class where they allow you to exceed that by a percentage. I installed 4.11 rear gears to attain my theoretical 175 mph without straining the motor Out on the course speed gun tested at 174 mph at 6500 rpm with one of my old 355 ci power plants. So it ran very close to my calculated top speed.
As of May 2001 I installed a 383 cubic inches which is 3.750 stroke and 4.030 bored 397010 4-bolt block. I only went with a 383 because of time delays to get a high end 3.875 stroker crank. I had blown two 355 ci motors in 3 months and I was in a hurry to get back on the road. I went to great lengths to make this my best high tech motor ever. It is deburred, screened, balanced and blue printed. Ultra lite hollow drilled 40 lbs internally balanced 4340 forged crank, Which was nitrided and treated with oil repellant. SFI 6.25 inch Fluid dampner, Moroso 8 quart road racing pan, Manley 6 inch 685 gram H-beam bushed rods, JE flat top pistons, Lots of Ceramic thermal coated parts. 11.21 C.R. Crane street solid roller 232/240 112 LSA .600 something lift. Race ported Dart Pro1 215 cc aluminum heads with titanium 2.08 intakes 1.625 exhaust valves 64 cc angle plugs 1.55 dual springs with 195 pound closed pressure with rev kit. Ported Weiand Team G. man with Speed Demon 750 CFM twin squirter carb. Hooker 1 ? Super Comp headers into 3 true duals with 3 inch in out race mufflers. The good power band is from 3500-7500 rpm.
In Feb. 2003. This first 383 started misfiring really bad at a road race at ThunderHill California. By the time I limped it back to pits it was blowing water out of one pipe. It had a failed lifter roller wheel that took out the cam then overheated and took out the copper head gasket. So I decided no more screwing around and lets make some serious power. I decided to go with a custom billet cam and larger heads. The Dart 227cc & Crane custom mech. roller cam 240/248 degrees @.050 .635/.644 112 LSA also ground 4 degreees retarded for more top end. This proved to be to much cam and had a power range of probably 5000 - 8000 rpm. So I bought another billet custom cam with 236/242 112 LSA installed straight up with 1.65 I and 1.6 E roller rockers. It is still pretty high strung. It's still making good power at my 7500 rev limiter. I've taken it on some 3000 mile round trips.
MY 4.11 HD rear end from tom's differentials, Art Carr Racing 700r4 with switched lockup 3500-stall 9.5 -inch 3-clutch convertor. Built to handle 850 hp. Full Vette Brakes poly suspension kit 1 1/8 ? sways, 550 fronts and rearched 7 leaf 420 plus inch pound steel rear 17X11 and 17X9 centerline wheels with Goodyear Z-rated F1 steel tires.
Anyway I like the feeling of acceleration and the Torque of a 383 is really something compared to my older 355 ci power plants. Nothing like shifting into 4 at 130 mph and running it on up. It was once a goal of mine to have a verified over 200 mph street legal car. This was the car and motor to do it in. I was able to get it to 7000 rpm with 2.86 overall rear gearing on 28 inch diameter 300 mph Bonneville tires. You can do the math. But it did not pass the tech inspection for 200+ mph cars. I was lacking a fire system/window net, and parachute. What do you expect I only drove it 400 some miles to Bonneville to check out the rules and watch the other racers. It?s also a mid pack finisher in SCCA in the BSP class. It did some 11.70 1/4's on my 10X28 slicks. It's not setup for drag racing. I got burnt out on drag racing from years of sitting in a fire suit in the staging lanes with sweat running down in my eyes watching some person in a 17 second Firebird doing a one wheel burnout. Road racing is my real passion. I just never had enough money to really do it right. I do make a few events and Thunder Hill, California is my favorite track. Our local Reno-Fernley is still dangerous to all the fast cars, but has been expanded out to a full 3.8 miles. The paint scheme is blue-green with purple-gold-silver ghost flames.

April 2005 Even though my 4th version of 383 power plants had only 6-7 months of use I yanked it out and installed a Motown small journal 427 ci small block (4.125 X 4.00 inches) This new 427 uses 350 chevy main journal sizes to keep bearing friction down. It's a fully forged light weight internally ballanced 4 inch stroker crank. As built it was supposed to have @608 hp and I set the rev limiter for a 7000 red line. Now after a few thousand miles of track and road testing I would not build a 383 or 396 ci again. You would have to drive a hot rodded 427 to understand. The quality and strength of these aftermarket blocks is amazing. I enjoy building motors and I only farm out what I can't do like machine work.

