[Formulajones]

Originally Posted by GRX

Great subject. Almost wish cell phone videos were as ubiquitous back then as now. Almost.

Back in the day one of the baddest street racer cars around here was my neighbor's 390 powered AMC javelin. Remember him spanking a lot of cars with it. Including some BBC cars and Pontiacs.

As said above, a large part of it was tuning. Another big one is production inconsistencies. How much casting shift? How closely did quality control monitor the machines? When blueprinting you can see how many variances there are. Of the muscle car era engines I have worked with Mopars were the worst offenders. Valve spring seat depths all over the place. Conn rods several grams off from each other. Indexing and stroke specs on some of the cranks was atrocious. Essentially had to 'unlock' the machine and align it with what was already there because fixing would take it far below bearing under-sizes. This is why you could have one Mopar that ran like a scalded dog, and another like a sick puppy. Same deal goes for other brands as well. Our Pontiacs included. Just not bad as others.

This is exactly why you see these cars today in Pure Stock putting up some astounding numbers at the strip. Fact is, back in the day they were pumping these cars out with a limited warranty. They weren't built to exacting tolerances.
I've rebuilt several virgin engines here that have all kinds of issues. Ran fine, but just not up to standards I like to see. Things like off on stroke, deck heights uneven, and a combination of the 2 things causing different compression ratios per cylinder, and nothing even close to advertised numbers. Stock rocker arms that aren't even close to their advertised ratios, it just goes on and on. Just correctly rebuilding these engines, with proper deck height, stroke, checking cam lift and rocker ratios, true compression ratios etc....you can find a lot of hidden HP in these things, and they are essentially, for all intensive purposes, still stock.

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by unruhjonny

This is from a recently read article called "Interesting Chevy Muscle Car Facts";

Quote:
Car Life magazine was less than impressed when its 1970 LS6 Chevelle ran 14.57 at 99.77 for a September 1970 road test.

This e/t put's the "fastest" production Chevrolet car squarely in the sights of a 'base' 1970 GTO....

That can't be representative.

My Chevelle, a smogger LS4 at 4100lbs, went 14.90's on its first trip to the track in 1978. I had that combination going 13.30's with tuning. I threw the original engine back in the car in the late 1990's (as a stop gap between race engines) and it went 12.20's.

I don't normally share this here but it cost me about $8000 to build a 950HP Chevy using a new GM Performance block, new reciprocating assembly kit and used cylinder heads and intake.

K

[Formulajones]

Originally Posted by Keith Seymore

That can't be representative.

My Chevelle, a smogger LS4 at 4100lbs, went 14.90's on its first trip to the track in 1978. I had that combination going 13.30's with tuning. I threw the original engine back in the car in the late 1990's (as a stop gap between race engines) and it went 12.20's.

I don't normally share this here but it cost me about $8000 to build a 950HP Chevy using a new GM Performance block, new reciprocating assembly kit and used cylinder heads and intake.

K

Agree. An LS6 running 14.70's at 90-something there is certainly something amiss. When my 72 SS 454 was stock, and 70k original miles, it went 14.70's and weighed 4,108 lbs. There are quite a few road tests of the LS6 in various configurations from auto to 4-speed and 3.31 gear to 4.10. None of those tests were that slow.

[unruhjonny]

Ha!

You guys are great!

I too would think that an LS6 running that E/T, something was off...
I am not by any means anti-Chev - I mean, I daily one, and have owed two others...
Just creating conversation...

I would think though that value of a car should be based on something of substance, like hp and appearance...
and ability to use said hp...

I am a loyalist but behind my bias, I really do like a little bit of everything.

[Super Duty D]

Que the video at about 1:20 in for the drag race.

Ram Air IV GTO vs Chevelle SS 454 LS6 - 1/4 mile

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKY-qJMXVl8

SDD

[Formulajones]

Those are the pure stock drags that unruhjonny and I often talk about. I have my bird setup to run that class.

There are quite a few LS6's that run in the class. That particular example is an automatic. There are a few 4 speeds that are running very low 12's at 115+ mph. Bruno's RA IV is a long time participant. I've raced with him at Norwalk many years ago. Believe his son also runs a RAIV bird in the class.

You can pretty much find any decent example of a muscle car running in the class, and they all do a very good job of representing what the cars are capable of with careful preparation. Dennis Jensen who is a member here, and his brother Dan put this on every year. Dave Dudek puts on his version as well that also includes the FAST class along with the pure stockers and has a few more events throughout the year.

[ta6point6]

I loved street racing when I was younger in the 80's. The fastest guy was a Vega sbc 383 stroker. Even though he was the fastest on the street not many Mopars or Pontiacs came out to run. People seemed fine hammering Chevys on the street but most other brands were already being kept in garages because of future value. The only time people would bring their cars out were for the high school drags at Bandimere.

[Jack Peters]

Talking about throwing things together. My T-37 came with the wrong cam. 066 instead of 068. Top end was 115. No faster. Did not figure that part out until I took it apart to rebuild it. Long story in my name elsewhere.

The only time at the track was a 14.14 @ 104. Squirly run. Spun a lot. Second run was 15.15 @ 99+. Missed second and floated the valves.
Beat several higher up cars on rhe street. No cid emblems and quiet exhaust helped.

By the way, the runs were on a car that had one set of plugs change and set of points. Probably 8-10K miles on it. Had driven it up to AK and then 6 months later drove it to CA. I did pay attention to timing and points.

[Interceptor]

Funny how this thread has drifted from being about value to about ET.

I've noticed the same thing as the OP, Chevies just pull the money even thought the quality/refinement is a bit lower in general. This is likely due only to Mass Appeal -- more Chevies built = more guys had them in the past == more rich guys pay big money now. Also, you can still buy promo Chevy, Ford, and Mopar stuff at dealerships and box stores -- very little Pontiac stuff out there (jackets, T-shirts, hats, etc) since they are no longer built.