Seems like I see posts about L98 builds quite a bit, so I thought I would share mine. My car ran high 12's at 105-106 on motor, and 11.99 @ 112 a time or two on a 75 shot with nothing weird, and a pretty tight budget.

Recently, there was a guy asking about a 300 HP L98; my car was there (if you are talking about engine power) with none of the mods he was/is considering. The build is/was:

1991 Corvette, ZF6
K&N air filter and cut lid
Air foil
!frisbee
!AIR pump
!AIR valve
!EGR valve and related stuff
Breathless Performance AIR pump eliminator pulley
Hooker 2151 long tubes, uncoated
!CATS
Dr. Gas 'X' pipe
Mangaflow Mufflers
4.09 rear gears
Centerforce Clutch with steel single mass flywheel
1.6 full roller rockers
Dyno tune
ET streets on 16 inch Camaro wheels

I've attached a dyno graph of the car before I added the rockers. This is what I started with when I hit the dyno overlaid with the final numbers. After the tune, I installed roller rockers and did some more tuning pulls. With the addition of the rockers, and some more dyno time the car made 274 RWHP and 375 RWTQ. I don't have the graph, so you'll have to take my word for it.

The car probably would have been faster if I had left the stock gears in it (I was shifting into 5th at about the 1000 foot mark) but the 4.09 gears were a ton of fun to drive around with.

I guess my point is that the L98, when properly tuned and driven, is capable of more than a lot of people give it credit for.

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Impressive Josh, I always admired what you got out of your motor. How much drive train loss to you think is there? Perhaps over 300HP with basically minor mods, no serious components like cam, heads, intake.

Goes to show what can be done on a budget with not so fancy parts.

The air foil was the key. (joking)

Very impressive Josh. Something for me to strive for.

How have your uncoated long tubes held up? Id like to put on a set of LTs, and the price difference is pretty good between the coated/uncoated.

Thanks,

Matthew

ps - did you go to bigger injectors?

The simplest way to horsepower is to copy a build that you know works.

wasn't i saying something along these lines in another post? oh well people are just going to throw away money cause they can no matter what.

btw- holy shit on the torque!

Hi Josh, You've done real well going fast on a tight budget

That's some stout low end from a 350.

Sweet!

Very strong L98 !! I think most are 20-40 rwhp lower than that, but not sure. Congrats !

The un-coated headers are doing OK so far. I pulled them out about 5 months ago when I swapped over to the LT1 intake and different heads. They were a little rusty so I bead blasted them and hit them with some high temp paint.

I would think 5-7 years would be the lifespan of the un-coated headers. Mine were put on in 2005, and I don't think they will last another 4 years.

Still rocking the stock, 81,000 mile, injectors. Even after the heads/cam/intake swap.

Just noticed you're in Raleigh... Which shop are you at?

My profile information is kinda old, I'm a manager at Car Quest now. Employment history is kind of like this:

Staples Auto Engineering in Durham - (Killer place, fun working on hotrods all day, they do stellar transmission work, and the owner is cool. I shouldn't have ever left, but that's a long story)

Service Manager at Pepboys - (Pretty decent pay, but horrible job. Bailed when the Car Quest gig presented itself)