I buy my rotating kits from www.flatlanderracing.com To just purchase your own 427 through 454 small block just call the guys at:

http://www.badasscars.com/engineprices/chevsb.html

These 600+ hp solid roller cam motors are just what you need.
Now if I could only get the power to ground at low speed! LOL. These very agressive cam lobes is the key to power without going overboard with the duration. Since I went to very high quality springs I can get a couple of years or 15,000 - 20,000 miles between complete motor rebuilds

My new 8 point roll cage. As you can see I still have the carpet only ripped away from the interior wheel wells. I finished up using white silicone calking around the roll bar sealing plates. Then I gutted everything out of the back to save weight. For fire proofing, I had layer of thermal aluminum installed and covered with fire retardent short pile carpet. The cage was in preparation for the Bonneville Salt Flats 200 mph club and driving around in safety. It has also made the frame very ridged. I used .134 wall 1 3/4 tubing which exceed all regulations

Just doing the head studs for final assembly of my new 427ci small block Motown! Fall 2005
New 427ci small block Motown installed! I just have to set the lash on all the valves and it will be ready to fire up for the first time. Fall 2005
Custom cross member to let the three inch exhaust come straight back off the collectors. I use a 4 inch "H" pipe as a cross over under the differential and out to 3 inch in/out stainless packed race mufflers out to 3.5 inch chrome tips
Also shown in this picture: This is the newly installed April 2006 TKO 600 with 22 pound billet flywheel!
Pictures of Bell housing alignment
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/showthread.php?t=1371217&highlight=427+motown>

Very sad day. :( I have never broke a crank shaft before. This is whats left of a Ultra light 4340 42 pound crank shaft. Once the crank broke it went through the two rear main cap bearings fast. It destroyed two main caps and required block machining to accommodate block side bearing spacers. I'll never buy another iron block because I almost lost this one. The person that built my motor had already been fired because of a rash of blown motor constructed by him. He cut every corner and billed people for work not preformed. I had cam lobes hitting the rods (So much for the clearancing and beam polishing I paid for.) The rear throw has 4 holes in it. Big No,No! It was not balanced correctly if at all. The shop is giving me all free labor. I just have to pay for parts.

Look at the shreaded main bearing and the crank throw was hitting # 7 piston pin boss
UPDATE Feb. 2007! Revived now 434ci small block is complete and ready to reinstall. Lots of improvements - bigger Motown single plane, more cam (248/250 endurance road racing solid roller with .685/.714 lift 110 LSA)using 1.65 intake and 1.7 roller rockers, and more (11.8) static compression. You only have a limited number of choices with 434 ci small block racing pistons made for up to .800 lift with altered degree heads with bigger diameter valves like 2.200/1.625. Just a simple broken crank turned into a $4000 repair bill. The original cost of the motor was about $10,000.
I keep you informed when I fire up the new motor!
May 29th 2007 - This by far has to be the most powerful motor that I have ever used in the Vette. No I did not dyno it - too many cost over runs. Equivalent motors built by the race shop were all in the low to mid 600 hp. 427+ ci motors really require heads that flow like Big block chevys. My 4.11 rear end makes 1st and 2nd gear not even worth using on the street or out on the road racing track. I can only floor this car in a straight line in 2nd gear and up. It is a learning curve to drive a car that can overpower the rear tires so easily. My 383 was years of good training.
I was never happy with my Demon 750 carb that flows 820 cfm on the bench. I had fiddled with all kinds of things including drilling the throttle plates. Because of the cost of the motor I took my carb to nationally renowned race carb shop. After changes the carb was dyno tuned on a test mule 550 hp circle track motor. The biggest things he changed were the air bleeds and installed NASCAR style non-aeration needle and seats.
After putting about three hours on the motor as a mild break in I was ready (I thought) for my first real two day road racing event around a 3.2 mile 18 turn track. I have never gone that fast ever before. Eeach lap as I learned the track I was able to come out of the turns faster and brake later. Up to the point during the second 1/2 hour run group where I completely lost my brakes. The only thing that I could think of to scrub off speed was to pitch my car sideways at 90+ mph. I almost completed my second loop before rotating kind of backwards off the track into the gravel traps. My front tires were completely gone and I need to install air cooling ducts on all four wheels before I can ever go back racing. Dot 3 brake fluid has a boiling point of something like 370 degrees F. Dot 4 is 420 F. I was using 500 F. synthetic. I?m now switching to 600 F. racing fluid, ceramic insulators on the pistons, and air ducting before I try again.
New taller Motown Single plane intake.

New Kumho 255/45/17 fronts and 434 ci motor pic.